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McGuinness will not be affected by ban drama
FOR all the noise, there is unlikely to be any reworking of Donegal’s football anthem Jimmy’s Missing Matches any time soon.
That has nothing to do with confidence in successfully appealing the eight-week ban handed out to Jim McGuinness for playing 17-year-old Finbarr Roarty against Armagh. Players must be 18 to be eligible for senior intercounty football.
In reality, even if it the suspension sticks, it will amount to no more than an inconvenience.
The great paradox is that while a manager is the most powerful and influential individual in a group, it is also the role least impacted when incurring the wrath of the GAA disciplinary process.
McGuinness’ ban officially demands that he is not allowed to engage in ‘managing, directing, assisting, or communicating with the team in any way during the period of the time-based suspension’.
But a manager’s ability to do all of that is rarely diminished apart from not being present on the sideline for his team’s matches.
Indeed, sometimes a manager is even more visible when under suspension. This was perfectly illustrated when Davy Fitzgerald sat in a specially constructed box at Wexford Park for the 2017 Leinster SHC semi-final against Kilkenny while he was suspended for eight weeks.
The ‘Fox in the Box’ drew as many eyeballs as the game itself, while Fitzgerald appeared buoyed by the ban when speaking after the contest.
‘It’s way better. You can see the shapes all the time and I’d be massive into that, seeing where lads are running and what the story is. When you’re on pitch level it’s actually very hard to see it,’ he said.
Whatever happens, it is unlikely that Donegal will go to such trouble, partly because the three home games in the Allianz League against Cork, Fermanagh and Cavan are at three different venues (he will also be banned for the away clashes with Cavan and Armagh) but primarily because McGuinness can do without the eyes of the world being on him.
There has been enough of that already in the few months since he returned and the fact that he will not have to be the front man in terms of the media for a chunk of the season is something that is likely to be more of a pleasure than a sacrifice. And into the bargain, his ability to manage his team should not be as severely curtailed as the sanction might suggest. Managers manage staff in the modern game as well as players and what goes on behind the wall that McGuinness has built in Convoy will stay behind it too. Of course, it is not what he would have wanted, or Donegal. His predecessor as All-Ireland winning Donegal manager Brian McEniff (left) vented that sense of frustration yesterday. ‘I think the punishment is very, very harsh. We are talking about the McKenna Cup competition, a pre-season competition, and any punishment should be only applicable to the McKenna Cup,’ he told Donegal Live.
‘Donegal have to appeal the ban and they have to appeal on the grounds that any punishment must relate to the McKenna Cup.
‘It is far too stiff. It is like taking a sledge hammer to open a nut. The eight-week ban might be in the rule book, but it should be reduced on appeal,’
There is reason to McEniff’s argument but critically there is no rule to it.
A player receiving a match based suspension in a pre-season competition would not miss out on a National League game as the ban would be competition specific but time-based suspensions are applied differently and uniformly.
And sometimes — not least those caught offside when breaching training bans during the pandemic — that has often worked in a manager’s favour by serving time when little is happening.
McGuinness will get no relief on that front.
He is likely to argue it was an inadvertent breach — a claim undoubtedly strengthened by his mentioning of Roarty’s age in post-match comments — but ignorance is never a great defence when confronted by the GAA Rule Book.
He could seek relief by taking his case to Croke Park, but that could only be done on two fronts.
Firstly, the Ulster Council, whose own body conducted the investigation and instigated the sanction — which also saw Donegal forfeit the points won against Armagh and youngster Roarty suspended for two weeks — would have to seek to do so but that would look somewhat perverse.
Or secondly, McGuiness could argue that the ‘hardship’ caused by an inadvertent breach of rule justifies some lessening of his punishment.
In reality, his best hope lies in a compromise.
An acceptance that an honest mistake was made and that the price being exacted weighs too heavy.
That will depend on what is currently black and white becoming smudged, with an argument that this was an administrative failure by Donegal board officials rather than by their manager who, unwittingly, selected an ineligible player.
Either way, hardship does not come into it.
“He could do without all eyes being on him”