RYAN: GAA COULDN’T INTERVENE

GAA Director General Tom Ryan has hit back at claims that the Association should have intervened in the ongoing 16 man Glen/kilmacud saga.

Kilmacud are currently mulling over their next course of action after the GAA ordered their All-ireland club final with Glen should go to a rematch.

The Dublin champions had 16 players on the field defending the final play of the game with Glen two points behind and chasing a goal.

GAA chiefs came under fire after deciding against investigating the incident unless Glen objected, although this may have been due to the information they received in the referee’s report.

However, Ryan (above) rejected criticism that the GAA should have launched their own Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC) probe rather than putting it back on the Glen club.

“The worst thing we could possibly do – and I have seen this mentioned in dispatches, this idea that the GAA should step in and intervene, and there is a kind of deficit there.

“I have never, ever picked up the phone to the chair or anybody in the CCCC to say, ‘Derek (Kent – CCCC Chairman) this is the way I want this to go.

“I have never done that. I will never do that.

“Any suggestion – implied or explicit – that we should have been directing something, that’s completely wrong.

“To the extent that people don’t get that, that’s okay.

“It’s a pity, but certainly I don’t think it would have added to things certainly much if we came out and reinforced the message that you had already communicated very well in terms of how the thing has to play out.”

Ryan continued: “To my mind if you are playing junior D football in West Kerry or you’re an All Star hurler in North Antrim, it’s the same disciplinary system.

“That competition started out with a normal disciplinary regime attached to it in the first round of the various county championships across the country.

“It’s appropriate that the same regime would apply at the pinnacle of it as well.

“I wouldn’t be in favour of a two tier, or a multiple tier disciplinary system based on how good players are.”