Wexford avoid punishment over Portugal leisure break

WEXFORD have escaped sanction for an alleged breach by their hurling squad of the GAA’s Rule 6.22 (b) that governs the staging of intercounty training camps at different times of the year.

However, Laois will have to forfeit home advantage for one of their Allianz Division 3 football games in 2019 after a Central Hearings Committee found that they did breach the rule by holding a weekend camp in Cahersiveen some 13 days before their opening Leinster Championship match with Wexford.

Armagh are understood to have accepted the original charge and penalty while Waterford have yet to have a hearing to challenge the allegation that they broke the rule prior to this year’s Munster Championship with a trip to Cork.

Rule 6.22 (b) does not allow for training camps once the league has concluded unless they fall within 10 days of a championship. This is to allow club competition to continue involving county players.

The investigating committee, which initially looked at 17 potential cases of the rule being breached before finally determining that only a quartet should be disciplined, have proposed a tightening of the wording of the rule prior to next year.

The committee said the rule should be “reviewed to assess if it meets with the objectives when it was introduced and if it should be revised.” GAA officials privately acknowledge that unless firmer wording is agreed, the rule will remain open to exploitation.

Wexford were apparently able to convince a hearings panel on Monday night that it was, in fact, a leisure break in Portugal that they undertook and not a training camp.

“We didn’t train. We decided that we just wanted to relax in each other’s company,” Lee Chin said last May. “We couldn’t help but laugh at it. As a group of friends, we were entitled to do what we wanted to do.”