The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
When exercising one’s right to appeal is not always right
IF I am ever charged with an offence I want to have the right to defend myself. I want to be able to tell my side of the story. I want to be able to hear the evidence against me and be allowed to question my accusers. I want a judge and jury and a fair trial. As a paid up member of a free and open democracy it’s the least I deserve. In fact, it’s a basic right I have, enshrined in the Constitution, as an Irish citizen.
If I am ever charged with an offence I believe and know I have not committed I will exercise my right to all of the above and I will go to the highest court in the land to defend my innocence. If, on the other hand, I’m caught standing over a dead body with a smoking gun in my hand, I reckon I’ll take my bating, to use a little football parlance.
Dublin footballer Diarmuid Connolly, it seems, is not prepared to take his bating.
For anyone with eyes in their head Connolly put his hand on linesman Ciaran Branagan’s chest during the recent Dublin versus Carlow Leinster SFC match and, let’s just say, applied a little forward pressure. Shoved / pushed / pressed / interfered with: take your pick. The bottom line is that Connolly contravened a rule - a clearly defined rule - in the GAA’s official rule book and has been proposed with the mandatory sentence. He has, of course, every right, under GAA and natural law, to seek a hearing (a trial, if you will) and thereafter an appeal, plus a final recourse to the Disputes Resolution Authority (DRA).
Despite rumour to the contrary late last week that Connolly was going to accept the 12-week suspension proposed by the Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC), it emerged on Monday that the players was, in fact, going to seek a hearing from the Central Hearings Committee (CHC). It should be pointed out here that contrary to most commentary in the media this week, Connolly is appealing nothing. Yet. He is simply seeking a hearing to a proposed ban by the CCCC. In order words, he is going to court to hear the charge laid out against him and to see the evidence against him.
The difficulty many people have with the matter is this: for most people the incontrovertible picture of Connolly raising his hand to Branagan’s chest and pushing him is the smoking gun. He did contravene the rule. He did commit a “minor physical infraction (eg. laying a hand on, pushing, pulling or jostling) with a referee, umpire or sideline official” which is punishable by a minimum sanction of 12 weeks. He did do it. Everything else is essentially inconsequential.
Connolly is entitled at least to hear the case against him, give his side of the story insofar as he can mount some mitigating circumstances, and at the very least come away from this week’s hearing having put across his take on the situation.
Perhaps if the CHC uphold the ban Connolly has no intention of going to the Appeals Committee or the DRA. Perhaps Connolly knows full well he is guilty as charged and will take his batin’ after giving his side of the story, vis-a-vis the jostling he could claim he was subjected to by a couple of Carlow players as the sideline incident unfolded.
There is the other element to this story with regard to how and why the referee, Sean Hurson, didn’t take any action against Connolly at the time of the incident with Branagan, but how the matter ended up in Hurson’s match report, which allowed the CCCC to investigate. At best it seems a serious oversight that a referee - who was very close to the incident - wouldn’t act in real time on a case of interference with his linesman (not to mind why the linesman wouldn’t have reported it to the referee), but yet the matter was deemed serious enough at a later time for inclusion in the referee’s report. At worst it leaves itself open to allegations of a witch-hunt against Connolly.
Bottom line is Diarmuid Connolly broke a sacrosanct rule: touching an official in a manner than wasn’t, shall we say, benevolent. He has to pay a price. That that price seems a penal 12 weeks is neither here nor there. Somewhere along the line a disciplinary committee decreed that a suitable punishment and if anyone has a problem with that they can, I assume, take a motion to Congress to have it changed.
Tipperary goalkeeper Evan Comerford is currently serving a 12-week suspension after accepting a charge of minor physical interference with referee Paddy Russell in a club game in Tipperary. That’s the same Paddy Russell involved with Paul Galvin in the infamous 2008 ‘notebook slapping’ incident for which the Kerry player served a lengthy ban. Galvin, you’ll remember, took his case through all the available avenues of CHC, CAC and DRA and ended up having his proposed six-month ban commuted to three months, which cleared him to play in that year’s All-Ireland Final.
There’s a long and unhealthy culture in the GAA of taking a trenchant stance against any sort of disciplinary sanction. The mentality seems to be ‘accept no blame and fight, fight, fight against any sanction’. There’s little or no willingness to accept liability. Admitting wrong-doing and accepting the punishment is very much the exception rather than the rule in the GAA.
Connolly was due to have his hearing last night (Tuesday) so the outcome of same should be known as you read this. It’s probable that the CHC will have upheld the proposed 12-week ban and the player now must decide whether to stick or twist. Whether the matter rumbles on for the summer months, as it did with Galvin nine years ago, will be up to Connolly and his advisors.
The legal beaks will already have pored over the small print and the terms and conditions. They will pull on any loose threads in the procedure to see if any loophole opens up. They’ll build a case based around things like Connolly being goaded by Carlow players and Branagan not clearly flagging which way the sideline ball was to go. They will call on eye-witnesses who were on the grassy knoll that day in O’Moore Park, and they will see if they can unearth any Zapruder film that might clear Connolly. They will cross-examine lexicographers to determine the exact meaning or ‘pushing, pulling or jostling’.
They will, if Connolly so wishes and directs them, do everything in their power to get his suspension lifted.
They can do everything except make the smoking gun, which 13,238 in O’Moore Park and thousands more watching on television saw, disappear.
Every player has every right to contest a ban. However, doing so, in certain circumstances, isn’t always the right thing to do.