Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Rules will be left as is for now
JARLATH BURNS says there are no further rule changes in the offing for now after tweaking the kickout at Saturday’s Special Congress.
A motion from the standing committee on playing rules, which is chaired by Burns, calling for football goalkeepers to kick the ball beyond the 20-metre line from restarts won 82% support and will come into rule in January.
The former Armagh midfielder said: “I think if you approach rule changes from that perspective it’s easier to get them in.
“Eighty-two percent I thought was a great endorsement and we’re very, very pleased.”
However, he played down the possibility of a further motions on playing rules being prepared for Annual Congress next February.
“We don’t have a motion at this stage. There would be an argument within our committee that we should look at re-classifying the rules, that the rules should be easier to interpret, understand and apply.
“Our rules aren’t at the moment because even with the kickout rule you’ll see we changed it slightly in 2004 with the tee and we changed it to the 13-metres in 2010 and now this has had to clear it up and maybe that’s dealt with it.”
Burns doesn’t believe that Saturday’s decision is a catalyst for kickouts being forced to go beyond the 45.
He added: “There would be no incentive then for the forward facing his goal to stay in his position. I just think it would change the shape of the game.”