WE NEED JUSTICE NOT ANOTHER WITCHUNT

The GAA’s disciplinary process is in crisis and requires immediate review

THE ONLY real talking point of note from last weekend’s snooze-fest between Derry and Tyrone was a third-quarter incident, which left Chrissy McKaigue holding his face after an entanglement with Mattie Donnelly. We caught the live show at Celtic Park but did not see enough in the moment to be certain that there was fire to go with the smoke.

So we tuned in on Sunday night to see what light RTÉ’s cameras would throw on the matter and it managed some, just not enough. The consequences for Donnelly would have been dire had the CCCC come after him and proposed a charge that would stick.

He has already served a retrospective one-match ban for striking Mayo’s Aidan O’Shea in March and a repeat infraction would mean a two-game ban, which would almost certainly have ensured that his Ulster campaign was over for this year.

And with Donegal up next, there was a hell of a lot riding this week – not least Tyrone’s defence of their Ulster title – on how the CCCC viewed that footage. As it transpired, they sat on it and decided to do nothing. It was a tight call but we reckon they made the right one.

When pursuing players retrospectively, it is reasonable to expect that any charge proposed is based on evidence of such a compelling nature that there is no room for doubt.

And there was doubt on this occasion. The picture is far too blurred to prove that Donnelly actually struck McKaigue.

There is a hand raised in what you could construe as a striking attempt – no lesser a charge than an actual strike – and if you were posting a number as to whether there was intent in Donnelly’s raised hand, you would most likely be north of 90 per cent.

But is that really enough? Is it enough to say that you are almost certain that an infraction has occurred, one which, if it sticks, would see a player pay for it with a huge chunk of his season?

Not really, but in coming to the right decision this week the GAA’s disciplinary process in no way emerges any stronger for it. In fact, if anything it only underlines its lack of credibility and its dented moral authority to dispense law and order.

The shadow of Antrim’s Matthew Fitzpatrick hangs over the process like a dark cloud which simply will not go away, no matter how much Croke Park may wish it to. Compare the video evidence (of such poor quality that it would sit more comfortably with the obscure CCTV footage so regularly featured on RTÉ’s Crimecall than in the Sunday

Game studio) used by the CCCC to propose the Saffron County player gets a one-match ban to that of the Donnelly/McKaigue incident and it begs an obvious question.

How could the latter, as was reported by the BBC this week, be considered to be ‘inconclusive’ while the former lit a fuse on a saga that ended with Fitzpatrick facing a 48-week ban?

How can the same committee take such a disparate view of two pieces of footage and decide that the one which ranked so much higher in the ‘inconclusivity’ scale that assistance was sought from the Antrim County Board in identifying the culprit, merited a charge. And that is before we even go down the road of questioning the CCCC’s motive in not revealing that they possessed footage which clearly identified Fitzpatrick and which they did not disclose to the Antrim player.

Fitzpatrick was subsequently accused by the Central Hearings Committee of ‘misleading’ an investigation, which triggered that astonishing 48-week ban.

The failures which the Fitzpatrick case highlighted are of such a serious nature that it will leave a stain which will not be removed.

The real pity is that the Central Appeals Committee’s overturning of his ban got in the way of what would have almost certainly have constituted a damning assessment by the Disputes Resolution Authority into how the GAA’s disciplinary process had performed.

Now, every retrospective charge issued by the CCCC will be set

against its handling of Fitzpatrick’s case.

And every time the CHC introduces a fresh charge against an appellant, the question will be raised if it is in the business of hunting for justice or witches.

The latter’s form in hitting Tipperary’s Jason Forde, after he had beaten an ‘assault of a team official’ charge with a ‘contributing to a melee’, one did little to address the perception that they are in the pound of flesh business as much as the justice one.

It is a disciplinary process in crisis and one which demands to be the focus of an end-of-year review.

In the interim those involved in the prosecution – or should that read persecution – of Fitzpatrick need to stand down or be stood down.

Otherwise, those who bellyache that there is ‘one law for them and another for us’ will not lack for evidence.