Bantry Blues highlight its ‘serious concerns’ with disciplinary process after underage incident

BANTRY Blues GAA Club has raised their ‘serious concerns’ about the disciplinary process that surrounded an on-field incident involving one of their underage players in 2021.

It’s almost two years since a then underage Bantry footballer was injured during a Rebel Óg Premier 1 U17 Football League tie against Na Piarsaigh in September ’21, but the Carbery club is still frustrated at the lengthy nature of the disciplinary process and the subsequent outcome which they feel sends out the wrong message to underage players.

In the second half of this U17 tie at Wolfe Tone Park in Bantry – a match the home team won 5-10 to 1-11 – a melee broke out and in the ensuing fracas a then 16-year-old Bantry forward on the ground was at the receiving end of a dangerous kick from a Na Piarsaigh player.

The injured Bantry footballer suffered a broken nose, five chipped teeth and a slight concussion. The Na Piarsaigh player involved was not sanctioned on the pitch.

There is video evidence of this incident, which The Southern Star has seen.

‘I am 50 years old and have been involved in football for a long time, but I have never seen anything like this; it’s the worst I have seen on a football pitch,’ insists former Cork footballer Damian O’Neill, who witnessed the incident.

‘I wanted to go public before now, but as a club we agreed that we would give the governing bodies every opportunity to try and put this right, but we felt we were banging our heads against the wall,’ the county senior title-winning Blues football legend added.

After the disciplinary process, Bantry Blues were advised that Rebel Óg proposed a ‘significant penalty’ on the Na Piarsaigh player who then appealed to the Rebel Óg Hearings Committee, which resulted in the sanction being reduced to a two-match ban.

Frustrated Bantry Blues are adamant that the ‘punishment does not fit the crime’, says club PRO Eddie Wiseman, who highlights there is no avenue to appeal the decision of the Hearings Committee.

‘It’s the total infallibility of the Hearings Committee that is the issue here; they cannot be questioned in any shape or form, even though several high-ranking GAA officials in the county have said it’s one of the worst incidents that they have seen and can’t understand why only a two-match ban was imposed,’ Wiseman adds.

‘There is a much wider issue here than imposing a two-match ban on a young fella, it’s the adults that have had a role in this too.

‘The GAA has policies and recommendations and guidelines on every single thing about protection of children and welfare, but this case has been totally brushed under the carpet. This was a serious incident on a football pitch.

‘The GAA, as an organisation, should be saying if there is something wrong in the organisation we will try to fix it.’

Bantry Blues are keen to highlight the following in relation to the the disciplinary process with this incident:

• Bantry were supplied with the referee’s report on Monday, October 18th, 2021, three weeks after the incident occurred on September 25th.

• There was no mention of the incident in the referee’s report apart from the injured Bantry player’s name being noted in the Injured Players section as having suffered a ‘mouth injury’. After Rebel Óg received further correspondence from Bantry Blues, the CCC sought clarification from the referee who then confirmed he saw ‘out of the corner of his eye, a player kicking an individual on the ground’. The ref added he couldn’t be certain who the player was, but was ‘nearly certain that it’s one of the Na Piarsaigh players that I have put down as contributing to the melee’.

• The length of this disciplinary process frustrated Bantry Blues as in April 2022 the club was informed Rebel Óg had formed a new committee to investigate the incident. Bantry Blues added that an incorrect Na Piarsaigh player attended the original investigation into the incident.

• In June 2022 Bantry Blues GAA was informed that the Investigation Committee had reported its findings to the CCC and the disciplinary process had concluded. Bantry Blues were also informed that it’s not general practice that Rebel Óg communicates with the club for whom disciplinary action is not being taken, but Bantry feels, given the nature of the incident, the club should have been updated on the outcome. In an email from Bantry Blues GAA to Rebel Óg on July 2nd, 2022, Eddie Wiseman wrote: ‘We don’t need to know the details of the individuals, just that a sanction was imposed and what the sanction was. The lack of transparency suggests to people that nothing was done even when something was done.’

• While Bantry Blues were advised a ‘significant’ penalty was being imposed, they were not informed what the sanction was.

• When the Na Piarsaigh player did not accept the penalty imposed, it was appealed to the Hearings Committee, who handed down a lesser penalty of a two-match suspension. There is no avenue to appeal the Hearings Committee decision, and Bantry Blues is keen to highlight this, and that Bantry has never been given an explanation as to why the appeal was successful.

‘It’s the responsibility of the people in charge of our games to make sure our players are safe when they are playing,’ Bantry Blues’ Damian O’Neill says.

‘What is the precedent here? People saw this incident – an underage player was hurt on the field – and then learned afterwards what the punishment was: what message does this send out to players and their families?

‘This is the worst incident we have seen and it took us almost 12 months to get a decision.

‘What we want is that this never again happens to any young player in any club.’

The Southern Star contacted Cork GAA, Rebel Óg and Na Piarsaigh for comment, but had not received a reply at the time of print.