Cork GAA to investigate club alleged to have breached Level 5 Covid-19 restrictions

Cork County Board has set up a committee to investigate alleged breaches of Level 5 Covid-19 restrictions by a GAA club in West Cork.

At Tuesday night’s county committee meeting chairman Marc Sheehan confirmed that an investigation sub-committee will look into the alleged breaches by a GAA club last month.

‘The executive committee has established an investigation sub-committee to seek observations from a unit of the association in the county in relation to alleged Covid-19 training breaches. We will be dealing with this matter in due course. We have no further comment to make,’ Sheehan said.

It was reported last week that the Gardaí are ‘carrying out enquiries into possible breaches of the Health Act 1947 at a sports club in West Cork’. The county board also said last week that any club found to have been in breach of Covid-19 training restrictions ‘will face consequences as a result’.

At Tuesday night’s county board meeting it was confirmed that the 2021 championship draws would be held on Thursday, April 29th, on the same night as the April Rebels’ Bounty draw.

Also, the board is inviting submissions from clubs and divisions in relation to the lower intermediate football and hurling grades and whether the regrading of teams to junior will proceed as planned at the end of this season.

‘What has been decided is that there is going to be a full Executive meeting on the matter next Tuesday (April 13th),’ Cork CEO/Secretary Kevin O’Donovan explained.

‘We recognise the concerns of the clubs involved and that there are other clubs with similar concerns. We also recognise the views of the divisions that were expressed strongly when we revamped our championship 18 months ago.

‘Between now and the Executive meeting next Tuesday night, we are inviting correspondence from any club that wishes to send in their views on this matter and also from any division or other units that wishes to send in any correspondence.

‘At the Executive meeting it will be discussed whether there should be a pause on the regrading of those teams, and perhaps have a little view towards the future as it was always agreed that the regrading would happen this year.

‘There will also be a review of junior competitions so if there were teams being regraded we would be certain they would get sufficient competitions following regrading. ‘