A FORMER leading referee believes that the Tyrone County Board's failure to heed the lessons from a previous League Final melee involving the Carrickmore and Errigal Ciaran clubs helped contribute to last Friday's shocking scenes in Omagh.
Kevin Skelton was part of the Games Administration Committee which dealt with the fall-out from the infamous ACL decider played at Fintona over Christmas in 1996 between the same two teams when four players were red carded following a serious on-field dust up. Initially severe punishments were handed out to the two competing clubs (with Carmen banned from all adult league competitions in 1997) as well as the chief culprits, but on subsequent appeal the sanctions were dramatically reduced.
Skelton, one of the most respected match officials during his career, contacted the 'Herald' on Monday to voice his annoyance over the shocking events which have marred recent showpiece football deciders in the County. He felt the sickening scenes witnessed at Healy Park on Friday, when referee Martin Sludden red carded seven players during the drawn ACL encounter, were particularly poignant given the weekend that was in it.
And he believed that the Competitions Control Committee (CCC) stated determination to clamp down on the perpetrators had a hollow ring to it.
"Over the last 125 years of the GAA there has been a lot of changes and a lot of good changes in what is one of the most idolised sports in the world. The thing that they have failed to address down the years is discipline. A lot of people might take the hump at this but I don't particularly care.
"There was a big write up in the papers after the game on Friday night that the Board will come down very heavy on these people. Good enough probably some of them will get three months suspension but they don't give a damn because they will be serving their suspension eating their Christmas dinner. They don't miss a game, it's actually a waste of time.
"A referee who takes charge of a game at the end of the season might as well not bother sending anyone off, let them knock the crap out of each other. The perpetrators are not going to be penalised. I don't blame the players, if they know they are going to get away with it, why not do it. The County Board and the GAA as a whole needs to sit down and change the rules were suspension is concerned. Other sporting bodies appear to have got their house in order, the GAA is a big enough organisation to do likewise.
"I think its time the GAA changed the rules that instead of being suspended for a month, two months or whatever the case may be they should be suspended for so many games. Suspend players for six, eight, or 10 matches what ever the case may be instead of the current system which is a joke. It should be that if you are sent of in the last game of the season the suspension begins of the start of the following season.
" I've no doubt the secretary of the Referees Board will give out about verbal abuse and physical assault of referees. That will also be backed up by the usual rhetoric from the County Board chairman and secretary but the difference between them and the secretary of the referees is that they have the power to do something about it, where he hasn't. But they are not prepared to stand up and be counted and take action against these people that interfere with referees either during a game, before the game or after the game."
The Drumquin man argued that when major clubs were involved there was undue pressure placed on disciplinary officials to adopt a lenient approach to sanctions.
" I sat on the League Board when the last major brawl between Errigal Ciaran and Carrickmore took place in '96. The League Board took a very hard line at that time and a lot of players were suspended for 12 months. A few officials within the League Board were intimidated, threatened, you name it, it was fired at them.
"I have no doubt my assault by a spectator at the 1997 County Hurling Final in Edendork went right back to the decision by the League Board. What happened in those cases was it was appealed to the County Board and because certain clubs, big clubs have a certain pull that the whole sentence was reduced.
"If the likes of Castlederg, Drumquin or Dregish committed the same crimes as some of the bigger named clubs, they would be nailed to the cross, no exceptions taken."
And Skelton contends that the on-field abuse which leading referees like Sean Quinn and Martin Sludden have been subjected to over the last fortnight will deter others from taking up the whistle.
"The County Board has to tidy up their act. The referee is the most important person on the field. Incidents like Friday night will not only stop people taking up the whistle but watching the game. Why would a young lad take to refereeing these days when he stands the risk of getting his face busted. Verbal abuse you take but the physical attacks over recent years have got worse and worse and the hierarchy within the GAA are doing nothing about it. They are sitting back and they're saying we are going to do this and do that. Are they going to sit back until some poor critter is taken home in a box before they take action? If they don't that's exactly what's going to happen."
Tyrone's disciplinary chief Ciaran McLaughlin, head of the CCC, had warned warring clubs Carrickmore and Errigal Ciaran that they could expect to be severely dealt with in the wake of Friday's violent incidents. The final replay has been arranged for this Saturday afternoon in Dungannon.
