Cork’s football manager Ronan McCarthy and Down’s boss Paddy Tally have been handed 12-week bans by the GAA for their breach of level 5 restrictions and breaking the GAA’s training guidelines reports The Irish Examiner.
The 12-week bans on the managers aren’t the only sanctions being handed down with the counties to take some punishment as well. Both sides will lose their home venue for at least one of their Allianz League games once the league resumes.
The ban will not begin until restrictions are lifted and training is permitted again, the two bosses breached Rule 7.2 of the guidelines ‘deals with discrediting the association. The minimum ban is eight weeks’ reports the Examiner.
A committee in Dublin found Cork’s ‘team building’ session held on Youghal beach last month and Down’s team gathering at Abbey CBS in Newry was in breach of rule 6.45 which does not allow collective training in the current climate.
The PSNI were were called to Abbey CBS in Newry by a member of the public as they saw the Down team gathering but the PSNI found no breach of Public health guidelines. Down’s chairman stated that it was a one-off meeting to hand out the pre-season training regimes.
Cork boss McCarthy was speaking with the Examiner about the team-building session in Youghal and stated that “We are hugely conscious of our responsibilities to our players, backroom team and the wider public and are fully committed – as we have always been – to following Covid protocols, in particular during this difficult period of escalating numbers nationally.”
The two teams will have a chance to appeal the bans.