Sideline Cut: So, Paddy Campbell, Donegal's full back, has become the latest GAA player to feel the power of the Central Disciplinary Committee's seemingly random policy on sporting misdemeanours. The cavalier behaviour of the CDC is fast becoming the most exciting and unpredictable element of this year's championship. Rather than deal with on-field indiscretions shortly after they occur, it is as though the CDC men hop into one of those DeLorean wonder cars that Christopher Lloyd jazzed up for Michael J Fox in Back to the Future all those years ago to revisit places and incidents that the rest of the world has happily forgotten.
Rumours had been circulating for several weeks that having been made watch Campbell's ill-advised contact with Derry's Enda Muldoon - possibly to the soundtrack of Tchaikovsky's's Nutcracker Suite - the CDC were intent on "going after" the Glenties man. There is something terribly clandestine and even sinister about the idea of a faceless, all-powerful body of men singling out certain players for certain transgressions. It perpetuates the notion the axe could fall on any player at any time and that equally, you might just get away with it.
One imagines the Donegal schoolteacher trying to explain his side of the story in mellifluous Glenties tones before finally lamenting, "Jeez boys, I wasn't expectin' the Spanish Inquisition." As the Monty Python boys used to cry out in chorus, "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquistion".
Cleese and company would probably appreciate the GAA's arcane and slightly perverse love of committees and their absolute maze of a rulebook. Whenever things happen in the GAA, there is invariably a clause or a sub-clause available to explain it away. That Campbell was guilty was beyond question. He squeezed Muldoon where it hurt, earning an understandable retaliation from the Derry man which got him sent off. Campbell's action was caught on film, he spoke about it afterwards in contrite, regretful terms and went on to play in the Ulster final against Armagh.
He was entitled to believe the incident was behind him as he had not been reprimanded by the referee or the linesman. He was just unlucky to be caught on camera and he insists seconds earlier he had been antagonised by another Derry player, an incident that occurred beyond the BBC's camera lense. As it happened, the defender had a mixed day on Ronan Clarke in Croke Park. But supposing he had performed outstandingly, holding the full forward scoreless and playing a leading part in a Donegal victory. Armagh, you can be sure, would have taken their medicine and congratulated the men from the northwest.
But that would not have altered the fact they were defeated by someone the CDC was destined to suspend. If Campbell was to be punished, it should have been no more than three days after the Derry match. Donegal would have missed their first-choice defender in the provincial showpiece, a just censure. But at least that was not a knockout game. Had Campbell been suspended at the appropriate time, he would also have missed the upcoming qualifier against Fermanagh but would have been back for the quarter-final if Donegal prevailed against their Ulster neighbours.
Because of the ludicrous delay in sorting out what was a straightforward infraction of the rules, Armagh potentially suffered, Campbell's season has been reduced to a shambles and Donegal have to now plan without him unless they reach the All-Ireland semi-final.
As it happened, there were several off-the-ball incidents in that Ulster final which made Campbell's interference with Muldoon look like nothing more than a harmless tickle. These flagrant acts of aggression have been highlighted in print and on the midweek GAA television shows. So far, there has been no indication if the CDC will review them. It means the players involved progress through the championship in the hope the spotlight won't fall upon them. They face the potentially ruinous situation of missing the climactic stage of the championship should they suddenly be asked to appear before the committee. If not censured, it provokes feelings of resentment among players and counties who've been hauled over the coals.
The most explicit example of this is the case of Matty Forde. Whatever your interpretation of Forde's contact with an Offaly player supine and vulnerable on the turf, it is hard not to feel sorry for him. Forde has been an inspirational figure during the rise of Wexford football and there was something genuinely sad about the degree of notoriety that fell upon him in the days and weeks after the incident. It could have been avoided had the matter been dealt with swiftly and promptly.
The efforts of the Wexford County Board to portray their man as some kind of martyr backfired and the whole episode has left a sour taste, with Forde intent on clearing a reputation he believes has been sullied by the tardy, insufficient disciplinary process.
Just to rub salt in the wound, the Cork County Board demonstrated the real way to do business, moving swiftly and armed with Frank Murphy's acumen and an argument based on the absolutism of the rulebook to ensure the decision to ban Anthony Lynch was overturned.
It just heightened the general discontent with the GAA disciplinary system. And it gave credence to the complaint by Séamus Qualter of Westmeath that the GAA operates a two-tier system; while all animals are equal, some are more equal than others.
In a way, the players are incidental to what has happened in recent weeks. Waterford hurler John Mullane, who declared he would not appeal his suspension with the admirable declaration of, "if you do the crime, you do the time" has been held up as sort of model in recent weeks. But the difference between hurling and football is hurling operates on a set of well-defined rules the players tend to obey. Gaelic football is, for all its thrills and merits, borderline lawless. There's a culture on the field of getting away with what you can.
Third man tackles, off the ball hits, stray elbows, stamping, squeezing, you name it: elite Gaelic football players learn from an early age that psychological warfare is the bottom line on a football field. Players do not believe they can rely on the referee for protection and so they sort things out themselves, hoping they can get away with it. And afterwards, players seem to adhere to an omerta whereby they simply do not complain about incidents on the field.
It means when a player is singled out, there is an outcry, a feeling of victimisation. And that is understandable because for every transgression punished, more brazen acts are often blithely ignored. It will take a long time for the GAA to reverse the culture of getting away with it so prevalent in the games and the CDC's nostalgia trips to last month's games will not stop players or administrators trying to shape the law, in so far as it exists at all, as they see fit.
