GAA president Seán Kelly has ruled out changing the suspension procedures from time periods to match bans despite the advantage winning teams have as it stands.

Armagh's Ciarán McKeever and Paul McGrane, and Tyrone's Ryan McMenamin were all suspended for four weeks after the Ulster final replay on July 24th. However, McMenamin is due to miss two championship matches, while the Armagh duo only miss one game because they avoided the qualifiers by winning the aforementioned contest.

"There is a certain amount of luck involved, everyone is aware of that, and somebody is going to find this discommodes them more than someone else," said Kelly.

"We tried match bans in January and February and they didn't work that well. Match bans continue on into the following year and some might not be playing and they get completely forgotten.

"From my experience match bans wouldn't be the way to go because there are too many games in the GAA, whether it is for club or county, and it leads to all types of confusion. Any rule that leads to confusion is a bad rule."

McMenamin will find out later today whether his suspension has been quashed as the disputes resolution authority (DRA) was deliberating on his case late last night.

The authority was set up to ensure players did not seek to overturn suspensions through the courts, although that remains an option for McMenamin should the DRA decision go against him.

"The DRA is totally independent of the GAA and is basically a court and I think people accept that," Kelly continued.

"I'm not sure people will go beyond that, obviously you can't stop them but that is a matter for the courts to decide.

"I would be personally very surprised if a court would actually overturn the decision of the DRA because I would think we have ensured the DRA has the same set-up as a court.

"Having looked at what they do in Australia and other sporting bodies, this was the way to go. In the history of arbitrations of this nature the courts of the land don't interfere and I would hope the same would happen here."

Kelly was speaking yesterday at the announcement of ESB's sponsorship of the All-Ireland minor football and hurling championships. The deal is worth an undisclosed six-figure sum over a three-year period.

DOWN (SHC v Westmeath): Graham Clarke; L Clarke, S Murray, C Coulter; Gabriel Clarke, G Savage, S Wilson; G Adair, A Savage; E Clarke, P Braniff, AN Other; M Coulter, G Johnson, S Clarke.