Tyrone-Dublin disciplinary decision/Seán Moran says the decision to lift suspensions on Dublin and Tyrone players illustrates the chaos of disciplinary procedures

Descriptions such as "joke", "farce" and "fiasco" are too infused with levity to be useful when assessing the latest disciplinary bombshell to hit Croke Park.

It's now over a month since the Dublin and Tyrone footballers staged their rolling brawl at Healy Park in Omagh. Despite its being the highest-profile outbreak of disorder since the 1996 All-Ireland, the televised chaos has resulted in four Dublin players missing one National Football League match and one Tyrone player missing a single fixture.

Tuesday night's sitting of the Central Appeals Committee struck out all of the suspensions on the basis of a technicality, believed to rest on paragraph 10 of the guidelines on using video evidence, approved by Central Council. This prohibits the investigating sub-committee (in this case of the Central Disciplinary Committee) that views the video evidence from playing any role in the hearing of the matter.

Apparently the sub-committee was called on to clarify some aspect of the video evidence during the hearing.

First up it is absolutely extraordinary that the grounds for allowing this appeal are being treated like the third secret of Fatima. As the GAA and the interested public at large are looking on in astonishment at riotous indiscipline going effectively unpunished, the authorities have decided to create an information gap, which only deepens the incredulity prompted by this decision.

Secondly, if the grounds are indeed those floating around and mentioned above, they don't make great sense. Preventing the investigating sub-committee from playing a role in any eventual hearing is an obvious procedural point, plainly aimed at stopping those formulating charges taking part in the deliberative or decision-making process - not clarifying an issue, probably for the benefit of a player charged.

If this is in fact what has happened, the CDC should take the matter to the DRA because for all the mayhem that might cause, it could not worsen a situation where wrong-doing on the field of play has become almost a protected pastime.

Whatever the validity of the grounds for appeal, the decision illustrates the chaos of the GAA's disciplinary procedures. It must now become clear that continued tinkering with the current apparatus will not work any more. Next month's annual congress will, for instance, hear another raft of proposals to patch up some anomalies but which leaves others unaddressed.

The time is long past for root and branch reform of the whole area. Last year's congress passed new disciplinary structures and gave the go-ahead for a disputes resolution mechanism but resolutely refused to amend the playing rules on fouls and discipline.

Here are a few of the wacky things you can still do in Gaelic games: get a yellow card every match for a year and suffer no suspension; get a red card and be suspended for a month and miss the next match in that competition but commit a worse offence in the same competition, pick up a three-month suspension and miss no matches at all; get a leniently-administered yellow card during a match which acts not as a deterrent but as an insurance policy against appropriate punishment.

In other words what is the point of reforming structures and not rules? Because at some stage the latter will overpower the former.

Then there is what we might wryly call the "culture" of Gaelic games, showcased in all its glory over the past few weeks. Allowing that a rickety set of rules is obviously a scarcely resistible temptation for those wanting to escape the consequences of misbehaviour, should we not expect more of county boards and elite teams? Surely when you're bang to rights, as Dublin and Tyrone players unquestionably were, the decent thing is to take your punishment on the chin? But no, the thickets of red tape are full of loopholes and there - rather than in sporting and disciplined behaviour - salvation lies.

It's hardly surprising in one way. Pernicious cultures seldom change through polite requests. In the immediate case only when sanctions for foul play outweigh the temporary advantages of indulging in it will the culture of disregard for playing rules be brought to an end.

Over to Croke Park but don't hold your breath.