{"id":526529,"date":"2026-06-30T21:55:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T21:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/526529\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T21:55:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T21:55:20","slug":"clare-gaa-launch-investigation-after-incident-involving-referee-at-underage-game-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/526529\/","title":{"rendered":"Clare GAA launch investigation after incident involving referee at underage game \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/clare-gaa\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/clare-gaa\/\">Clare GAA<\/a> have launched an investigation after a referee was knocked to the ground following an under-15 football game in Kilrush on Monday evening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Garda\u00ed are also investigating the matter after incidents arising from the match between Kilrush-Killimer and Lissycasey were reported to Kilrush Garda station.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Video footage circulating online shows referee John O\u2019Connell on the ground surrounded by a group mainly made up of adults, many of whom are trying to calm the flashpoint.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">O\u2019Connell is eventually helped up from the ground, but the Cooraclare official initially appears unsteady when gets back to his feet. The matter was later brought to the attention of local garda\u00ed and Clare county coard are to launch an investigation once the referee\u2019s report has been submitted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Speaking on Clare FM, county board chairman Kieran Keating said: \u201cThere was some form of an incident. We don\u2019t have the referee\u2019s report yet so I can\u2019t really say a whole lot about the incident itself, but what I will say is that it is important to us that our referees get respected and get the support they deserve when doing our games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThere are various levels of infractions, from verbal to minor physical to assault basically \u2013 different levels of infractions. And if there is a finding of an infraction of any of those levels against the referee when we review the report on the game then we will impose the sanctions as per the rule book for those.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The possible minimum suspension for any assault on a match official is a 96-week suspension. However, that minimum sanction is automatically doubled for an underage game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Category Va deals with any type of assault on a referee, a score umpire, line umpire or sideline official, and sets a \u201cminimum 96 weeks suspension, with (the) offender\u2019s team liable to disqualification, where appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">However, in relation to underage games, the GAA\u2019s official guide adds: \u201cThe minimum time suspension imposed shall be double the minimum specified in the respective category of this rule.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Clare GAA have launched an investigation after a referee was knocked to the ground following an under-15 football&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[30041,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-526529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-clare-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}