St. Joseph’s GAA club has “suspended indefinitely with immediate effect” a club member following an incident during a junior football match on Sunday.
Wexford GAA condemned the alleged assault and confirmed that it would commence a full investigation on Sunday afternoon, with support from An Garda Síochána in their inquiries.
St Joseph’s GAA club have immediately looked to respond to the alleged incident, and a statement released by the club last night reads:
“Following a meeting of the executive committee of St. Josephs’s GAA club, a decision has been taken to suspend indefinitely, with immediate effect, the club member at the centre of the alleged incident at our junior football game on Sunday morning.
“A full investigation is now underway by our club disciplinary committee along with Wexford GAA Co Board and the CCC.”
Following a meeting of the executive committee of St. Joseph’s GAA club , a decision has been taken to suspend indefinitely with immediate effect the club member at the centre of the alleged incident at our junior football game on Sunday morning.
— St.josephsgaa (@stjosephswexgaa) September 26, 2022
As reported by the Irish Examiner, Wexford chairman Micheál Martin has said that the GAA is now at ‘crisis point’.
“There is an unacceptable level of questioning authority across society; in the GAA, it’s the challenging of referees,” Martin told RTÉ.
“You see it in professional sport at elite sport, and it trickles its way down.
“I think we’ve reached crisis point in this at the moment, and it’s something all policy makers both from ourselves and county level, right through to national level in terms of the association, but also policymakers in sport are going to have to sit down again and see how we can address this.
“We can’t pass the buck and say that Government can solve this, but I would like to see the policy makers across sport and in the relevant departments sit down together and see how we can address this issue. It’s incumbent on all of us to ensure we don’t have an ongoing physical or verbal threat to referees.”
