The farce surrounding the decision to rule nine Cork players ineligible for the 2016 season looks set to continue after the Camogie Association refused to back down on their stance. The Cork players were deemed ineligible for the season because they did not use a pen to fill out their form that would regrade them to intermediate level.
That meant that the players did not sign the form and the board decided that despite not playing a minute of senior camogie in 2015, they can not be regraded to intermediate status for the upcoming season.
Camogie Association President Catherine Brady has insisted that nothing has changed and they will not be budging from their ruling. Speaking at the announcement of the AIB All-Ireland club camogie finals, Neary said:
The rules were applied as we explained in the statement last week and that’s where it sits at the moment. We’ve gone with the rules.
It’s unfortunate that the rules can lead to this type of situation but the rules are there and are designed so that everybody understands what the processes were.
The Cork county board were dumb-founded by the ruling last week given that they used the same process to regrade the players. There are rumours that the board and the players are pursuing legal avenues, and Neary was keen to stress that how things happened last year are irrelevant:
I can’t comment on the previous year because I wasn’t part of that so I don’t know what did or didn’t happen, or how things were applied.
I can only talk about at the moment and at the moment that’s the rule that’s being applied equally across everybody and all counties, so we haven’t treated anybody any differently. That’s the important thing. That’s why the rules are there, to make sure everybody is treated the same.
This one is set to go on for a while.
[Breaking News]
See Also: Cork Camogie Star Ashling Thompson Detailed The Abhorrent Verbal Abuse She Has Suffered During Games
See Also: 9 Cork Camogie Players Ruled Ineligible For 2016 Having Incorrectly Filled Out A Form
Picture credit: David Maher / SPORTSFILE
