CAHAIR O'KANE: GAA doesn't have the right, or the resources, to govern Twitter

By Cahair O’Kane

GAA players are no different from any other citizen of the land. They have to watch what they say.

They have to watch what they say in public, they have to watch what they say to each other, they have to watch what they say to their employers. And they have to watch they say on Twitter and Facebook.

The reason for that is simple: the law.

The courts now treat those who use social media the same as they treat journalists and publishers. Anyone who posts anything online is viewed as a publisher and is subject to the same libel laws, and subsequently the same punishment as those who do it for a living.

However, those are punishments to be decided upon by courts of law. It is not the job of GAA county boards to act as judge, jury and executioner.

This, the news has broken that a Donegal dual club player has been hit with a 24-week ban for comments he made on Twitter.

Specifically, Sean MacCumhaills’ player David White, who plays football and hurling for the Twin Towns club, apparently wrote: “Absolute disgrace that there’s replays without playing et shame on yous money grabbing have yous no respect for players [sic]”.

He had written it in response to the Donegal county board’s official Twitter account publishing notice of a championship quarter-final replay between Ardara and Naomh Conaill.

Now he is banned for 24 weeks.

The suspension follows hot on the heels of the 48-week ban handed down to Ballinderry’s Aaron Devlin following his social media comments in the aftermath of the Derry final.

No doubt the suspensions are intentioned to try and protect officialdom, both match referees and county board officials, from online abuse.

The online abuse is not a nice part of the GAA. It shouldn’t happen, but it does.

That is why the GAA, and indeed many of its clubs, have social media guidelines which have been introduced in an attempt to stem abusive comments on social media platforms.

Guidelines are all that they are though, and all that they can be. The GAA should not have assumed the right to determine what its amateur members can and cannot say on Twitter.

They can advise, they can try and influence. The guidelines could prove very useful ultimately, because it’s right to warn players and club members of the dangers of online media.

But punishments for online indiscretions are a matter for a judge, not for a county board. If the target of the abuse feels that the comments are libellous, then he is entitled to pursue it through the relevant authorities.

If the comments are not libellous, then there is the issue of freedom of speech.

To go down the line of suspending players for a year or six months over comments opens one of the biggest cans of worms that they will ever encounter.

There are so, so many issues. It’s highly, highly unlikely that these two high-profile suspensions will stand up. It might have to go as far as the DRA for Aaron Devlin and David White to win their freedom, but it’s virtually implausible that they will remain suspended.

What is to stop them walking into an appeal and saying that someone had taken their phone and written the offensive tweets? Or to deny that it’s even their actual Twitter account?

Regardless of whether that is the case or not, how does the GAA go about proving otherwise? They do not have the right or the jurisdiction to go investigating players’ personal social media accounts.

Another big issue is the consistency of such punishments. Who now determines what comments are considered to have “discredited the association”? That is what these two players have officially been suspended for in the absence of a rule in the Official Guide to cover outbursts on social media.

Does each county board bring someone in to sit and monitor the Facebook and Twitter accounts of all GAA players? There are 90,000-odd of those in Ulster alone. Why is the high profile instance in the aftermath of a county final any more punishable than the 11pm April Sunday night rant after a league game?

No-one is condoning online abuse here. God knows I got a bit of it after the county final myself. But it’s up to me to deal with that, not the Derry county board.

The GAA has the right to govern what goes on between the white lines. It has the right to govern what happens in its clubhouses, at its events, inside its wires. It has the right to govern what players and managers say in interview scenarios.

It does not, however, have the right to govern the living rooms of amateur footballers and hurlers. That is for the forces of law.