Jarlath Burns: Ger Brennan and Jim McGuinness incidents like ‘comparing apples to oranges’

GAA President Jarlath Burns says comparing Dublin manager Ger Brennan’s 12-week suspension to the Central Competitions Control Committee [CCCC]’s decision not to punish Donegal boss Jim McGuinness is like “comparing apples to oranges”.

Brennan was shown a red card by referee Fergal Kelly in his side’s final league game against Galway after an altercation with Tribesmen’s strength and conditioning coach Cian Breathnach McGinn and has been forced to watch championship games from the stands, including Sunday’s defeat by Louth in Croke Park.

McGuinness avoided any punishment from official Sean Hurson in his side’s opening All-Ireland Senior Football Championship victory over Kerry on 23 May despite appearing to shove Kingdom midfielder Diarmuid O’Connor as tempers boiled over between both sets of players at the half-time hooter.

While some have questioned why the incidents have resulted in vastly different outcomes, Burns insists it has come down to each referee’s on-field decision and to overrule would be tantamount to “re-refereeing the game”.

“The referee [Kelly] dealt with the Ger Brennan incident on the spot, gave him a red card and cited it as contact with an opponent. The rules are very clear where that is a 12-week suspension,” Burns told BBC Sport NI’s Mark Sidebottom.

“I think nobody would have passed any remarks on that if the other incident hadn’t have happened, but the referee [Hurson] adjudicated on that [McGuinness incident] in a slightly different way.

“He didn’t deal with it at the time and that was his choice but he did refer to it in his report and the CCCC adjudicated that if they were going to make a judgement on it thereafter, it would have been re-refereeing the game.”

Burns added: “Whenever we give a whistle to a referee and sent him out, he is in charge of those 70 minutes and it’s not incumbent on us to re-referee it.

“It’s very simple: a referee dealt with it in one way and one referee adjudicated another, so after that it’s really none of our business.”