THE GAA has no plans to further revisit the ruling around the eligibility of players to take part in U20 and senior championship games within a seven-day window.
Rory Gallagher hit out at the ruling after Derry’s National League Division Two final defeat by Dublin on Sunday.
He and U20 manager Marty Boyle face tough decisions as they prepare for championship games four days apart next week, meaning players involved with both panels would only be eligible for one of the two games.
Eoin McEvoy, Lachlan Murray, Matthew Downey and Niall O’Donnell all came on in Croke Park on Sunday, while Mark Doherty was among the unused subs for Derry’s senior team.
If those players were to play any part in the Ulster U20 semi-final against Donegal next Wednesday night, either starting or as a substitute, they would be rendered ineligible for Derry seniors’ game against Fermanagh next Saturday.
They will only be available to Rory Gallagher if they opt out of U20 duty.
Gallagher claimed after the game on Sunday that Croke Park had “changed the rule” after the competition had begun, which would be against its own rules, but GAA officials insist that no change was made and that instead the interpretation of the rule had been nailed down.
They had been asked by several counties to rule on an interpretation of it due to the ambiguity of the motion’s original wording.
The motion passed at Congress in February had read that a player involved with the county’s U20s may only play senior championship “in each seven-day period (Friday morning to the following Thursday night). Coming on as a substitute constitutes playing a game.”
It is the refence to the period from Friday to Thursday that had caused the uncertainty for counties, who asked Central Council for clarification.
Central Council’s meeting on March 25 confirmed to counties that the rule was being interpreted as meaning a “rolling seven-day period”, meaning any consecutive seven-day spell as opposed to just Friday-to-Thursday.
It means Derry are likely to remain in a tight spot unless some resolution can be found through Ulster Council, who voted at the weekend to leave the U20 fixture with Donegal as it was.
Gallagher hit out at the lack of “equality” over the situation, given that Donegal are not affected by the same rule as their seniors’ first outing in Ulster isn’t until April 23, outside the seven-day period after the U20 game.
With Donegal unlikely to accede to a switch and Ulster’s dates tied to the national calendar, which lists the All-Ireland U20 semi-finals for the weekend of May 6/7 and final the following weekend, there appears to be little hope of Derry getting a satisfactory resolution.
