A war of words commenced after former Laois footballer Colm Parkinson was refused his regrade to Intermediate in September.
Original article by Alan Hartnett.
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Laois County Board chairman Gerry Kavanagh has hit out at what he called ‘despicable and disgusting’ comments that were made about County Secretary Niall Handy online last week.
At last night’s Laois County Board meeting, the debacle over the refusal to regrade of Portlaoise footballer Colm Parkinson was discussed.
Back in the summer, Parkinson, who had not played for Portlaoise since 2011, sought to be regraded to Intermediate.
However, his request was refused because the last game he played for Portlaoise was senior and it was deemed that he needed to be regraded but the deadline for this had passed.
However, following the JFC semi-final between Park-Ratheniska and St Joseph’s which the latter won, the former queried the eligibility of Tom Kelly and Noel Garvan.
Neither of those players had been regraded despite not playing senior since 2009 and 2010 respectively.
Once again, the Laois County Board sent the case to Croke Park but this time they sent back a different ruling.
They said that because the rule to say you must be regraded every year only came in in 2016, you couldn’t apply that rule retrospectively.
So essentially, Croke Park admitted that they made a mistake, something which Portlaoise secretary Peter O’Neill told SportsJoe saying: “They came along and basically admitted that that was a mistake and they couldn’t apply that rule to players prior to 2016 but that’s not a whole lot of use to Colm.”
However, Parkinson then went on Twitter and in a serious of tweets hit out at the Laois County Board, Croke Park and Niall Handy in particular.
Others then joined in, with some posts having since been deleted, where they questioned the Stradbally man’s fitness for the role he is in.
While County Chairman Kavanagh did not go into detail about the actual comments themselves, he said that he found these remarks unacceptable.
Have a read of this bullshit. One rule for me and another for Tom&Noel. Croke Park & Laois Co board should be ashamed of themselves https://t.co/5MHYIT5dVA
— Colm Parkinson (@Woolberto) September 22, 2017
My dealings with @CLGLaois on this have been shambolic. Typical amateur hour. Niall Handy in particular who is a paid secretary. Christ https://t.co/5MHYIT5dVA
— Colm Parkinson (@Woolberto) September 22, 2017
He said: “Colm Parkinson did seek to be regraded through his club secretary – albeit a bit late- but we did seek clarification on it from Croke Park.
“A very clear interpretation of the rule was sent back to say he couldn’t play Intermediate because he needed to be regraded from senior but had missed the deadline.
“Then, a similar incident did occur and it was queried in relation to two other players. Just to be doubly sure, rather than take the first notification, I instructed the county secretary to send the same request back to Croke Park.
“And low and behold, a totally different interpretation came back on the same rule.
“So on hearing this, I rang Colm Parkinson and I apologised to him. In fairness to the man, he was very gracious about it.
“Can I explain it? I genuinely can’t. But I can tell you that it was nothing got to do with any neglect on our behalf or the secretary’s behalf.
“I would once again apologise to Colm Parkinson because he is owed an apology.
“I would also say that when you look at what happened afterwards, the stuff that went on over the weekend, it was unacceptable.
“The character assassination that was carried out on the man sitting to my left (Niall Handy) – it was despicable. It was disgusting and despicable.
“These people are operating on Facebook and whatever else. It is not Facebook, it is faceless. That forum is a wonderful forum when it is in the hands of responsible people. But the people we were dealing with certainly weren’t.”
Portlaoise representative JP Cahillane informed the meeting that his club distanced themselves from the online comments while so too did Peter O’Neill.
He said: “Absolutely no blame is attached to the county secretary in any way shape or form.
“The blame solely lies with Croke Park. We have a rules body that don’t know their own rules – I don’t know where we are going.”
Niall Handy was then asked by another delegate if the same person had dealt with both queries and he confirmed that it was.
Niall said: “We queried that on Friday afternoon and it was the chairperson of the Rules Advisory Committee who made the decision on both cases.”
When asked if this person had offered any reason as to why he gave two different rulings, Niall Handy said that the chairperson did not.
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