Shortfall in referees highlighted at Convention

The Mayo GAA County Convention has heard of an urgent need for referees in order to meet the demand created by the number of games played in the calendar year.

A motion was raised at the Convention by the committee calling for all units within Mayo GAA to provide a new referee for the Referee’s Panel. This referee would attend relevant training and officiate at U12’s games. Referees Administrator Sean McHale said the shortage of referees is one of the biggest challenges facing the county at the moment.

“The topic of referees is like climate change. Everyone knows it’s a problem but finding a solution is a different matter.” Mr McHale said it is in the interest of all the clubs in the county to put forward a potential candidate for this process.

“This is the first time we’re asking the clubs to nominate a referee, before this it was always down to chance that we would have new referees.” 

"The more referees we have, then the higher the standards are going to get. It is in your clubs interest to have a nominated person and we’ll hopefully have a good response.” He added that there are misconceptions around the dangers of the job.

“We had only five incidents this year where a referee was mistreated and it had to be investigated. That is five too many but it is only a fraction of the total, out of 3,500 games.

In his chairman’s address, Seamus Tuohy also stressed the need to address a shortfall of referees.

“If every club came back with one new ref, we’d be in a great position. A collective response is required.”

“We had an unprecedented number of games last year, between senior and underage, and it would be embarrassing to have to call off any one of these games because we have no referee.”

He added it was of the utmost importance to always treat referees with respect.