*Darragh Leahy heads the ball past Conor Hehir. Photograph: Joe Buckley
A FIFTY game suspension for Newmarket Celtic striker Darragh Leahy has been cut in half after the club made a successful appeal to the Munster Football Association (MFA).
Leahy was hit with a fifty game suspension by the Clare District Soccer League (CDSL) in the aftermath of the Ennis Carpets Clare Cup Final.
The CDSL came down with a heavy hand which worked out as a two year ban after the Shannon native was found to have punched three members of the Avenue Utd squad following the penalty shootout.
Newmarket Celtic appealed the CDSL’s suspension to the Munster FA and were successful in reducing this ban in half. Leahy will now have to serve a twenty five game ban which will keep him out of action for next season.
An outcome of this appeal was shared by the CDSL in an unprecedented “a statement of fact” on social media which was subsequently deleted following complaints by Newmarket Celtic officials.
Darragh had signed with Ballynanty Rovers for a brief spell at the beginning of last season following a memorable campaign when he helped Newmarket Celtic on their way to winning a first FAI Junior Cup title.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Newmarket Celtic’s FAI Junior Cup winning manager, Paddy Purcell has commented publicly for the first time on the suspension. The former Limerick FC defender held back Leahy prior to the throwing of punches and admitted he was fearful something might happen.
He said, “There is no excuse, all I say was the goading that happened after the winning penalty was scored and what was said, I heard what was said by multiple players to Darragh. I anticipated as a result of what was said what was going to happen, it wasn’t acceptable and it is no excuse for anything after that but equally you can’t say certain things to players, you can’t bring in past situations in their life and use it against them, that is equally as damaging as the physical side at times”.
On the suspension dished out by the CDSL, Purcell pointed out that it was an example of the inconsistent approach adopted by the county officials. “The mental side of how people are treated and the behaviour and what is said to people on the pitch is at times as bad if not worse than the physical side of things, I feel that is something that has not been mentioned or said on any forum at all.
“There is zero balance in how the CDSL are approaching any of these situations or enforcing any of the rules in a meaningful way consistently, there’s multiple incidences of that over the last two seasons and even beyond that but for the last two seasons where I’ve been involved in management it is one rule for one and a different rule for everybody else, that is disappointing to see, if there is consistency there including on this decision if there was consistency there you would say fair enough but there isn’t, nobody mentions the incidents last year twice where there was off the ball incidents on Darragh against Avenue B where players were sent off eventually and maybe served a one game ban, I don’t know if they got a proper ban so there is no consistency and that is the disappointing thing, there is a weakness there in the CDSL unfortunately for whatever reason and I don’t know if that will be addressed”.
Purcell said there was inaction when Leahy was the victim of an off the ball incident against Avenue Utd’s second string last season. “Darragh had an off the ball incident on him that was seen last year, a player was sent off, it’s a minimum three game ban but I don’t know if the player got a one game ban, I don’t know. Darragh got incorrectly sent off and got a three game ban last year and there was footage proving the innocence of the situation but they still upheld the three game ban”.
He continued, “I just know what I saw in the last two seasons and there is no consistency there whatsoever, they are not enforcing the rules, it is at their own discretion completely. All forms of violence, physical and mental is totally unacceptable but equally how you conduct yourself as a club needs to be considered too and what clubs do the CDSL seems to let them off whether it is social media or whatever, there needs to be some standards put in place”.
