Crackdown on player poaching

The FAI are set to rule in the coming weeks on a second attempt by soccer clubs throughout the city and county to prevent their best players being ‘poached’  by rivals . . . having already rejected one effort last year.

A proposed new rulebook for the Galway FA has been submitted to the FAI for inspection, and the national body’s Legal Director, Sarah O’Shea, has confirmed to the City Tribune that it is in the process of examining the new book to ensure it complies with the FAI’s own rules.

“I am in a position to confirm that the FAI Rules Commission is currently examining the rules sent to us by the Galway FA,” said O’Shea, who is also the Deputy Chief Executive of the FAI.

“This is part of a standard process for our Affiliates to ensure that rules are in compliance with the FAI Rule Book. The FAI has worked with the Galway FA over the last number of months regarding changes to their rules and we will continue to do so, on request.

“Once the rules have been reviewed it will be a matter for the Galway FA to pass the rules at their upcoming AGM,” she said.

Last June, an EGM of clubs affiliated to the Galway FA was held to discuss plans to change some of the rules governing the game in the city and county, and in particular to introduce the so-called Waterford Rule, an inducement rule which aims in layman’s terms to stop clubs poaching the best players from other clubs.

The basic premise of the rule is that the maximum number of players a club can take from the representative District League sides from U-12 up to U-16 is two players in any one year, and for every additional player taken by a club, that club will be liable to a fine of €1,000. That means ‘Club A’ can only take two players in total from across the five age groups, not two from each group.  

At the EGM in June, this Waterford Rule was proposed verbatim for the Galway region, with the only difference being the proposed fine was increased from €500 to €1,000. The rule was passed by the vast majority of those in attendance, with only three clubs – believed to be Galway Hibernians, Mervue United and Salthill Devon – voting against it.

As a result of being passed at the EGM, the proposed new rule was then brought to the AGM of the Galway FA in July where it was again passed and ratified, along with other rule changes, to form a new rulebook for the Galway FA.

All that was left was for the new set of rules to be approved by the FAI, but despite the inducement rule being exactly the same as the one in place in Waterford, the FAI threw out the proposed new rule book, and asked that the existing set of rules be operated under for the 2013/14 season while work was carried out on the proposed new rules.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.