Dubs and Meath handed punishments

GAA president Nickey Brennan was angered by the scenes

The GAA has handed out penalties to the Dublin and Meath football teams after the violence at Sunday's NFL game.

Sixteen bans have been imposed with Dublin's Ciaran Whelan, Bernard Brogan, Paul Flynn and Diarmuid Connolly all understood to have got two-month bans.

Meath's Seamus Kenny, Niall McKeague, Brendan Murphy, Nigel Crawford and Shane McAnarney are also believed to have got eight-week suspensions.

Three Meath players and fours Dubs are understood to have got four-week bans.

The Meath men set to be ruled out for a month are Darren Fay, Peadar Byrne and Caoimhin King while Dublin quartet Paddy Andrews, Ross McConnell, Mossie Quinn and Eamonn Fennell are facing four weeks on the sidelines.

On Tuesday morning, the GAA said that both counties had been informed of the sanctions but the statement didn't divulge the names of the suspended players.

However, the specifics of the suspensions emerged on Tuesday afternoon.

606: DEBATE Give your thoughts on the suspensions

Paddy Andrews, Bernard Brogan and Ciaran Whelan (all Dublin) and Meath's Niall McKeigue and Shane McArarney were sent off in the game.

Both counties have also been fined approximately £16,000 (20,000 Euro).

A Dublin county board statement said that the county wished to "apologise for the unseemly scenes" in Sunday's match.

The brief statement added that Dublin would accept the proposed fine but the lack of any further additional comment suggests that appeals against the player bans are possible.

In the short-term, Dublin seem certain to be without several of their first-choice players for Sunday's NFL Division 2 final against Westmeath while both counties are likely to be short-handed going into the Championship which starts next month.

"The Central Competitions Control Committee has confirmed that the respective County Boards have been notified of penalties," said a GAA statement on Tuesday morning.

"Under its rules and policy, the Committee is not at liberty to issue further details until decisions are taken in regard to acceptance of the penalties or availing of the hearing process."

However, GAA president Nickey Brennan has already made clear his displeasure at what happened at Parnell Park.

What happened in Parnell Park was disgraceful and besmirched the good name of the GAA GAA president Nickey Brennan

Brennan told RTE that county boards are team managers also had to assume responsibility for the actions of their teams.

"Responsibility has got to be taken by players, team mentors and county boards and I am quite sure that the CCCC will have considered the roles of all three in coming to a conclusion," said the GAA president.

"It is time that leadership stood up and responsibility was taken for the actions we saw yesterday. It was appalling and unacceptable. I am absolutely disgusted with it.

"I don't know what we have to do to get the message across to these people that presentation of our games is important because we want to attract future generations to our games. (Sunday's) events did nothing to help us."

Brennan pointed out that the Tipperary and Galway hurling teams had behaved impeccably in the National Hurling League final and he lamented that the Dublin and Meath teams were unable to demonstrate similar qualities.

"We saw two teams - Tipperary and Galway - absolutely committed, no quarter given or asked, yet they went out and played hard and fair and were able to walk off the field with immense credit.

"That's what we want to see Gaelic games being about.

"Yes, there will be the occasional incident. I know we are not holier than thou when it comes to certain occasions but what happened in Parnell Park was disgraceful and besmirched the good name of the GAA."