Further feedback is to be requested from referees as the prospect of the GAA introducing a Television Match Official (TMO) looks to be a distant one for now.
A workgroup set up by GAA president Larry McCarthy at Congress 2023 presented a preliminary findings on the use of a TMO in Gaelic games to Central Council at the weekend, but further feedback will be sought before a final report is published.
Following the ‘silent’ trial use of video technology in last year’s championship, RTÉ Sport understands that there is no immediate prospect of the GAA exploring the TMO option further anytime soon.
Conclusions found that the flow of a GAA game could be severely interrupted – with the TMO possibly having to judge incidents on the number of steps players took without releasing the ball within seconds of each other.
This increased the prospect of having to judge on issues repeatedly during games and there were concerns on how disruptive replaying such incidents might prove with the flow of games likely to be affected.
“You only have to see the controversy that VAR has caused over in England. They’ve brought it in for the right reasons, but they’ve made a hames of the game.”
Will we see a TMO in Gaelic games in the near future?
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It is felt that between five and seven five cameras could be needed to provide all potential angles necessary.
In addition, a TMO operative or official would be required.
And for the TMO to work for the association, the necessary technology and officialdom would need to be present across all championship games and venues.
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There would be cost and logistical issues around this which could potentially have limited the technology to the GAA’s main stadia.
Hawkeye has been in place since 2013 to help avoid mistakes in the awarding of points and while the use of a TMO has been established in rugby for some years, the introduction of VAR in soccer has attracted serious criticism.
It’s understood that further discussions will be held with GAA referees but for now there seems to be no imminent plan for a TMO to be operative in the world of Gaelic games.
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