Dublin forward Whelan accepts eight-week ban

Jason Whelan, Dublin

Colm Keys Twitter Email

January 22 2014 11:39 PM

Dublin footballer Jason Whelan has accepted an eight-week ban for an incident in the O'Byrne Cup match against DCU last week.

A meeting of Leinster Council's Competition Controls Committee in Portlaoise last night proposed the suspension under Rule 7.2 Category 111 (vii) – which governs any actions that involve 'inflicting injury recklessly'.

"The Dublin County Board and the player have indicated to the Leinster Council that they will accept the proposed sanction," a statement from the provincial body read.

Because the O'Byrne Cup is a provincial competition, the player was served with a time suspension rather than match suspensions which govern inter-county league and championship.

Leinster's CCC had launched a probe last week after it emerged that an allegation that one of the DCU players had been on the receiving end of a bite in their clash with the All-Ireland champions.

The allegation was reported to referee David Gough during the game.

Leinster sought information from Dublin and DCU on the contents of the referee's report and were able to conclude their investigations quickly on the basis of that communication.

Whelan, from the Ballymun Kickhams club, is one of Dublin's fringe players but was impressive in an earlier O'Byrne Cup match against Westmeath and had also played well on his introduction in last year's league final against Tyrone.

The conclusion to the Leinster Council probe comes just a day after the release of GAA director-general Paraic Duffy's annual report in which he hit out at Donegal and Dublin for dealing with a bite sustained by Donegal player Paddy McBrearty "solely in terms of their own interests".

Duffy described that incident as one of the "low points" of 2013 and said it was "reprehensible that no one could be held to account for what happened". He added that the act of biting was "primitive behaviour" which is "shocking and dangerous".