A LEADING GAA referee in the county has hit out at new guidelines from Croke Park prompted by an edict from the Revenue Commissioners.
It means that referees will be barely able to cover the cost of fuel for their cars when travelling to games, he claimed.
The strict new rules on what can and cannot be claimed have been set out to every county board in the 26 counties including the Donegal County Board.
And one referee told donegaldaily.com that he would be forced to quit doing a job he loves.
“It’s voluntary and we get reimbursed expenses because we do travel long distances to officiate at matches,” he said.
“But with the new rules from Croke Park and the Revenue, it will cost me to travel to a match.
“In fact once you get over a certain mileage the reimbursement drops from around 59c per km to half that. Once you are there, it just doesn’t cover the diesel and there’s no room for tax, insurance or wear and tear.”
The comments come just weeks after one of Sligo’s leading players called for referees to be paid a wage in order to improve standards.
Sligo midfielder Eamonn O’Hara, the country’s longest-serving inter-county player insisted in the Sunday Independent: “You can talk about managerial payments and the effect it has on the GAA but ultimately this is a results business and from week to week it’s the decisions of referees which have the biggest consequences.
“The GAA should be more worried about inconsistent and poor refereeing than looking to see if a manager is getting paid. At the end of the day, a player appreciates the effort a manager makes in leaving his wife and kids three nights a week and at weekends to come and train an outside county. We all know the effort that goes into it and few players are bothered by what they get in return.
“Our frustration stems more from the fact that you can be pulled for a certain indiscretion six or seven times in February or March but the same thing will go totally unnoticed in June or July. Players don’t know what way a decision is going to go from game to game and young lads are being thumped off the ball with nothing done about it.”
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