Former Donegal manager Jim McGuinness has called for the controversial black card ‘has to go’ as he feels it is ruining football.
The topic of the black card unfortunately dominated a lot of the post-match analysis of the All-Ireland Final between Dublin and Mayo.
Mayo star player Lee Keegan and Dublin defender Johnny Cooper both received black cards in the first-half.
However, McGuinness said both fouls merited free kicks at best, and said it was terrible that the game was robbed of two star players in the biggest match of their lives.
In his column with The Irish Times, McGuinness wrote, “I remember jotting a note down also: “Jonny Cooper absolutely excellent. Best player on field. Taking game to Mayo. Getting in front of his man and really transitioning”. Then I looked up and I couldn’t see Cooper anywhere and James Horan told me he had just been black- carded. I couldn’t believe it. Lee Keegan followed him shortly afterwards.
“So in a very real and terrible way, the black card dominated the All-Ireland football final. Kevin McLoughlin was fortunate, I felt, not to go for his tackle on Kevin McManamon and as I mentioned, John Small was blessed.
“But the Lee Keegan decision proved without question that the black card is flawed. Eugene McGee, one of its architects, has said that it has cleaned up the game. In my opinion, the black card is ruining the game. You simply cannot have two of the best players in the sport leaving the game in an All-Ireland final – the biggest game of their lives – for what were, at best, fouls that merited free kicks.
“It has to go. The sin bin is not a perfect solution but at least it doesn’t ruin a player’s day or a team’s chances. He loses 10 – or even 15 – minutes; he has to go; the team is punished. But he gets to come back in and atone for it. The Keegan- Connolly duel was beginning to enter a new realm on Saturday. And we will never know how it should have turned out.”
