Racism incident in Wexford condemned
Lee Chin
The Wexford County Board and the Gaelic Players Association have reacted quickly to condemn an incident of racism in a club match.
Up-and-coming inter-county player Lee Chin was the victim of racial abuse during his club Sarsfields' Wexford SFC win over Duffry Rovers in April.
Referee Brendan Martin included details of the comments in his match report, leading to two Duffry Rovers players being banned for eight weeks each.
Wexford County Chairman Diarmuid Devereux was disappointed that the 21-year-old Chin, who has played for the Wexford senior footballers this year, was subjected to such comments.
"Lee Chin is a Wexford man, born in Wexford, educated in Wexford, living and working in Wexford. He is one of our stars of the future. Hopefully many more will follow his lead and example," Devereux told the Irish Examiner.
"Any form of racism in the GAA cannot be tolerated. It is terrible that Lee was subjected to these comments on a GAA pitch and the players involved should be ashamed of their behaviour.
"The hope I have is that through education and promotion of ethnic policy, we will rid Gaelic games of such abuse. The chances are that in the next 10 or 20 years, we will see the children of former non nationals representing more and more counties."
In insisting that a 'zero tolerance' policy towards racism must be maintained, the Gaelic Players Association also highlighted the progress that the GAA is making in terms of integration.
"This incident was unacceptable and cannot be tolerated by anyone. If we won’t deal with racism, we fail collectively," explained GPA spokesman Sean Potts.
"The GAA are making great strides in terms of integration but a zero tolerance approach must be shown to incidents such as this, and that is something we have reiterated to our own members over the years.
"The GPA have a strong relationship with 'Show Racism the Red Card' and hopefully such programmes can eradicate these incidents from Gaelic games and from Irish society in general."
Chin is a dual player for the Model county. He played at wing back in their Leinster SFC quarter-final replay win over Longford recently and is due to line out for the Wexford Under-21 hurlers against Kilkenny tonight.
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