He says there are other things to worry about, such as trying to juggle both football and hurling with Wexford, but Lee Chin has expressed his disappointment that a motion from his club Sarsfields seeking to make racist abuse on the field a red card offence, is not set to feature on the clár for next month’s GAA Congress.
Croke Park will later today announce the completed list of motions, with Congress set for Derry on March 22nd-23rd: it is expected Central Council will itself present a motion aimed at addressing the apparent increase in racist and sectarian abuse on the field of play, although Chin, who has spoken candidly about his own experience of such abuse, wonders if that will go far enough.
“Ah, very disappointed,” he says, about the decision to deem the Sarsfield’s motion out of order. “As far as I know it was the five-year rule, the GAA have in the book, so that clubs can’t put these motions forward. What they are telling us is this racism rule can’t be brought in until 2015.
“But right now I’m not sure what’s going on. I’d obviously like to see changes as well as everybody else would, and I’m trying to keep my mind occupied in what I’m doing with hurling and football.
“You get very frustrated with all this kind of stuff going on, but at the moment, I just keep my head down, work away, and concentrate on my training.”
Yet Chin – whose father is from Malaysia, and runs a successful business in Wexford town – has no regrets or difficulties about bringing the issue of racism to the fore.
Last summer, two players from the Duffry Rovers club in Wexford were suspended, having been found guilty of directing racist abuse towards Chin.
“I think it’s a matter that needed to be brought up. It’s a serious issue, not to be looked lightly upon. Jason Sherlock came out and spoke about stuff that he never did in the past. So it is a matter that needed to be highlighted and we did and hopefully that’s nearly enough to push things over the edge.”
His commitments
He’s not overstating his commitments in Wexford at the moment, either, having played for both the Wexford senior footballers (in their draw with Armagh last Saturday, a game deferred from earlier this month) and then the hurlers (in their win over Carlow on Sunday). “It’s been going well at the moment, I’m getting away with it, but then both managers are easy-going with training. I’m being shared amongst them both.
“A lot of people say you won’t be able to do the two, that there’s too much training involved. But when you cut things back, and look at everything and have some perspective, I can only be in the one place at the one time. I can only train with one team.
“So I’m doing just as much training and taking on as much of a load as everyone else. Maybe doing a little bit extra by myself but other than that, I’m fine.
“It’s just figuring out what gear to bring training. Plus there’s two of us, myself and Andrew Shore. We usually train with the hurlers on a Tuesday and with the footballers on a Thursday. At the moment I’m loving both of them, unless you’re given an ultimatum to choose between one or the other. I’ll cross that bridge if it comes.”
