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Standing Tall: Wexford's Lee Chin INPHO/Morgan Treacy
Racial Abuse

Wexford GAA star disappointed after racism motion is shot down

Dual player Lee Chin has spoken out on the issue in Gaelic Games.

WEXFORD’S LEE CHIN has expressed his disappointment after his club’s motion on racism for the GAA’s annual Congress was ruled out of order.

Chin, a member of both his county’s senior hurling and football squads, reported that he was subjected to racial abuse in a club game last year.

Two players from Duffry Rovers were subsequently banned for two months last June after being found guilty of racially abusing him.

In the wake of that incident, Chin’s club Sarsfields wrote to the GAA asking that the Central Council bring forward an emergency motion which would make on-field racism a red-card offence.

However the motion was ruled out of order as it was deemed to be dealing with a playing rule and these can only be amended in years divisible by five.

“I’m very disappointed,” revealed Chin, whose father is Chinese-Malaysian.

“As far as I know it was the five year rule the GAA have in the book that clubs can’t put motions forward.  What they are telling us is this racism rule can’t be brought in until 2015.  That’s kind of the frustrating part of it.  You get very frustrated with all this kind of stuff going on but I don’t like dabbling in it too much at the moment.

“I’d obviously like to see changes as well as everybody else would, but I’m not too sure what’s going on at the moment so I work away and concentrate on my training.”

The issue of racism surfaced in the GAA last year with other high-profile incidents concerning Crossmaglen Rangers player Aaron Cunningham suffering abuse in the Ulster club final while Wexford’s Keith Rossiter, whose mother is Egyptian,  also revealed that he had been racially abused while playing Gaelic Games.

Chin, who was speaking yesterday at the GAA and GPA’s launch of gaelicboots.com in Croke Park, stressed that he is still happy that he spoke out on the issue.

“Of course.  I think it’s a matter that needed to be brought up.  It’s serious. it’s not to be looked lightly upon.  Jason Sherlock came out an spoke about stuff that he never did in the past. It is a matter that needed to be highlighted and we did and hopefully that’s nearly enough to push things over the edge.”

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