Former GAA president Liam O'Neill has called on the organisation to 'get to grips' with the issue of mass brawls.
O'Neill lamented the ugly scenes between Armagh and Galway players at the end of normal time of their All-Ireland quarter-final at Croke Park on Sunday.
"We had an absolutely fantastic game in Croke Park, everything you want in Gaelic Games, yet we’re talking about violence and that is a huge pity," said O’Neill, who served as GAA president between 2012 and 2015, on RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland.
READ MORE: Armagh star could be in hot water for actions in brawl against Galway
"In my time as president I made a huge effort to clear the sidelines down to one manager and one runner. That’s more than enough. We really have to get to grips with this situation.
"We had a situation in Croke Park on Sunday where we had excellent dressing rooms on both sides of the field. We could have used one for either team and avoided this.
"People say it’s the same around the country. It’s not. In Portlaoise we have two dressing rooms and the players come out of either end of the same stand. There’s never a difficulty. Admittedly it was a response to a situation that developed but we solved it and Croke Park really have to get to grips with this.
"There is no need for the extended panels to go into the dressing rooms at half-time. What do they contribute in there anyway? We should have people sitting in the stands and have the managers and selectors in the dressing rooms with their players.
"It’d be much tidier and we wouldn’t have had the situation we had on Sunday."
During the melee, Armagh's Tiernan Kelly appeared to eye gouge Galway star Damien Comer.
Galway captain Sean Kelly was shown a straight red card for his part in the dust-up – ruling him out of their All-Ireland semi-final against Derry on July 9.
Armagh’s Aidan Nugent also saw red, though extended panel member Kelly, whose fingers appeared to make contact with Comer’s eye in a separate incident wasn’t punished.
Former GAA president O'Neill believes that the organisation needs to consider stronger measures to prevent similar incidents happening again.
He said: "That has to be admitted, that we have to tidy up our act.
"We should move to a situation where penalties are imposed on the day. We had that at one stage where the black card lasted for an entire game, that meant people weren’t doing the sort of things they’re doing now. We have to get back to that.
"We can’t legislate for everything that happens but the responsibility for sports administrators is how we handle those situations when they develop.
"It’s up to us to address what happened on Sunday and make sure it simply doesn’t happen again."
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