A former inter-county referee believes Croke Park need to establish a citing board to deal with disciplinary issues such as feigning.

Kildare native Mick Monahan, the man who refereed the 2008 All-Ireland SFC final between Tyrone and Kerry, says that some situations are too difficult for referees to decide whether a player is faking or augmenting a foul to win a free or have an opponent punished.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, Monahan said that a Monday citing panel would be an ideal way to deal with the issue.

"The GAA should have a mechanism whereby they can go back and look at a game retrospectively like in rugby, call him (the player) up quickly and say 'this is the punishment for that'. It can't just be for an All-Ireland quarter-final, semi-final or final; it has to be in place from the start," said Monahan.

"If any player goes down like that there's a specific thing where he gets a one match ban, two match ban or whatever. A ref could say a player is feigning but it might be human error on his part.

"If they had a citing board there's no way of getting around it. If a guy plays on Sunday and does something he should know by Monday night if he is facing a ban. I also feel counties are condoning this (feigning) and yet must deal with it in club football themselves."

Sligo referee Marty Duffy came in for heavy criticism last Saturday week after sending off Monaghan's Darren Hughes after he appeared to have tousled the hair of Tyrone opponent Tiernan McCann, who hit the ground as though he'd been struck in the lead up to Hughes' dismissal.

McCann has since been hit with an eight-week ban by the Central Competitions Control Committe, which he is set to appeal tonight in a bid to play in the Red Hands' All-Ireland SFC semi-final with Kerry this Sunday.

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