Irish Sports Minister plans to regulate MMA

On April 11, 2016, Portuguese MMA fighter Joao Carvalho died due to injuries sustained in a fight with Charlie ‘The Hospital’ Ward at Total Extreme Fighting 1 in Dublin, Ireland. Carvalho lost via TKO in Round 3. About 20 minutes after the fight Carvalho became unwell and was rushed to the hospital. He was pronounced dead two days later.

Both fighters were 1-1 at the time of the fight, and it did not appear to be a gross mismatch. Although there is no regulatory body in Ireland for MMA, the event followed the guidelines set by SAFE MMA, a UK-based non-profit that handles medical regulation. Three doctors and multiple paramedics were present.

However, a death in sports is taken as it should with the utmost seriousness.

Shortly after the death of Joao Carvalho then Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Michael Ring explained that MMA was wholly unregulated.

“In Ireland every sport, GAA, rugby, boxing, whatever it is, they have national governing bodies that are affiliated to Sport Ireland,” he told RTE. “We fund many sports in this country and to fund these sports they first of all have to have a code of practice.

“This particular sport is not regulated, has not looked for regulation and has not looked to be part of the Sports Ireland program. They are not getting any funding from the state.

Now Ireland’s current Sports Minister Shane Ross has vowed to regulate the sport that he labeled “a barbaric spectacle.” He even refused to label MMA a sport.

It should be at the very least, strictly regulated,” said Ross in Friday’s Irish Daily Mail. “I find some of the scenes in it quite disturbing. We are looking at the regulation and how it should be regulated in my department at the moment. I think the rules should ensure that there is an absolute absence of brutality or savagery or anything like it.”

UFC strawweight, BJJ black belt, and SBGi team member Aisling Daly was not impressed with the refusal to call MMA a sport.

I think it’s a very ignorant comment on his part,” said Daly to Barry Morgan for Ireland’s The Sun. I’m sure he’s never been to any mixed martial arts club or been to the environment in which we train. He doesn’t really understand the skills involved in competing in MMA, so I think he should probably educate himself further before he makes comments like that.”

I don’t really need to defend the sport in this way – this debate has been going on for a long time. I think a lot of the results we’ve had as a country in terms of MMA have shown that we are at a high skill level and we can compete with the other countries in the world at the very top of the game. Education on his part I think is the way forward.