On Friday night Shane King should have been playing in the opening round of the Down Club Championship for Bryansford.

Instead, he continues to be banned from the Association.

Technically, he is still not allowed to enter any ground under the jurisdiction of the GAA.

When he was originally charged, King had to resign from the Association, pending the outcome of his court appearance. But despite his name being cleared by the Northern Ireland judiciary, the GAA still refuses to reinstate the player. It meant that on Friday night his club was denied the services of a superb football player. Spectators were unable to watch his skills. The Down Club Championship as a whole was cheated of the contribution of one of its best performers.

But above everything else, Shane King was denied his basic human right to play a game of football. Despite being cleared of all charges of sexual impropriety involving an infatuated teenage girl living in a fantasy world of make-believe relationships with married men, the GAA continues to prevaricate. It still refuses to recognise the findings of a Crown Court sitting in Downpatrick two months ago, one that found Shane King not guilty on all charges.

Local politicians subsequently intervened to ensure that all the relevant documentation confirming the legal clearance of Shane King was forwarded by the PSNI to the GAA authorities. The chairman of the Down County Board, Kevin Bell, collected the relevant documents directly from the police to ensure that there were no postal mishaps. That was a month ago.

But still the protracted process of convening meetings to rubber stamp the validation of Shane King back into the GAA fold continues to be one of constipation by committee. On Wednesday afternoon the Bryansford player contacted Croke Park.

The initial response was that until the matter "was discussed" there would be no decision made either way on Shane King's future. The former Fermanagh and Down player was told that he would have to wait. "It was only when I said that my lawyers had advised me that my treatment by the GAA was a breach of my human rights, that there was a change in attitude. I was asked to explain what I meant. I said that my court clearance was being treated as of no value.

A secretary said that they would come back to me.

"In effect the GAA was sending out a signal that they were above the jurisdiction of a Crown Court decision. They were still implementing their own Croke Park rules. Within 15 minutes I got a call back saying that as soon as Danny Lynch came back from his holidays a meeting would be convened. If 'everything was in order' I would be allowed back to play. But what does that mean? I am an innocent man. An individual with severe delusional fantasy problems has put me through hell. Yet still the GAA, an organisation that I have given years of my life to, is still treating me as though I was a bit of dirt. By treating me differently it is discriminating against me."

Sometimes the GAA does very little to help its own cause. The two separate but inter-linked cases involving the two Fermanagh-born players Shane King and Darren Graham underline that.

Both started off their football careers with the Lisnaskea Emmetts club before going on to win county recognition in both football and hurling. Both have had to cope with the pressures of unwanted publicity intruding into their lives to an unbelievable degree.

Darren Graham had the courage to stand up to sectarian corner boys, low life individuals who objected to him having the balls to play with an O'Neills football and a sliotar, rather than a Mitre football and a hockey ball.

For that he was vilified by some. The revelations surrounding the appalling sectarian treatment of the Protestant Fermanagh football and hurling player lifted a curtain on the still shabby mindset that infects far too many people in the North.

The GAA, even though it was slow to react and even slower to admit that there was a problem surrounding a culture of sectarianism at certain levels within the county, did eventually find the courage to issue an unreserved apology to the player.

The fact that in last week's Sunday Tribune Darren Graham made it clear that he was prepared to name and shame the bigots did concentrate the collective County Board minds to a marvellous degree.

Before he told this newspaper of his plans to fully expose the hypocrisy and double standards that he had been subjected to for seven years, the problem, as far as the Fermanagh County Board was concerned, apparently didn't exist. There was no welcome for highlighting the matter. There was no praise for an unprecedented level of publicity that led to the Fermanagh County Board pledging to do everything to eradicate the stench of sectarianism. The escape route being exploited by Fermanagh on this occasion is that while the formal apology to Darren Graham is a tacit admittance of collective guilt stretching back years, there is nothing in the GAA rules to implement a retrospective punishment. Without a referee's confirmation of a sectarian incident, nothing can be done.

The tightening up of that anomaly is something that will be directly addressed by former president of the GAA Jack Boothman when he starts his inquiry into the state of sectarianism in Fermanagh GAA circles. Darren Graham, however, will not hide behind any convenient smokescreen. "I have told my club and the Fermanagh Board representatives that I accept the commitment of the GAA in tackling the problem of sectarian attitudes. It's not about me. There are plenty of other Protestants that are playing Gaelic sports and there are many others who would want to do the same. But they have to be encouraged. I have been promised that Jack Boothman will carry out a full investigation. Nothing will be hidden."

On the wider front, the treatment of Shane King in the eyes of some at Croke Park is as unacceptable as it is unlawful. Last week the GAA appeared to have at least started the process of addressing the wider issues surrounding the plight of Darren Graham. But the scandalous treatment of Shane King continues to ask serious questions of the GAA in the context of it being a truly open door organisation.