The Kildare County Board this evening confirmed that they will, as expected, make an appeal to the GAA's Central Council after the Leinster Council's decision to allow the result of the Lilywhites' match with Offaly to stand.
Offaly won last Sunday's Leinster SFC quarter-final clash with Kildare by 3-09 to 0-15 but were seen to make six substitutions instead of the allotted five.
The row centres over Offaly full-forward Pascal Kellaghan, who was forced off in the first half - James Coughlan was brought on as a blood substitution.
However, when Kellaghan came back on for the second half, he took the place of Trevor Phelan and not Coughlan. With that counting as two substitutions in many observers' eyes, Offaly brought a further four players off their bench, plunging their victory into doubt.
The Leinster Council's Games Administration yesterday morning decided to endorse Tyrone referee Michael Hughes' match report, ruling that Offaly had not broken the rules and that they will advance to play Wexford in the Leinster semi-finals.
However, the Kildare County Board's executive held an emergency meeting last night to discuss the matter in full and their course of action.
Their statement, issued this evening, read: "The executive felt that they were left with no alternative but to initiate the appeals process, in light of the mandate given by the Special County Board meeting on Tuesday night last.
"We wish to emphasise that this is being done to safeguard the integrity of the Rules of the Association, so that a definite ruling will be made and all units will be in a position to be fully compliant with it.
"We feel disappointed that as the innocent party we have been forced in the interest of fair play to take this course of action."
