Mark McGovern Update: Police ID Person of Interest in Gaelic Football Fracas

Mark McGovern

​Police say they've identified a person of interest in the attack on Mark McGovern, the 22-year-old Gaelic football player who remains in a coma after an incident during a match last weekend.

However, they won't say who it is.

Officer Albie Esparza told the Examiner that the person of interest was seen standing over McGovern after the off-the-ball fracas during a match in Treasure Island on Saturday.

It's still not clear what happened to McGovern, but Esparza told reporters that his teammates saw members of the opposing team standing over the athlete as he lay on the ground.

McGovern, who remains in critical condition at San Francisco General Hospital, was recruited this summer to play for Ulster San Francisco, a club of the local Gaelic Athletic Association. Gaelic Football is a physical game resembling a blend of soccer and Australian Rules football.

Ulster coach Joe Duffy told SF Weekly that he didn't see what happened, but ran onto the field about 10 minutes into the second half when he was alerted that one of his players was down. Other players said they saw members of the opposing team, the Celts, standing over McGovern, saying, "You won't get up from that."

"I didn't even know who it was. Mark was unconscious. And he went from being in the fetal position to on his back and then he had seizures. At that time, we didn't know what happened. We were obviously more concerned with getting Mark some medical attention," Duffy said.

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