Row will reveal the GAA’s true colours
CPA chief calls for clubs to be protected properly
CPA chairman Micheal Briody called on the principle stakeholders to nail their colours to the mast yesterday, as the GAA braces itself for the latest club versus county arm wrestle.
It is a joust in which county usually triumphs, but this time it is set against a very different backdrop, one in which roles have flipped. Now, club comes first while the inter-county game has to showcase its wares on winter days and heavy fields.
But what is exercising intercounty managers is not so much the timing of the Championship but the stipulation in the GAA roadmap that they will not be allowed to resume collective training until September 14, five weeks prior to the provisional start of inter-county action.
The early indications are that roadmap will be ignored by county managers with Waterford hurling manager Liam Cahill brazenly challenging its integrity.
‘There are restrictions until September and it leaves a very short window for the inter-county player to prepare.
‘If anybody is naive enough to think that inter-county managers are not going to try and assemble their players on the odd occasion during that period (before September 14) well then they’re really not in tune with what’s going on,’ Cahill claimed this week.
That is in naked defiance of the message Croke Park bosses spelled out at a remote meeting this week in which they instructed county chairmen and secretaries to ensure that their club championships will not be compromised by county managers seeking access to their players during the club window.
Briody, the club players’ union chief, claimed yesterday that this was the ‘litmus’ test of how serious the GAA leadership is about protecting clubs against the power wielded by county managers, claiming that they now have the perfect opportunity to set out a new direction.
‘Management Committee now has temporary authority now to put the rules in place. They don’t have to have a big debate at Congress which invariably would be difficult because a lot of decisions made at Congress have not had the club at the heart of it.
‘The management committee is going to show where the true colours lie and I think they will protect the clubs,’ predicted Briody.
There was no indication at the meeting this week that the GAA will seek to legislate to protect the 11-week club window.
Certainly there is no evidence that even if they did, they would come up with the sanction of having county teams thrown out of the Championship if they were to breach any such role, a move that Briody favours.
The case for hardened legislation, especially given how the county game has infringed even on the spirit of the April club month rule in the past, does not need stressing.
‘If you allow 32 counties to make their decisions on this independently, the only real problem will be with inter-county managers,’ Briody told Sportsmail yesterday.
‘Inter-county managers will accept their fate if they know that every other inter-county manager is in the same place.
‘But if it is uneven, and if they think that someone else is stealing a march on them there will be a kickback. And rightly so, I can understand that.
‘This is a level playing field and it is a perfect opportunity for the GAA to ensure it remains a level playing field,’ added Briody.
In the absence of a rule to protect the club window, Croke Park is hoping that continuing the suspension of the insurance scheme for players injured during intercounty activity until September 14 will dissuade a premature return to training.
However, privately, there is little belief that will present a disincentive. The focus will now shift to the GPA, whose members are at the centre of this tug of war.
Their demand that inter-county players be afforded a four-week period of collective preparation has been facilitated by the roadmap, but pressure will come on the GPA leadership to take a stance on their members being put asked to train for both club and county at the same time.
The GPA issued a questionnaire to their members this week in response to the published GAA roadmap, while their CEO Paul Flynn is a member of the GAA’s hugely influential Covid-19 preparation group.
However, Briody insisted yesterday the GPA had to make their voice heard on the threat of county managers seeking access to their members during the club window.
‘I would like to hear what the GPA is going to say; they are going to have to take a stance on this and see where there colours are on this,’ Briody said.
‘If those players are with the club then they have to be allowed to commit to the club. It is not fair to ask county boards that they need to run their championships in six to eight weeks because county managers need the players.
‘That is why it is important that the GPA come in with their contribution as to what they want. I don’t think it is sufficient to say, “We have got to look at player welfare”.
‘What does that look like? How do they see that working? What do they think is the right way for club and county,’ queried Briody.
The answer to those questions will dictate whose colours win the latest battle in the GAA’s never ending war.
“This is a good opportunity for the GAA”
“Time for the GPA to take a stand on this”