FINDING A WAY
GAA president McCarthy aims to strike right balance at club level
“The county decides what’s best for them ”
GAA president Larry McCarthy spent last weekend at Croke Park witnessing the All Ireland club championships in all their glory. He saw the joy and sense of community euphoria that even a single triumph can generate.
Such as Arva of Cavan beating Listowel Emmets of Kerry in the junior football decider to make history and become the first team from the county to win an All-Ireland championship title at headquarters since 1952. This Sunday, the GAA president will be back at Croke Park for the senior finals.
So he’s more than aware then of the rich heritage and history of the various grades and competitions.
While Listowel came up short on the day, Kerry clubs have dominated the roll of honour at junior and intermediate level. Before last weekend, the strike rate in the junior grade was six of the previous eight.
The All-Ireland club roll of honour shows how the county has dominated intermediate and junior, particularly since 2016 and the reduction to only eight senior clubs, which has a knock-on effect on the provincial and All-Ireland championship.
It came up ar this week’s launch of the new Laochra Gael series, does McCarthy think the GAA needs to put a higher minimum limit on senior clubs for top counties and level the playing field?
‘If you were to look at it purely from a sporting sense, yeah, we should. We should look at it. And maybe the CCCC (Central Competitions Control Commiteee) should look and say in each county perhaps, there should be “x” number of clubs at each level. Particularly at senior level because that has the knock-on effect obviously in terms of intermediate and junior level.
‘But then you have to take into account the local nuances in each county.’
Does McCarthy accept there is clearly an imbalance there if the ninth best team in Kerry is competing against the 25th best team in Cork which is the corresponding ranking of the intermediate champions in Cork given there are two senior grades of 12 clubs each?
‘Yeah, there is. But we also have to acknowledge that they’re coming out of their own county as champions. And somehow make sure that is still there. And that it is balanced for the county as well and it’s to the benefit of the county, not just for the national championship which we all love.’
The Shane Walsh transfer upset a lot of people and clubs. The Dublin and Leinster champions and second-best team in Ireland at the time picking up one of the best forwards in the country — does there need to be some sort of regulation in Dublin where players are transferring? ‘That’s a very difficult thing to do. In fairness, the movement of population is eastward to a place like Dublin and to urban areas. ‘What you’re saying is if I am a star from another county and my life has taken me to Dublin, I have to play — or I cannot play — with somebody in Dublin because they’re too strong. That seems a bit harsh.’ As someone who was chair of the New York GAA board and is an associate professor at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, does McCarthy feel that a draft system — that operates at the top level of pro sport in America — is needed to protect competitive balance? ‘The NFL draft is managed because when people are entering it, that’s when they are sent, for want of a better term, to their franchise,’ he replies. ‘Or whichever franchise or team picks them.
‘This is a different scenario. This is somebody at some stage in their lives, because of professional need or professional requirements, they’re moving to a different part of the country. The NFL player doesn’t have that freedom. He is contracted.
‘We are an amateur organisation so you have that freedom to be able to move. You’re not going to have the sports organisation perhaps dictating where you should go professionally — or impacting on where you should go.’
More so that if Shane Walsh wants to move to Dublin, merely that there are checks and balances. One alternative option, discussed here previously, would be to restrict transfers to the top eight Dublin clubs in any given year — ie the eight teams that reach the ‘Senior 1’ championship quarter-finals. Which would still allow players transfer to a wide pool from the other eight ‘Senior 1’ teams and 16 ‘Senior 2’ teams. ‘You can do that in a contract situation. You can do that and say if I make the play-offs in the NFL, I am now going to be picking next year’s draft from the bottom of the draft rather than the top of the draft. You can’t do that to the same extent in an amateur sport. The integrity of the competition notwithstanding, it’s very, very difficult to do that.’
What about a residency type regulation, where you have to be a member for a year or a set period before playing for the club’s first team in senior championship?
‘All of those examples are contracted individuals. You can do that, you can tell people if they are under contract what they can do. It’s very difficult to do that or justify that — again, notwithstanding the integrity of the competition or the fairness of the competition — to tell people in an amateur sports organisation that you have to do this or you can’t do that. Is it worth looking at? Perhaps it is. But I’d be very, very sceptical of something like that without a real thorough analysis of it.’
With no regulation, through no fault of the GAA, you have population drift to the east, increased urbanisation, meaning the stakes are being skewed demographically. If no regulation, the clubs outside Dublin or those urban areas will have less chance of success?
‘That’s not necessarily a function of the GAA; that’s a function of society. While we can help bolster the teams that are losing players in terms of competition structure, I’d be very wary of telling an amateur sportsman that he cannot play for a particular club or a particular organisation.’
The ‘parish rule’ is there though for a reason in the GAA. Which does put restrictions on clubs all around the country. Yet less so when it comes to Dublin because of the nature of the city where it leads to a mini market for players who want to transfer?
‘Market is not an appropriate term to be using here. We’re not out bidding for players.
‘What you’ve got to realise is that each set of these rules around how competitions are structured, not just around numbers or who has access to various teams, is a function of the county. The county decides what’s best for them.’
But when it filters into a provincial and All-Ireland competition, surely it’s Croke Park’s prerogative to ensure a level of fairness or competitive balance applies to the All-Ireland series?
‘That goes back to the idea of the number of clubs at each competition level.
‘As I said, we can have oversight on that.
‘To the extent where we would be dictating to various counties how they should be structuring their own competitions internally, that’s up to the county.’
“As amateurs we’ve freedom to move ”