McGRATH GAA MUST NIP TESTIMONIAL CULTURE IN THE BUD
COLM COOPER owes people nothing – and he is owed nothing in return. ‘I’ve been very, very fortunate in my career to get a lot of support from different people,’ he said, launching his testimonial. ‘This is a way of me giving back because I’m conscious that I’m probably old news already, but I will certainly be old news by 2018.’
Thanks to the marvellous talents with which he adorned summers over a decade and a half, Cooper will never grow old; his achievements will blaze through the ages.
In earthier terms, his profile has stayed high thanks to his work as a pundit, while an autobiography is due out at the start of next month.
Cooper is a long way from being irrelevant, and he could be a powerful supporter of the charities due to benefit from his testimonial dinner without going down this terribly misguided path.
He could organise a golf day or a football tournament to raise funds for causes that mean a great deal to him.
By agreeing to a testimonial, from which he will benefit financially, too, Cooper has made a decision that makes explicit the stratification of the GAA.
We have understood for years that hundreds of thousands of euro are pooling at the elite level of Gaelic games while frustration and neglect eat like mould into the club level, supposedly the foundations of the organisation.
The dispiriting new turn signalled by the announcement of this testimonial makes more vivid the division between haves and have nots.
That is the context in which the Cooper story needs to be set.
The alarm of Croke Park officials at this development has been reported, but the news that their legal advice suggests this does not constitute an obvious breach of ambiguous regulations on amateur status is unsurprising.
GAA stars have been financially benefitting from their athletic prowess for decades thanks to endorsements and sponsorship agreements, and so the prospect of Cooper making money from this testimonial dinner is merely an aggressive evolutionary leap.
That said, his inability to confirm how proceeds from the dinner − which are expected to easily exceed €250,000 − will be divided between him and the nomin- ated charities, was unfortunate.
This is not the most important consideration, though. No, the much greater problem is how this news makes the divisions in Gaelic games so explicit.
Not everyone is equal in sport, of course, and there is no argument being maintained here for a silly sort of socialism demanding that the multiple All-Ireland winner be accorded the same treatment as the struggling junior footballer.
Excellence deserves prominence, which is why there will be 82,000 people in Croke Park this afternoon, most of whom will have gone in expensive, exhaustive pursuit of scarce, highly prized tickets.
But those tens of thousands making their way from Mayo, or descending on Dublin 3 from homes around the capital, those who felt their hearts quicken as planes landed this weekend, those who cannot be in Drumcondra for 3.30pm but who will have an enormous emotional engagement with the football decider, can claim some ownership of the GAA’s biggest days, too.
For without them, and without their support and their cash, there is no elite level.
And the very great problem for the GAA in these times is the growing disenfranchisement felt by many at levels of hurling and football below the top tier.
The most powerful manifestation of this thus far is the Club Players Association. The CPA eloquently and tirelessly highlights the plight of tens of thousands who love the GAA as deeply as any of the men of September.
Their impatience with disrespectful treatment and dislocated playing schedules that make planning a family life outside of sport at times impossible is curdling in many cases into an outright rejection of the GAA.
But the risk of alienation goes beyond the CPA, with the TV broadcast rights agreement with Sky Sports another development that has caused estrangement between the membership and the leadership.
There is a powerful reason why today is one of the most anticipated days of the year, and why it is one of the most important annual occasions in Irish life.
It is because it matters, because people feel they have a stake in what plays out come throw-in time. As the inter-county tier of Gaelic games becomes more powerful and generates more money, that connection is threatened.
That is why the emergence of a testimonial culture should not be welcomed.
Radical as this may sound, those with money and a passion for Gaelic games could, if they wished, support a local club.