MICHAEL DUIGNAN ON THE SHAME OF GAA IN CLARE
LOOKING at the figures coming out of Croke Park this week, it’s clear the association is in rude financial health. In many ways, what the GAA has done in building and paying for the redevelopment of the stadium, in bringing in such revenue on the back of the games, is incredible. Going to a hurling or football game is not overly expensive and compares well to any other big-game sport.
Overall, the figures are very positive with total income rising to over €65 million.
And it has to be acknowledged that the money filters back down, to counties, and a certain amount to clubs.
For me though, it’s always been about the bigger picture.
Lost in the fine print is the case of Darach Honan, an All-Ireland winner with Clare in 2013 who recently retired at just 27, forced out of the game because of chronic hip injury. That’s what hit home to me.
Amid all of the millions, here is a player who has been left with chronic pain, who said he had to pay €6,000 out for an operation and various consultants and yet was refused financial assistance by his county board when he asked for help. He also made it clear that he sourced the pain back to a tough two-week training block with the county in 2016.
This isn’t a stand-alone case. I know of so many players whose bodies have taken a toll over the years and who are paying the price day-by-day since retiring. I’ve spoken before about the abuse of players and this is another example.
I’m convinced that the players could do half the strength and conditioning that is going on now and still be as good.
Honan was a Clare senior hurler from 2010-2017 yet only managed to get on the field 13 times, during which he scored an impressive 5-21.
I went through Clare GAA’s annual report, which was released in December.
Hats off to joint managers Gerry O’Connor and Donal Moloney who didn’t claim any of the legitimate expenses due to them. That helped explain why overall team expenditure was down from €760,000 to €710,000. The expenses of Donal Óg Cusack, who has since moved on, were paid via Club Clare, a relatively new supporters and fundraising addition.
All in all, Clare GAA was able to show a surplus of €136,000.
Think about that.
A surplus of €136,000 and yet they couldn’t help a player. Even if they didn’t give him the full six grand, but paid half of it, it would be something. His dad Colm played for Clare from 1974-84 and won an All-Star. Darach won an Under 21 All-Ireland and a senior All-Ireland with Clare.
And then he’s told that the county board can’t help him. A player who has to retire at 27 years of age?
Years ago, it was almost accepted that you finished up having broken teeth and various limbs, were left with a dodgy hip or whatever else.
But those days are meant to be long gone now. Sure 10 per cent of income is going towards Player Welfare according to the GAA’s accounts. What is the thinking of a county board who refuses a player in this way?
Media rights revenue is up, thanks in part no doubt to the fiveyear deal that includes Championship matches going behind a paywall in the form of a Sky Sports subscription.
I listened to a recent radio interview with director general Páraic Duffy about the Sky deal - he was asked some hard questions but didn’t have the answers. In 2013, Duffy said he didn’t think there would be 10 per cent support for putting games behind a paywall, and then in 2014 the GAA signed up with Sky.
He said that the motivation behind the deal wasn’t money, that it was about spreading the games to the diaspora. Yet Premier Sports had up to 100 games a year for a tenner a month. When the Sky deal came in, someone in England still had to have Premier Sports and also pay a monthly subscription to Sky.
The only motivation for Sky to be involved in the GAA is to put a Skybox in every house in the country. That’s the business model. Is that a model for our games?
Given that the GPA now have a guaranteed 15 per cent of GAA commercial revenues, how can they accept what is going on with players? In fairness, Honan told how they had given him a helping hand.
But the argument that players don’t have to do all the training isn’t good enough. You shouldn’t have to opt out because you’re crocked at 27. The players are being used as a commodity for what is now a highly successful commercial organisation.
Croke Park don’t know what to do about the spend on county teams looking set to hit €25 million for 2017. Managements are coming in with these mad, mad training regimes because counties feel they can’t catch up unless they go down that route.
It’s time to cut the spend. Stop this obsessive push to make money. There will be nobody to run clubs in 10 years because those on the ground will be left disenfranchised. There is a widening disconnect with all the pressures on clubs just to feed the county scene.
Don’t just take it from me. Clare secretary Pat Fitzgerald said in that Clare report that the club players feel left out in the cold. It’s there in black and white.
Putting my name to the uplift.ie petition to remove the pay-per-view model from Gaelic games is my attempt to highlight these issues in whatever way I can.
I’m so proud of my association and what is being achieved on so many levels. I’m not trying to be negative – but the direction is coming from the top down.
I think it’s a fair set of questions to ask: What are we being driven by? What is the right sort of balance between the games and work and family life?
What is right for the players?
There is a huge pressure visited on clubs to feed the county scene