Shane McGrath Paul Flynn has his work cut out to repair the GPA’s image
TRAVIS TYGART is known as the man who brought down Lance Armstrong. He is the CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, and most of his work is less exciting and more granular than that. Exposing the most infamous cheat in the history of sport was an extraordinary story but anti-doping is also about education, and about reminding elite athletes of the importance of not only competing clean, but doing so in a way that the public can see and in which they find assurance.
He gave interesting quotes to an English newspaper on Friday, the subject being the distances ran by Russia’s soccer players in their first two World Cup games.
Russian players filled the first three spots in distance covered over 90 minutes. As a team, they ran 73 miles in their opening match against Saudi Arabia.
The next best figure as of Friday was 71 miles – racked up by Russia in their second match, against Egypt. Coming from a country responsible for a state-organised doping programme as shameful and extensive as any in the dismal recorded history of performance-enhancing drugs, their efforts have attracted suspicion.
And this prompted the following comment from Tygart, an opinion that cuts past suspicions of Russia and to an understanding that every athlete who considers themselves elite must grasp.
‘It’s unfair to draw conclusions about individuals or teams based solely on performance,’ he told the Daily Telegraph.
‘I think athletes deserve to have a system in place that protects them and corroborates when they say, when the questions will inevitably come, “I have a gold-standard programme in my country and that gives me proof that I’m being held to the highest standards, so you cannot only hear me say I’m clean, but you can also trust I’m clean”.’
Paul Flynn will presumably have much to do when he assumes the leadership of the Gaelic Players’ Association in September.
Lobbying is central to the existence of any representative association, while fundraising has been a particular passion of the GPA for years.
But there are posers more fundamental to the body that Flynn should consider, and one is just who the GPA think they are, in the actual sense of that phrase.
Their unique cultural value was a vital part of their sales pitch when it came to Government grants.
That status was also central to their flabbergasting submission to the Government in 2016 when they sought millions in increased grants in exchange for their value as cultural and athletic exemplars. Then-chief executive Dessie Farrell referred to its membership as ‘iconic role models’. The status of inter-county stars in Irish life cannot be questioned and if it was once undervalued by the GAA authorities, it is no longer.
But the GPA want to be more than ‘iconic’. Their long campaign for State funding also relied on the argument they are elite athletes.
The one issue that has exposed the flimsiness of that designation is anti-doping.
The intemperate response of GPA president Seamus Hickey on the issue of home testing in recent weeks proved as much and when the GPA’s unhappiness became public, there were the social media equivalent of eye rolls from athletes in other disciplines.
They understand that with their athletic profiles – for which most receive nothing like the public attention, and consequent commercial opportunities that leading GAA players do – come responsibilities.
There is nothing to suggest there is a doping problem in Gaelic games, but there is, within the institution, a resentment towards drugtesting that hasn’t dissipated.
This is not especially detectable within the GPA, but in their reaction to the recent request of Sport Ireland for addresses, the association looked anything but elite.
This isn’t the only issue Flynn needs to address. The hunger for fundraising in America never looks anything but distasteful.
If, as they argue, these trips raise money that support welfare initiatives, then Flynn should demand more from the GAA when the agreement made between the two comes up for renewal in 2019.
This is year two of the present agreement, which sees the GPA receive funding of €6.2 million per annum.
If they need more than that, they should look for it in Croke Park.
Elitism is a common concern among the wider GAA membership, and the GPA are seen as symptomatic of the problem.
Disproving that should be a big part of Paul Flynn’s new job.