There is no ray of hope for players
Club-only month of April has delivered little change, insist CPA
AT A time when the tension between clubs and the inter-county game threatens to snap, the GAA decide to issue a manifesto. It is a celebration of the association, and a copy of it is to go to every single club in the country.
It was launched, not amidst the grandeur of Croke Park, but at a club in Meath. The message is clear: the GAA is everyone’s.
Among its featured lines, the manifesto declares: ‘Belonging means having a voice, means being listened to.’
There is more in that vein, sentiments shaped by someone who could well have been imagining a Liam Neeson voiceover in their head even as they wrote.
April is club month in the GAA, in itself an admission of the critical pass that has been reached. It is kept largely free of inter-county action, to facilitate counties in prioritising the club scene before the Championship begins and consumes everything until the end of the summer.
‘April hasn’t brought about meaningful change for the club player.’
Micheál Briody is not grandstanding or trying to communicate with Croke Park through hectoring or megaphone negotiation.
He is simply conveying the read of the Club Players Association, of which he is chairman.
The CPA have been in existence over two years, lobbying on behalf of the club player and their frustration at the diminished status of the club game in the GAA.
Relations between the two organisations appear constructive at present, and there does seem to be a willingness on the part of the GAA director general, Tom Ryan, to include the players’ body in efforts to solve the club conundrum.
But last year, it was reported that less than half of counties scheduled club championship matches for April – and of these, all but one had already played championship matches by then.
The GAA argued that the month was not specifically ring-fenced for club championship games, but dedicating a chunk of the calendar to the club game leads to the natural conclusion that games that mean something to players should be staged then. They mostly weren’t. There is no equivocation on the part of Briody: April hasn’t worked in improving the situation of the club hurler or footballer.
‘The main reason is that every county starts their Championship at different times. April means something different to Dublin, who will have a relatively easy firstround fixture in Leinster, than it does to Cavan and Monaghan going ding-dong in the first round in Ulster,’ he says.
‘A club period will only work if every county was starting on say, May 20. Then you can say April is all club, and after that counties have access to players for three weeks.
‘But with so many start dates, it’s very difficult to enforce it all.’
Starting again has been a
tireless message from the CPA: rather than trying to create free weeks here and there to squeeze in club games, start again with a blank page. They insist the crisis is of that magnitude. ‘Certainly there are no rays of hope for players,’ says Briody. ‘Some of that is down to our silence (on the issue in recent months), because we’re trying to engage with Croke Park and deliver change. ‘But players aren’t seeing change. If we can come out of this process and deliver change, they’ll be happy. But if we can’t or the GAA can’t, then there will be significant unrest again,’ he warns. ‘There is unrest there. We’re getting emails saying, “This is getting worse”. We’re getting a lot of that, and trying to explain the situation to them. We’re trying to look at meaningful change. ‘You cannot hide the fact that the club player is worse off the last two years,’ he says, alluding to the advent of the Super 8s and the introduction of round-robin formats in the Munster and Leinster hurling Championships. ‘There is an opportunity and there is a will there with Tom Ryan and (GAA president) John Horan to correct that imbalance.
‘It’s a huge opportunity for them, and I do hope they grasp it.’
Horan angered the CPA with comments at Congress that asked the CPA for their solutions to the fixtures crisis, at a time when they were in discussions with GAA officials on that very issue.
It led to Briody describing the comments at the time as ‘disrespectful’.
The engagement continues, though, with a new committee to be set up to look at the problem. The club players’ body will be part of that, with a view to bringing proposals to Congress next year, and change following in 2021.
The presence that lurks over the entire issue is the inter-county game.
Ryan spoke on Monday at the launch of the new manifesto. ‘We’re conscious that we need to create space for clubs,’ he told RTÉ.
‘It’s up to counties and indeed clubs themselves to take advantage of those opportunities.’
That is a major part of the current difficulties.
No matter what determination there is on the part of centralised leadership within the GAA, counties control the scheduling of club fixtures.
And in too many counties, managers of the county teams wield enormous influence.
If they want weekends kept free to protect players ahead of the Championship, or if they want a programme of games cancelled, their wishes are invariably granted.
The county game is the star attraction in Gaelic games, of course. It brings in supporters, sponsors and broadcasters eager to pay for access to matches.
And the changes in the hurling Championship that proved such a tremendous success in Munster, in particular, last season have repercussions for the club game, as did the advent of the Super 8s.
‘I’d struggle to see how anyone could say the Super 8s or the hurling changes have benefitted the club,’ says Briody.
‘It hasn’t. It means in May, June and July, there is no club championship.
‘In early summer now, you have inter-county hurling, and in late summer you have the Super 8s.
‘But you don’t know who those eight are, so how do you plan your championship? Take my own county, Meath,’ he argues. ‘It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Meath could reach the Super 8s this year.
‘Now whether we get there or not, changes entirely what the Meath County Board can do for their clubs. But you can’t plan for any of that.’
Certain phrases have recurred throughout the Super 8s campaign: ‘blank canvas’, ‘meaningful change’, ‘no quick fixes’.
And since their launch in January 2017, nothing has happened that weakens their position or requires a change of language.
Better communication with the GAA authorities is a help, but the club crisis will only be solved by radical change.
The radical proposal from the Cork board last month that a future club championship structure could involve matches being played without county players caused consternation and was voted down heavily by delegates.
It was praised for at least starting a debate, but nothing can be done to seriously improve the club lot while the county game has so much power invested in it.
Either clawing back some of that control or shortening further the inter-county season seem the options that Croke Park could consider.
Both appear distant possibilities, and for now, from the perspective of another club month, the chances of change that could improve the lives of tens of thousands of club players all over the country are similarly remote.
‘YOU COULDN’T SAY THAT THE SUPER 8s HAS HELPED CLUB PLAYERS’