Full disclosure of salaries is the only way forward
Association must learn lessons from FAI controversy
THERE has to be a lesson in the John Delaney affair and the FAI crisis for the GAA. One of the more shocking elements of the recent FAI controversy concerned the use of the company credit card, on top of his rent being paid. Those kind of perks add up.
What is the full package then for the top positions in the GAA and Gaelic Players Association, when benefits and pension entitlements are included? As a GAA member, I think we have a right to know.
The last GAA agreement with the GPA was of the order of millions and the GPA now get a 15 per cent cut of commercial revenues.
In 2019, anything less than full transparency is ill advised.
We’re big boys. I’m not saying the salary of every staff member needs to be published – people are entitled to a level of privacy – but certainly the top ones do.
Let’s start with director general Tom Ryan. Imagine it was something obscene, like Delaney’s €360,000 as chief executive. People would have a right to know.
If it’s not anything of that scale – and the general commentary seems to indicate as much – then it’s in the GAA’s interests to show that.
It would be easy to compare with other organisations and show that it is more than justified, given the huge scale of the brief.
It befits an amateur organisation to do this. Why not be open and public? The days of not publishing full and detailed financial statements is gone. They should get it out there, take any backlash – if there is any – and move on.
It’s the same for the Gaelic Players Association and chief executive Paul Flynn.
What has been uncovered in the FAI makes this discussion about money and transparency so important right now. Have we not learned from business? Look at what went on in the banking
sector. If you don’t disclose these things, there can be no comeback.
Nobody here is making any assertions. Tell people what the top salaries of the GAA are, and then what is going on with the GPA.
The latter was set up to improve standards for players.
And, fair play, they have done much in that respect. But it’s perverse to talk about the mental health of players when a lot of it is caused by the demands put on those very same players. Tom Devine recently said he couldn’t continue as a Waterford hurler, couldn’t juggle it with being a junior doctor now that he has qualified. ‘It’s too many hours’ he said. He’s 24.
Odhrán Mac Niallais has opted out with Donegal. A number of Derry footballers are heading to the States. Lots of other hurlers and footballers opted out even before the season began.
Where is the drive from the GPA to rein things in for the county player?
What is it doing for the mental health of players, driving up and down the country for training or for gym sessions and trying
to work on top of that? It’s not the norm for an amateur sportsman to be training six, seven times a week.
Who is benefiting from it? I don’t think the answer is to give them money by heading down the route of semi-professionalism or give them more grants or more expenses – give them back their lives.
I genuinely believe we’ve lost something along the way in recent years.
Look at the 2013 ESRI report which highlighted the massive drop-out rates. With club fixtures on hold, so many lads are going away for the summer.
I’ve become a bit disillusioned with the whole money disease that has crept into the GAA. An awful lot of time is spent by county boards – and clubs – raising money.
We are also losing the balance between the importance of corporate/commercial revenue and the community/grassroots/voluntary based model. It’s the same with county completely taking over the club game.
What about the games programme, fixtures, coaching and playing standards, drop-off?
That’s where the time, resources, and money should be spent.
You have this elephant in the room – ‘Who is paid? Who is not being paid?’
Wouldn’t it be a breath of fresh air if the boss came out and said ‘This is what I’m on’?
Part of the problem with the FAI is that it seemed to do what Delaney wanted it to do.
You need strong independent voices – whether that’s in business, in commentary, in the GAA.
Look at what happened at the last GAA Congress when delegates just seemed to do what they were told. Or with the ticket price increase.
Don’t go on Central Council, or on county boards, unless you are willing to stand on your own two feet. To hold a dissenting view.
Delaney surrounded himself with ‘yes men’ and look how it turned out for the FAI.
There can’t be a fear here of asking these questions.
We recognise that the GAA has to have a commercial element. It would be naive to think otherwise.
But to me, we’ve lost the balance between raising money, having a strong commercial arm and money becoming the dominant factor in the organisation.
What’s going on with development squads is part of the madness. Bringing in young players, putting them up on pedestals.
They are taken away from their clubs who suddenly find access to their own is restricted.
It’s a version of pro sport where players sign up to an academy and leave their roots behind.
If we don’t stop the rot, clubs will become nothing more than feeders.
The county scene has always been elitist. It has to be. But it was never elitist to the level that the club game was collapsing around it. And it’s not just in rural areas. I noticed that the Kilmacud adult hurling team played a round of championship in Dublin but their next group match is in September. This is April.
Those players will be lying idle for the best five months of the year. What is this being driven by? Money, in my view.
Spending on inter-county teams has become a ‘monster’ – the description offered by Tom Ryan when he was director of finance.
As more and more is being pumped in, less is being done to re-balance things.