‘IF YOUR AIM IS TO TAKE OFFENCE, YOU WILL ALWAYS FIND A WAY’
The GPA should know there is no such thing as a problem child when it comes to representing its members... the issue may be down to irresponsible parenting
AMERICAN wit WC Fields put it well: ‘It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.’
This week Paul Flynn and the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) went one step further, marching themselves unannounced to the baptismal font to not only re-christen themselves, but to also insist they would answer to their new moniker.
They decided they have been labelled, or at least those they represent, as the GAA’s ‘problem child’, but, in the end, came across like a confused infant.
Of course, in one sense it was a timely use of an imagined insult, given that the last time we heard a slur like that it tripped from the tongue of John Delaney, when turning his back on League of Ireland and the elite players who play in it.
Except what the GPA has taken offence to was a declaration by GAA director general Tom Ryan – following the release of the GAA’s annual report – that action needed to be taken on the spiralling costs of the preparation of inter-county teams. Those costs reached €30m last year – a rise of 11 per cent.
However, in proving that if your aim is to take offence you will always find a way, Flynn raged at the way his members had been disregarded.
Mind you, he had to search hard for the line before settling on Ryan’s insistence that the continuing inflation levels of inter-county costs was ‘not sustainable’.
Pointing out GAA revenues had increased by 12 per cent, primarily off the back of inter-county activity, Flynn took umbrage: ‘It is disappointing to see that it is the so-called unsustainable costs of those intercounty games commanding such a share of the GAA’s attention.’
Reason dictates that putting a cap on team preparation costs should also be in the interests of GPA members.
After all, in a jointly commissioned report with the GAA and conducted by the Economic Social Research Institute (ESRI), they were able to put numbers on the price paid by inter-county players.
It’s worthy of a brief recap. Apart from the headline average of players committing 31 hours per week to an amateur sport, it found that players compromised personal relationships, careers (promotion opportunities were negatively impacted), had a higher tendency to binge-drink and, above all, their mental well-being was poorer than that of the rest of the population.
The most obvious response should have focused on what action could be taken to ensure this wasn’t allowed to continue.
When the first tranche of those findings were published, this was then-chairman of the GPA Seamus Hickey’s response: ‘We provide players around the country with direct support to help them thrive on and off the pitch but there is still much work to be done as this report shows.
‘We look forward to engaging with the GAA early next year on the next round of negotiations on funding for player support and related programmes,’ he declared.
This is the equivalent of a hod carrier going to a doctor, seeking a sick note because of his bad back, but being advised to go back up the ladder and work even harder so he could afford the physiotherapy to provide some relief.
The GPA have also advised this week that they have yet another report coming out, one which will outline the huge economic value that inter-county players provide to the Irish economy.
You would never have guessed that those negotiations which Hickey referenced are still ongoing, would you?
The GPA, of course, also insist that they have plans, just like the GAA, to ensure that amateurism is sustainable.
If that is truly the case, then it would be easy to imagine them finding common ground with Ryan’s observations this week.
Right now, the curtailment of inter-county preparation costs amounts to no more than a good intention by the GAA, but if it is ever addressed it will require a series of actions.
A cap on preparation costs would be a starting point, followed by a condensed playing season and, per
‘IT DEFIES LOGIC TO SEE SPIRALLING COSTS AS AN INSULT’
haps, even a cap on the number of collective sessions allowed.
It would mean the services of fewer professionals – some of whom demand even more time from players – could be afforded.
A limit on the number of collective training sessions would lessen some of those time-commitment issues.
Of course, it would be abused but it could also be policed – by the players, the GPA and by the imposition of significant sanctions by the GAA.
It defies logic to suggest spiralling team costs can be interpreted as an insult to inter-county players – Flynn claiming that it was the latest ‘ploy to keep players down’ – particularly when it appears to be an acknowledgment of the welfare issues they face.
However, it is much easier to see this as a flexing of the GPA’s muscles as they seek to up the ante in those ongoing, and what are understood to be difficult, negotiations.
The core message from the GPA is that the GAA’s financial wellbeing is sourced in the inter-county game, which is an indisputable fact.
However, that is about the only place where their footing is on solid ground.
Apart from the reality that an unfettered inter-county game has impacted negatively in squeezing the GAA at grassroots, the GPA appears to be leaning on the assumption that without its members there would be no inter-county scene as we know it.
Even if that was true, the reality in GAA is the sense of tribe it instils will always be more potent than the whiff of stardom.
Of course, in the event of a complete breakdown in talks that will only ever be tested by a strike – and it is hard to believe the GPA will ever exert the level of influence on its members to call one – they would be unwise to ever consider throwing their toys out of the pram.
They just might not get them back.
Instead, they should realise that there is no such thing as a problem child, just problem parents.
The GAA have to take responsibility for this as well and need to take action, rather than simply uttering empty words. Right now, they at least seem willing to look in the mirror which is more than can be said for their parenting partner.
Mind you, it’s the children you feel sorry for.