Professionalism beckons

POLICY is no match for the facts on the ground, as the GAA will soon come to understand. For its entire existence the GAA’s policy has been that it’s an amateur organisation, that it doesn’t pay coaches, that it doesn’t pay players.

The policy largely holds true to this very day. There are paid development coaches and administrators, of course, but that’s not really what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about pay for play.

Under the counter table payments for managers are an obvious issue and a serious contravention of policy, but again that’s not the issue at stake. We’re talking about players getting compensated for what they do beyond the usual grants and expenses.

Through inertia or neglect or short-sightedness or whatever else, the GAA has allowed the facts on the ground develop in such a way that professionalism is looking increasingly inevitable.

The report by the ESRI (Economic and Social Research Institute) into the lives of inter-county footballers and hurlers should make for sobering reading at Headquarters this winter.

What the report revealed is not sustainable in the long term. Players are spending up to thirty one hours a week on their inter-county careers. That’s not far off the working week in Ireland which is thirty nine hours.

It’s hard for the rest of us to wrap our heads around how intense that must be, save to say that none of us would be too keen to work two full-time jobs. Of course the analogy isn’t quite one-to-one.

Players obviously love what they do and say as much in the report. A lot of this has been driven by players. They want the best possible preparations, they’re willing to do the work, not only because they want to win, but because they enjoy it.

And the GAA was happy to allow all of this. The trouble is now that the demands have escalated to such a point that it’s a monster the GAA is ill-equipped to deal with. Players and mangers aren’t going to tone down their preparations. No, that the train has left the station there’s no way of getting it back on the platform.

The line of travel is only in one direction – towards ever increasing professionalism and standards and after that some form of pay for play. Against the facts on the ground, policy doesn’t stand a chance.