DUFF ACT TO FOLLOW Former president Brennan pays tribute to Paraic’s role in guiding the GAA through choppy waters

FORMER GAA president Nickey Brennan has hailed Paraic Duffy’s legacy as he prepares to stand down as director general.

It emerged yesterday that Duffy will retire from the GAA’S highest administrative office on March 31 next year, by which time he will have completed 10 years in the position.

Brennan, president from 200609, was in situ when Duffy was appointed, having recruited him as the GAA’S first player welfare officer not long before that.

The Kilkenny native said: “His 10-year term will be seen as hugely positive, hugely successful and he has effected a range of change in the GAA that has seen it move steadily.

“You’ve got to bear in mind that the early part of his time in the GAA was when Ireland, economically, was in fairly dire straits.

“Yet, in all of that time the GAA has continued to prosper and has continued to be a solid organisation and it has managed to ride out the difficult times.

“His stewardship would be one of the key reasons why that was possible.”

Reflecting on why Duffy was chosen for the role a decade ago, Brennan said:

“First of all he’d immense knowledge of the workings of the GAA. He’d worked in numerous capacities in the

GAA.

“The fact that he had come into Croke

Park as player welfare manager, those of us around at that stage were very easily able to see the influence he was having, the way that he went about engaging with people, his work ethic and his commitment to the role that he took on at that time, which was player welfare; so his capabilities were there.”

Duffy’s tenure is not without its critics, however, with the deals which have granted exclusive coverage of Championship games to Sky Sports one of the more divisive developments of his tenure.

“I think if people see the Sky deal as a legacy that Paraic Duffy left, they’re doing an awful injustice to both Paraic and the GAA,” Brennan insisted.

“There have been numerous media deals but the move to Sky was as much to effect a more realistic value for the GAA product. That was the driver there, more than just having it on Sky TV.”

Brennan added: “The whole GAA-GPA scenario, he was a significant factor in bringing that to a conclusion, along with others.

“When I finished it was heading in the right direction but it had much more to go and certainly Paraic’s influence was one of the reasons it was

brought over the line.”