Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Gaelic Players Abandoned
IF I was a player right now, more than any time since the formation of the GPA, I would be worried about them as a body looking after my welfare.
Mother Nature hasn’t been kind to our GAA games this winter and the upheaval has been disastrous for some.
Combine that with all the many hours of talking about April being kept clear for clubs, the third level player being battered for a couple of months between the college and county, it’s been a pretty rough period for all concerned at intercounty level.
The GPA is there to look after county players.
Whether people like it or not, that’s the job description,
haven’t touched on the subject in a long time, but what made me put pen to paper was the GPA’S statement released around midnight last Sunday about the proposed refixing of called off games.
The statement was dreadful, a flippant, weak token made on behalf of county players.
“The GPA is supporting a number of squads who have outlined their commitment not to fulfil their fixtures tomorrow due to players’ unavailability,” it read.
That didn’t make any sense because the players went ahead and played the games that didn’t fall foul of the weather.
The present GPA chairman Seamus Hickey of Limerick – he’s also the acting CEO – played on Monday in the rescheduled fixture against Clare (below).
He’s a damn good hurler and a great leader of the Limerick team, and boy did he give his all. But think of the irony of that.
There’s more and this where the GPA is just pushing the self-destruct button. It’s obvious they don’t really know where they’re at.
“In 2017 over 70 per cent of our intercounty squads voted against the revised fixture schedule, which was subsequently passed at the GAA Congress,” the statement coni tinued. Imagine the GPA putting that into the statement when the schedule was passed without proper opposition. It’s staggering. The GPA’S lack of effort to stop it was an embarrassment.
Only two days before it was passed at Congress, the GPA finally went to their members about this proposed groundbreaking change. The association hadn’t done their business in terms of vetting their members and educating them.
This is the body meant to be looking after the intercounty players and also allowed to preside over €6 million of the GAA’S money every year.
And yet, as things stand, the GPA has no chief executive, no chief operating officer, no press officer and, I’m led to believe, no national development officer.
Having no CEO is probably the most serious issue. Croke Park’s casual approach to this whole situation is very serious, especially given that Dermot Earley came and went as the GPA’S CEO.
I said it on the radio this week, I believe, unless there are miraculous changes, the GPA is not fit for purpose and it will evaporate slowly and eventually dissolve.
Intercounty players deserve better with the amount of problems facing them right now.