Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
TOM HAS A THEORY OF EVOLUTION
Ryan reckons idea of second tier football has merit
BEHIND Tom Ryan in the Coiste Bainisti room in Croke Park hangs pictures of his 18 predecessors as director general of the GAA.
It was an office that saw plenty of traffic in the early decades of the Association before stability set in, with Ryan just the fifth incumbent since 1929.
But his immediate predecessor, Paraic Duffy, will have been familiar with many of the questions directed the Carlow man’s way at Headquarters yesterday.
Football Championship structure. TV rights. The GPA. The CPA. Illegal payments to managers, and so on.
Regarding the first issue, GAA president John Horan is in favour of a second tier in football and Ryan certainly thinks it should be considered.
“I’d see it very much as an evolution,” he said. “We are about to embark on three years of trial, experimentation, whatever
you’d like to call it. At the end of that, we’ll probably know where we need to go next in terms of an evolution. I don’t think it’s a finished article. I think it’s well worth having the debate.
“I can remember my own county playing in the B football All-ireland and winning one a long time ago, and it was a big thing.
“I’ve seen last summer the impact even a modest run in the Championship in a small county can bring, so I wouldn’t dismiss those things for a second.
“The attraction with a competition like the League is that every team is going out with more or less a 50-50 chance of beating every other team, which is a structure we haven’t always had with the football Championship.”
Arguably the most divisive issue of Duffy’s tenure was the broadcasting deal with Sky Sports.
Yet, despite more games in this year’s Championships thanks to a round robin element being introduced in both hurling and football, Ryan said they will not be increasing the number of live matches beyond the 45 which RTE and Sky currently share.
“We’re not going to review it until the contracts expire at the end of the 2021 Championship season. It was at Congress in 2016 which means it can go back to Congress in 2020. It’s really at that stage that we’ll be looking at what opportunities are ahead of us for broadcasting.
“I’d ask people to take cognisance of the fact that if we’re going to put out 200 or 300 coaches in a year, spend five or six million on capital projects, we need to bring in an income. I’m always more concerned with what we do with the money as opposed to where we take it in from.”
But where the GAA directs its money is a source of ire for many, particularly in light of the last multi-million euro deal with the GPA.
Ryan wouldn’t be drawn on his stance on the players’ body’s fundraising efforts in America, with tickets for a recent event in Boston costing up to US$50,000.
“They have their own responsibilities to fulfil to their own members – we wouldn’t be talking to them all the time about what their plans might be for the years ahead but in terms of the agreement that we entered into with them, I’m happy with how it’s operating.”