Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
JAMES AND OBJECTIVES
Former Tribe keeper says pay should be on GAA’S agenda
FORMER Galway goalkeeper James Skehill believes county players should be semi-professional - and insists the GAA could afford it.
Skehill announced his retirement from county hurling in December after 14 seasons and describes playing at that level as a “huge commitment”, saying that
“you might not have 40 hours a week of training but I can tell you that you will have
100 hours a week of thinking, managing, trying to move the pieces around on the board”.
Speaking on the Backdoor GAA Podcast, he said that financial recompense is the only way that he can see justification for the seemingly ever-increasing demands placed on players.
Skehill explained: “However controversial this may be, but I believe the players should be paid. I am not saying paid full-time, but I do believe they should get some exemptions whether it be tax or paid part-time that would allow them to do possibly a part-time job and allow them to train at a very high level.
“The word ‘professional’ is thrown out a good bit in the GAA. Yes, in writing, we are not professional, that is a fact. However in application and in time spent we are professional.
“I do believe the finances are in order to provide counties, especially on a national level from Croke Park down, that you could have a semiprofessional outfit.
“What is the answer? That is the only answer I can see. Someone can provide a very good argument against that then that is fair enough that is their opinion. Beyond that answer, I don’t have too many others.
“It is hard to find answers and it is going to become more apparent in the next couple of years because the preparation levels are going up, up and up.”
It emerged in
February that county players had lost the elite status exemption that the Irish Government had afforded them in order to complete the 2020 Championships last winter, something that Skehill took exception to.
He said: “I thought they picked and chose what suited them. It is an elite sport, no matter what way you look at it. There is a lot of people in this country, there is a lot of finger-pointing, they create debate for no reason whatsoever and you will get people who will stick to the letter of the law when it comes to the wording.
“Yes, the GAA is not professional but to say it is not elite is a bit disingenuous to be honest.”
The Cappataggle man also spoke about the fallout surrounding Anthony Cunningham’s departure as Galway manager in 2015, with the bulk of the players not satisfied that the set up was up to scratch.
“Was it done smoothly? No it wasn’t. It was a bad way of doing things. Looking back on it, could we have done things much different as a player group? I don’t think we could have. We couldn’t have done much more.
“We wanted a change. We wanted a better set up, a more professional set up and we stuck to our guns and it just wasn’t accepted at the time and we had to go through a certain process to make sure that it got accepted.
“Look at what happened a couple of years later – we won an All-ireland.”