‘Full-time’ Chin would welcome pay-for-play
Chin’s barber days are behind him
WEXFORD’S Lee Chin has revealed his support for a financial allowance for senior inter-county players. A leaked GAA report, ‘Towards 2034 — the 150th anniversary of the GAA’, recommends a ‘defined and agreed allowance’ for players and managers whilst retaining ‘their existing amateur status’. Chin, 25, already counts himself as a full-time hurler, having devoted himself almost exclusively, to the game. He is partly supported by three sponsorship deals and has no plans to return to work any time soon. ‘I don’t think it [the report] is a bad idea,’ said Chin. ‘This is not our job, it’s our hobby and we love it. The GAA was never built on the fact that players get paid and everyone that goes into the game understands that and knows that but, in the future, if there were players to be compensated for their efforts, I don’t think any player would object to it. It could be a decent idea in the future to help guys out financially.’ Chin said professionalism is discussed among players. ‘You have chats, you fantasise about professionalism in sport,’ added the Wexford vicecaptain. ‘Obviously it does come up, it’s a topic.’
ANDY MORAN, TJ Reid and Conor McDonald, three iconic GAA players whose sporting careers have all benefited from moving to the same day job.
While many of their inter-county peers have turned to teaching to find extra time for training, Footballer of the Year Moran and hurling stars Reid and McDonald have chosen to open gyms.
Moran and Reid both packed in jobs as sales reps before taking the giant leap, while Wexford fullforward McDonald is a matter of months into his new role.
It’s hardly a coincidence that their form has improved dramatically but, if they think they’ve got it cracked, they should consider Lee Chin’s enviable situation.
Chin, Wexford joint captain and one of the players of his generation, is 25 now and hasn’t held down a full-time job in three years. What’s more, he has no plans to jump into employment any time soon. Exactly how he’s managed to fund that lifestyle remained unclear until yesterday.
‘I do an awful lot of work with my sponsors and stuff, it’s something that I probably wouldn’t have talked about in the past,’ said Chin, speaking at another corporate event — the launch of Leinster GAA’s 2018 Beko Club Bua awards.
‘At the moment I have three,’ continued Chin. ‘Three of my main sponsors would be Fulfil Nutrition, I only recently signed with O’Neills sportswear and also with a sports drink firm from the UK, iPro Sport.”
Chin’s family run a Chinese restaurant —the Chin Can Cook — in Wexford Town, but it’s the sponsorship money that appears to be sustaining the versatile forward.
‘Well yeah, of course I am on a retainer with them,’ he explained. ‘It’s not something that I like talking about in terms of it’s going to make a living for me. It’s what they do for my service, it’s what they feel I’m worth. We just work together on a lot of things. I enjoy working with them.’
Chin last worked full-time as a barber and knows he could probably cash in on his status as one of the most recognisable figures in Wexford by opening his own business, but isn’t interested in doing so.
‘A lot of the lads would encourage me to open a barber’s in Wexford, get all the young fellas in and cut their hair,’ said Chin. ‘It’s just something that I don’t think I’d be entirely happy doing. It’s something I think I’d be happy putting to the side for the minute, maybe in a few years’ time I could open a shop and do it. In terms of other lines of work, it would just be working in the family business at home now and again, getting involved when I’m needed. That’s the stuff I do and working with my sponsors.
‘It’s not hugely intense every week but you would have something to do with sponsors, either meeting with guys going through stuff that they would want to do over the next couple of weeks, turning up for photo shoots, social media stuff, working on little things like that.’
Chin has had a little more time on his hands of late as he’s recovering from a hamstring tear. He reckons he should be fit for the Championship, but the former Wexford dual player won’t be playing any football as he narrows his focus to hurling.
Landing serious silverware with Wexford is his goal, but he maintained that manager Davy Fitzgerald didn’t have any part in his decision to push work to the side.
‘Of course not,’ he insisted. ‘Davy would never have recommended that I go down this route for the betterment of Wexford, or for me. It’s something I consciously decided to do for myself. Davy would be on the other side of it. He’d ask me what am I going to do. What am I planning on doing in the future. He definitely supports what I’m doing right now, but he would encourage that I get my thinking cap on, too.’
Moran opened his gym in Castlebar in 2015 and was last year named Footballer of the Year while Reid is arguably the hottest player in hurling right now after opening his gym last year.
Wexford were on the end of Reid’s majesty in the recent Allianz League semi-final when the Ballyhale man scored 0-15, repeating that feat in the final win over Tipperary last weekend.
‘I think there was a bit of a promo on Facebook about the previous time Tipperary and Kilkenny had met in a League final, 2014 I think it was,’ said Chin. ‘I looked at TJ Reid and he looked like a little boy. Compared to how he is now, you can see he’s a different specimen of a man. The same type of hurling is all there, he’s still an incredible hurler but he looks bigger, a stronger athlete more than anything else.’