‘GPA HAVE GONE OFF FACE OF THE EARTH’
playing field and, in a year of extraordinary circumstances, let’s give everyone the exact same crack at it.
“You’d like to be doing something with the players but, the reality is, the players are with their clubs and that directive was sent out.
“But then we have this farcical situation where they turn around and say there’s no sanctions for it so for me it’s a Pontius Pilate job from the hierarchy of the GAA.”
Taking a hardline approach, even at this stage, throwing out counties that are found to be training wouldn’t be draconian in Brennan’s view.
“I think it’s a fair sanction. The reality is, if you’re going to make rules, there has to be a punishment for them. It’s just a mad situation.
“The top brass of the GAA, John Horan (right) or whoever, all they’ve done is basically say, ‘Do you know what lads, we don’t want to get involved in the dirt of it, we don’t want to have this blot on our copybook. Do we want to get involved in going after counties and hopping off them? No, we don’t, so let them fight it out themselves, let’s wash our hands of this’.
“But yet they saw fit to, a few years ago, punish the Laois footballers which John Sugrue was very, very outspoken about and rightly so. They got punished for putting their hand up and saying, ‘Do you know what, we did train’.
“Meanwhile, you had other teams that offered farcical excuses and it was just accepted so the message there was, ‘Be sneaky and deny everything and it’s all ok’. It’s frustrating to see that.
“It’s not a run of the mill year. I think it’s farcical, I think it’s ridiculous that teams are training in bogs, they’re training in parks, this kind of carry-on.”
Ordinarily based in the Garda Training College in Templemore, the former Kilkenny star has been redeployed in Waterford over the course of the coronavirus crisis.
“I’ve been out and we have been restricting movements and monitoring that – that’s our job. So I would be the world’s biggest hypocrite if I was to turn around and start
ALONG with GAA inaction, the silence of the Gaelic Players Association has been deafening of late, says Eddie Brennan.
Although the GPA, under chief executive Paul Flynn (inset), has called for the GAA’S player insurance scheme to be restored prior to September
14, there has been no criticism from the players’ body of county training sessions that have been taking place of late.
Brennan said: “The GPA have just disappeared off the face of the earth on this matter.
“The only thing I heard from them was the insurance scheme, which is important, but if it’s the players’ representative
body, then organising sneaky training sessions or talking out of both sides of my mouth.
“It’s like putting seven or eight lads into the vault of a bank and telling them, ‘Right lads, there’s no sanction if the money goes missing’. It’s something akin to that.
“‘Look lads, you’re not allowed take that money but, if you do take it and you get caught, there’s no problem. We’re not going to do anything to you’. That’s effectively the scenario at the moment.
“People can interpret what I’m saying as a whinge – it’s not. It’s the reality of what’s going on in GAA circles at the moment and, for me, the leadership of the GAA have been found badly wanting.” that is their task, they should be looking out for the players’ interests, they should be thrashing this out or backing them.”
Brennan accepted that players have a personal responsibility too.
“I do think players nowadays are streetwise, they’re smart, they know the story. But, I suppose, I’d be slow to criticise them because players nowadays are striving for edges and they want to perform for both club and county. Nobody knows what’s around the corner – this could be your last year playing inter-county.
“To some extent, managers and county boards are the ones that need to show leadership here and Michael Duignan put it very bluntly – they need to grow a set.
“Just to say, ‘Hold on there lads, let’s do the right thing here’.”
WBO super middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders may retire because his friend and advisor Daniel Kinahan is walking away from boxing.
The British Olympian, left, reckons Kinahan, who has been linked to organised crime by the Gardai and the FBI, is a big loss to the sport. Saunders said: “Making fights is more stressful than getting ready to fight. I took a lot of advice from a very personal friend of mine in Daniel, above.
“He’s (Kinahan) walking away from boxing, which is a big, big loss in my eyes. I don’t know if I want to be a part of it at this level anymore. Without a man you can trust in this game, it’s something I don’t want to be involved in any more.”
FORMULA ONE