It’s clear where loyalties lie with weak statement

IN these pages yesterday, Eddie Brennan took aim at the GAA for its failure to take counties that are training in the current club window to task.

He also fired a broadside at the GPA for its silence on a matter that affects many of its members that are currently torn between club and county.

“The GPA have just disappeared off the face of the earth on this matter,” said the Laois senior hurling manager (below).

“The only thing I heard from them was the insurance scheme, which is important, but if it’s the players’ representative body, then that is their task, they should be looking out for the players’ interests, they should be thrashing this out or backing them.”

Then the GPA reappeared yesterday evening but only to request once again that the GAA restore its injury benefit scheme for training sessions taking place before September 14.

There was no condemnation of the fact that many, though not all, counties are currently in training, much less any commitment to try and intervene on behalf of the players they represent.

Instead of trying to avert a situation whereby players are hopelessly trying to serve two masters at once, the GPA is lobbying to get them insured for gatherings that shouldn’t be taking place at all.

“It is the role of each county board to ensure these training sessions are not sanctioned prior to the agreed dates,” was as close as a 550-word statement came to addressing the matter.

So, the GPA is happy to leave the matter in the hands of county boards that are complicit in the whole affair, rather than relay a simple message to its members that they should concentrate on club matters only for now, in line with GAA policy the GPA helped to frame.

Remember, while county boards have a duty of care to players, they are largely made up of volunteers. The GPA, led by its chief executive Paul Flynn, is in receipt of millions of euro from the GAA, and other sources, on an annual basis. Its brief is player welfare, nothing else.

What if a player comes to the GPA with his expenses several months late and he’s out of pocket? Will he be fobbed off with “it is the role of each county board to ensure that these expenses are paid”?

The statement painted players as some sort of victims in the “sustained negative discourse surrounding county players”, despite the fact criticism has been aimed largely at managers for calling county training sessions and county boards for allowing them to take place.

If anything, there is broad sympathy for the difficult position players have been placed in – a position that the GPA is doing nothing to advance.

The statement added: “Inter-county players are incredibly proud and passionate to represent their communities; as a player it has always been club and county, not club v county.”

We know where the GPA’S loyalties lie.