And not just to the GPA, says Dublin’s Bernard Brogan
Gaelic games need commercialism to thrive, insists Brogan
THOSE who like to paint a bleak picture of the GAA being pulled kicking and screaming down the road to professionalism by a clique of radicalised players should have been in Nando’s in Blanchardstown on Tuesday evening.
Togged out in the staff uniform of the restaurant, Bernard Brogan certainly doesn’t look like a man intent on bringing the association down a road less travelled, much less tearing down the pillars of amateurism. Nor his Dublin team-mates Michael Darragh Macauley, Paul Flynn, Eoghan O’Gara or brother Alan who each took turns serving customers, all with a view to raising funds for Aware, the voluntary organisation established to support those affected by depression.
And yet the recent debate about the role of the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) and where it will ultimately lead the GAA has been none too subtly linked to the financial pulling power of Dublin and its top stars.
Bernard Brogan may be a long-time supporter of the GPA but he has no deep desire to see the game he loves embrace a form of professionalism
‘I don’t know if I’d like to see professionalism. Obviously, no more than playing for Man United, you’d love to wake up every day playing sport and I’d love to be able to do that playing for Dublin — in a perfect world.
‘But that’s not the case. And I don’t think it’s sustainable in the GAA, in a small country like Ireland with the game we have. Maybe a long time down the road.’
While the GPA fought long and hard for official recognition and the annual government-funded grant scheme to support senior inter-county players, Brogan feels that the government could do more to support the time and sacrifices made by players at elite level.
He points to the tax break afforded to professional sportsmen in this country, introduced by former Fianna Fáil Finance minister Charlie McCreevy on Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s watch.
‘What’s more important I think is perhaps giving tax benefits or something for the players that way, like the way rugby players can benefit. If it’s about adding to the fabric of Irish society and culture, who does that more than the GAA?’
The charismatic forward is a double All-Ireland winner, former Footballer of the Year and poster boy for the Dublin football revolution. But he is also just a guy trying to make his way in business with his sports agency Legacy Consultants. The ‘Show me the money’ wisecracks, referencing Tom Cruise and the Hollywood hit movie Jerry Maguire, have long since worn off; he is just like anyone else hoping to grow a new venture.
HE HAS nothing but praise for the GPA in that regard. He has listened to the recent criticisms that the GAA and GPA have been overcommercial in their agenda of late, but he is not one to yearn for a romanticised Ireland.
‘The GAA is a massive organisation. People are saying that it’s gone too commercial and the GPA are doing the same but everything has to be commercial. You can’t have programmes for the stuff that the GPA do, like on mental health, without the funds to operate the resources they have. The funding that they give for career advice to a lot of guys coming out of college I would have availed of. Advice with your business that we would have availed of. There are so many programmes out there that people don’t even know about.’
It’s typical of Brogan’s sunny-side up disposition that he sees an upside to the public criticisms attached to the recent debate. ‘What has happened in this discussion is that it’s given the GPA a chance to talk about what they do which is great. I think some people are starting to learn – “Oh God, yeah, they deliver that many programmes… I wouldn’t have known that.”
‘Even some inter-county players wouldn’t have known the full extent of the programmes that are there whether it’s in relation to mental health or starting up a business or you’re looking for a scholarship or looking to go back to college or you’re a past player looking to go back to school — there are loads of programmes t that have done well.’
And only to the betterment of players a and the association as a whole, he insists.
‘It allows players to put their best foot f forward. That’s all you’re looking for. The elite county players give so much time and effort to the cause. A lot of them will sacrifice career and business opportunities, and the GPA in fairness are giving them an opportunity to get back on the horse and sort a new career.’
Before official recognition and a shared blueprint with the GAA, player coups and county board stand-offs were commonplace, the bitterest of scenarios played out in Cork where the third strike ended in the n nadir of death threats to county hurling manager Gerald McCarthy and his family.
A return to the days of threatened strike action by the GPA or various county squads over key issues is not one which w would serve the game, believes Brogan.
‘There should be better means of mediation than that. I don’t see that as the route to go down. The GPA have the players’ interests at heart and they have a good “in” with the GAA, so I’d hope that wouldn’t happen.’
As to the suggestion that the GPA — or high-profile players like himself — aren’t doing enough to highlight other issues such as the club fixture chaos, he replies: ‘If people want something done for the clubs and they went to the GPA and said “we need this” and we need funding to do x, y and z, then it’s a different conversation. The GPA was set up for inter-county players and that’s what it does.
‘There are loads of issues that people talk about that are valid but you can’t be all things to all men. You can’t do every- thing for everyone and do it for nothing. There has to be a bit of realism.’
Because Brogan is that club player too. The trauma of losing to Donegal in the All-Ireland semi-final was compounded by St Oliver Plunkett-Eoghan Ruadh’s singlepoint defeat by St Vincent’s in the recent Dublin county football final, continuing the club’s wait for a coveted senior title.
STOICLY, Brogan says: ‘We gave it a lash. That’s just the way it goes. Literally a kick of a ball in it at the end. We had three attacks at the end that we didn’t get a good shot off — you would at least have liked to have a go at the posts. I had one ball — I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t kick it.
‘I tried to move it into a better position, passed it off, and it got intercepted. We had a couple of opportunities — one could have been a free — but that’s life.’
He knows that it is not ideal to have the club championship run off like a blitz competition in late autumn and is open to change regarding the structuring of the whole county and club season, and the All-Ireland Championship itself.
‘You see some people giving opinions about what way it should be, whether it should be a Champions League format, or a league type format — there are some great options out there.
‘Is there a solution? Well, you take St Vincent’s and it shouldn’t be a case of playing for 20 months straight. The calendar year is something that could work.
‘It’s not an easy solution. If you take county boards — and I would be one of the first ones to say that some fixtures are bad or good — there are so many fixtures that have to be fitted in, so many people that they’re trying to appease, it’s a complex matrix to put a fixtures schedule together.
‘It’s hard to know the answer. There is one there somewhere but I’m not too sure what it is.’
If tax benefits are about adding to the fabric of society, who does it more than the GAA?