Trade-off for player grants is a grubby arrangement
O’Connell’s comments should serve as a wake-up call
AWILLINGNESS to give a platform to former stars is a recurring weakness in sport. Because someone excelled as a competitor, it is presumed the qualities they relied on in those days will survive retirement. The execrable standards of punditry to which readers, viewers and listeners are often exposed give the lie to that throughout the sporting seasons.
There are others who maintain the authority they exuded on the field of play. Mick O’Connell’s feats in the Kerry colours were many. Four All-Ireland medals and 12 Munster Championships feed the bare arithmetic, but his status relies on more than counting up old glories.
Most of us writing about O’Connell (above) nowadays never saw him play, but his name is still understood as synonymous with victory, elegance and dignity.
He turned 80 on Wednesday, and was interviewed on Raidió na Gaeltachta to note the occasion. The opinions he expressed on the issue of grants for inter-county players were a reminder of the value a distinguished retired high achiever can bring to contemporary debates.
It has been consistently maintained by many, including on this page, that there is no practical or moral argument for favouring one group of amateur athletes with precious public funds. O’Connell’s views add enormous heft to that position.
‘It’s okay for the GAA to generate money in Croke Park and to spend it on the players if they want to, but I don’t agree at all that Government money, money the Government of Ireland collected through taxes from the ordinary person, is being paid to players,’ O’Connell told Raidió na Gaeltachta, in comments reported by He said that money should be spent in health and education, and he is correct. There is no sustainable case to be made for this scheme, even though details of a new, more valuable deal were trumpeted only weeks ago. The disastrous problems in the Irish health service, shamefully obvious in recent days, provide plaintive evidence of where the priorities should fall in the allocation of public money. But the case against player grants does not rely on emotive specific instances. There have traditionally been two lines pursued in the case for the grants. One was a plea for equivalence with other amateur sportspeople. But that ignored the great advantages GAA players enjoyed over even the best Olympians in the country in terms of coverage and public profile, and the commercial opportunities that are a consequence of that.
It also overlooked the fact that whereas the best athletes in the country have to devote themselves full-time in pursuit of world-class standards and so make do with modest grants, GAA players pursue careers in tandem with their sporting lives.
The other argument for the grants leant on the cultural importance of the GAA. The uniqueness of the GAA will be passionately defended here, but that culture is maintained throughout the organisation, and is now celebrated in well-worn caricatures, from those preparing pitches, to the people washing gear, selling lotto tickets and ferrying youngsters to and from training every weekend of the year.
It is not just the boys of summer, extraordinary though they may be, that nourish the games and the communities in which they thrive.
‘This new arrangement will facilitate the development of an important programme between Government and players in tackling some of the more intractable societal challenges in Ireland today,’ said Dessie Farrell after details of the new grants deal were made public.
The Taoiseach was at that announcement, looking as happy as any politician does when using sport to generate good news. Farrell’s comments are an echo of what was being proposed by the GPA in a letter to a previous Minister for Sport, Paschal Donohoe.
Then, the players’ body suggested its involvement in campaigns to support road safety and tourism, and assist in the fight against obesity.
It was uncomfortable then to read of these ambitions to use players’ status as role models as part of a case for more money, and Farrell’s comments about players helping to tackle ‘some of the more intractable societal challenges’ sounded, again, like them using their status, as leverage in a deal.
The truth is that players are role models in society but they are becoming more and more remote. The stars on the leading teams in football and hurling make rare public appearances throughout the season, and when they do it is usually at commercial launches or in the confines of sterile media duties where they are tutored to avoid saying anything of substance.
These men remain figures of great importance within their communities and they would be valuable support in the exhausting campaigns for road safety and improved public health – but their time should not be part of a quid pro quo for improved grants, as appears to be the case.
That looks grubby. This year sees a rise in the player grant fund to €1.6 million, increasing to €2.3 million next year and €3 million in 2019.
Mick O’Connell was right. This is all wrong.