The foul rumour machines are not what our GAA is all about
WHEN the news first broke about Cathal Barrett being cut from the Tipperary panel, I didn’t see it as that big of a deal. The All-Ireland champions clearly had issues after the Munster championship defeat by Cork and it looked like management laying down a marker for the rest of the summer.
The way the whole thing has developed since though has shocked me. Some of the rumour and innuendo going around about the whole situation is scurrilous.
I don’t know Cathal Barrett. If he went for a few pints or broke from what was allowed or accepted within the panel, then management have a right to discipline him.
But the fall out on social media with rumours about other players and their girlfriends is disgusting. It’s a sign of society gone mad.
Look at the harm being done to innocent bystanders, the effect on their families and their lives. It’s horrific.
Somebody has to say ‘enough is enough’.
Ireland is a small country. These are our neighbours, our friends. It’s not Premier League soccer where players can remove themselves from it all or go away and hide.
Whoever has been spreading this stuff on WhatsApp groups or on other social media needs to take a long, hard look at themselves. Every single person engaged in this activity, whether innocently passing on rumour or not, needs to take stock.
Which brings me back to the whole ethos of the modern game and what is happening with our players.
What have we allowed the GAA to become?
Commodity, commodity, commodity – it seems that’s all a player is now.
Ready to be used and abused until he is no longer needed.
It seems they are there to make money − Croke Park is making a fortune and quite a lot of top players are making money out of it as well.
The bubble that they are living in is not what the GAA is meant to be all about.
It’s time to sweep away this mad commercialism that is being driven by Croke Park. It was they who brought in Sky Sports for money, who are selling big packages so that struggling county boards can keep pace with the spiralling financial demands involved in running county teams.
The Championship has always meant the world – but it’s gone too far. It’s time to set up a strong committee of people, not necessarily from Croke Park, to rethink the whole thing.
It will need to set out why the GAA is the great community organisation that it is − because at the moment it is losing the plot.
This has brought things to a new level in terms of the commentary on county players.
Before social media you still knew there were people talking about you. There was a far healthier interaction between players and their clubs and communities. We were part of our club, very visible. That’s not the case anymore as a huge disconnect has opened between club and county. Players need to re-engage with clubs and communities again.
We are pushing this superstar status onto our county players – the sponsored cars, the suits, the scholarships – a lifestyle that is divorced from real life. From real jobs. From a real career.
This week’s events must be very upsetting for all the Tipperary players who have been dragged into it. A sad week.
This is a much bigger issue than who is going to fill in for Barrett in the full-back line.
Where is the GPA in all of this? On the fixtures mess? On hurling restructure? On Kerry footballer Brendan O’Sullivan? Has it moved to corporate America?
I’m very friendly with Dermot Earley but the only time you seem to hear about the GPA is in relation to gambling or mental health awareness. It is doing a very good job looking after a small percentage of players.
If Cathal Barrett deserves a rap on the knuckles, then fine. It really didn’t need Tipperary county secretary Tim Floyd saying ‘it’s like the child being put sitting in the corner for a while’.
If it was Nicky English or Bobby Ryan in their day would he have said that? A young player who is going to be out for six weeks or so anyway with a medial ligament tear is an easy target. Would they have done the same to one of the more established names? Tipperary have not handled it well.
I heard Jackie Tyrrell saying it wouldn’t happen in Kilkenny. Who is he kidding? It happens in every county. Young players in particular have so much going on in their lives now. Dressing rooms all over the country have the same sort of problems and the same mix of characters − lads who are bold, cheeky, quiet, shy, tough, arrogant.
This is not about personality though, it’s about over-stepping a moral line in terms of what is being put out there.
It’s time to hit the reset button.