we are listening
After years of sneering texts and bitterness, a promised charm offensive from the GPA is well overdue and could go a long way to mending their image
WE don’t mind telling you we are a bit giddy at the charm offensive hurtling our way soon. The Gaelic Players Association is to adopt a new communications strategy which will apparently see the players’ group engage actively to sell its message. ‘Our relationship with the media has not been fantastic,’ conceded their president David Collins in a compelling interview on RTÉ Radio’s Sunday Sport last weekend, in which he signposted a radical change of approach. In fairness, he was not lying. A few years back after writing a piece which did not find favour with some in the GPA, this column’s phone beeped early in the morning with a message of endearment from a paid official.
‘I hope you enjoyed your free f ***** g lunch on the GAA yesterday,’ it sneered.
We had attended a media event at Croke Park the previous afternoon where indeed lunch was served and the truth is we did enjoy it.
Then again as our body shape screams to the world there has never been a lunch, free or otherwise, which we haven’t enjoyed.
The thing is we were not really sure if the bitterness was a reaction to what we had written or to what we had eaten.
You see in the GPA — where you can be hit for $50,000 for a prawn cocktail starter and a roast beef special for a table of 10 as happened in Boston earlier this month — there are few values they hold closer to their purse than the notion you should pay through the nose for what you digest through the stomach.
Anyhow, we suspect it might have been the former given the treatment which Meath legend Colm O’Rourke was subjected to a few years back when the response to his national newspaper column which was critical of the players group was triggered by an emotive call to arms by a GPA official.
‘Boys, Colm O’Rourke is having a serious cut off the GPA today, anything you can do on twitter in response greatly appreciated! Meath f ***** ,’ texted the official to his little army of boot boy smartphone warriors. Charming, indeed. So, yeah, Collins is pretty much on the ball when he suggests that relations between his group and the media have been less than fantastic, but it will take something more than just a strategy to bridge the distrust which exists for real on both sides.
That is certainly true for the media and it was underlined once more by an illuminating piece Philip Jordan, the former Tyrone All-Ireland winner, wrote for RTE.ie earlier this month, which shone an unflattering light on the GPA.
Ironically, Collins recognised that article in his interview last Sunday as a source of heat but chose only to reference Jordan’s suggestion that the GPA should put more money into a benevolence fund — one exists which is funded to the tune of €200,000 by the GAA — for former players.
But he ignored the most damning revelation in the piece where the Tyrone player referred to the nation-wide ‘strike’ poll conducted by the GPA in 2007 to seek support on its ultimately successful campaign for the introduction of government grants to county players.
‘They balloted their membership on the strike issue and something like 90 per cent came out in favour.
‘To this day I’d love to know what percentage of the GPA’s membership actually voted because I know in Tyrone only three of us that I’m aware of voted and one of them was me, who was against it.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if it was as low as 90 per cent in favour out of 15 or 20 per cent of the membership,’ wrote Jordan.
And that cuts right to the core of the media’s distrust of the GPA.
It claims it is speaking on behalf of the entire inter-county playing constituency, but the true level of engagement is significantly less than that.
There is no hard evidence for writing that but more than once when we have quizzed county players on one GPA poll or another, you would be surprised the amount of times we have been met with either quizzical or blank expressions.
Anecdotal we know, but what else do you lean on for truth when the facts are not to be trusted.
Compare and contrast to the Club Players Association, who when they conduct polls to gauge the mood
It will take more than just a strategy to bridge the distrust that exists
they always publish the total number of respondents, which is regularly a very modest percentage of its overall membership.
I am sure there are strategists in the GPA who observe those CPA press-releases and laugh at their naivety.
But with transparency comes credibility, which is the greatest strategy of all.
It is something that the GPA is sadly lacking in, and not just in polls that carry all the credibility of a North Korean County Council election.
Collins made the point last weekend that the GPA has failed in communicating its good work to the outside world and there is truth in that.
There is no doubt that as a group they have impacted positively on the welfare of their members, from education programmes, cardiac screenings, mental health and addiction issues as well managing a benevolent fund, but the media will hardly be doing its job if it is just becomes some kind of conduit for the GPA’s good works.
Questions need to be answered and not necessarily about the remuneration of its key personnel which has invited more heat than is warranted.
After all, the GPA should be under no obligation to provide such information given the GAA’s refusal to shine a light on its own remuneration structure for its top officials.
But the big question that needs to be asked is why the GPA’s focus is on providing welfare supports to address the damage caused by an inter-county environment which evidently is compromising the mental and physical health of its membership. ‘Players are suffering,’ implored Collins, last Sunday. Well, then, surely the focus should be on easing that suffering by whatever means is necessary. If the GPA speaks for its members, why not take direct action to ensure a more tolerable playing environment, a more player-friendly fixture schedule and an end to those ‘charters’ which shackles those involved to monastic lifestyles. Why fundraise for the medicine when the cure is out there for free? Where are their proposals which will ease the ‘suffering’ of their members? When they address the burning issue with something other than soft words we will be all ears.