An object lesson in how not to conduct business
WGPA only had to look across their office for advice on Mayo crisis
ANOTHER week in which the sorrowful mystery of the Mayo ladies football row invoked that old adage: history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. To watch the footage of the group of Mayo ladies footballers, in selfimposed exile from the county team and Peter Leahy’s stewardship, line up behind a table and reopen old scars in front of a lens was to be transported back in time to the Imperial Hotel in the winter of 2002 when seven members of the striking Cork hurling panel poured out their souls.
The civil war in Cork followed the same line of wisdom that Marx intended when referring to Napoleon Bonaparte and the subsequent rise of nephew Louis; if the lessons of one bitter stand-off couldn’t be learned, the history of the turmoil on Leeside came in three separate parts, leaving a legacy that persists to this very day.
To listen to Mayo ladies captain Sarah Tierney pour out her heart over alleged grievances in such a public way brought about a terrible sense of déjà vu.
A manager and county board on one side; a disgruntled set of players on the other. And not even a full set of players either but a cohort of Carnacon players in the main – the pre-eminent team in the county whose stance has fractured Mayo football to the extent that other clubs lined up to vote on the club’s removal from the Mayo championship, overturned on appeal.
Then came Friday’s news that the eight individual players suspended [on the back of leaving the Mayo panel before the All-Ireland series opener against Cavan] are also set to appeal their four-week ban by the Connacht LGFA Council.
For Tierney, Cora Staunton and Fiona McHale, it was easy to get a flashback of the stern, worried faces of Dónal Óg Cusack, Diarmuid O’Sullivan and Seán Óg Ó hAilpín – three proud sons of Cork hurling.
That came at a time when the Gaelic Players Association was fighting for players’ rights and Cusack would go on to serve as chairman of the association. The Women’s Gaelic Players Association is still in its formative years and McHale just happens to be the current secretary.
Asking some of the questions at the press conference in which only two journalists were invited was RTE sport reporter Jacqui Hurley, herself a Cork camogie player and a vocal figure at the launch of the WGPA in January of 2015.
The players’ parallel is relevant here because the women’s body has taken its lead from its male counterpart, successfully securing Government funding for player grants from former Sports Minister Patrick O’Donovan. They even share the same office in Santry.
On Tuesday, at the launch of a detailed ESRI report on the realities of being a senior inter-county player – commissioned by the GAA and GPA – Limerick hurler and GPA chief executive Seamus Hickey was asked about whether there had been any discussions on the Mayo ladies stand-off with the WGPA.
‘Well they sit in our office so we’ve discussed it. We work fairly closely with the WGPA on a number of fronts. When it comes to the specifics of instances, we respect the rights of privacy for all the individuals involved and we don’t put our noses into business that doesn’t concern us. If the WGPA have any requirement of advice from us we always give it,’ said Hickey.
So how did they not point to the bitter legacy of the Cork stand-offs and the pitfalls of the various strikes that made the national evening news?
Cork manager Gerald McCarthy, himself a proud son of Cork hurling, received a death threat to his house. Peter Leahy, for his part, has been the subject of ‘rumour and innuendo of the vilest nature’ according to a statement by the Mayo LGFA board executive, describing how ‘Peter Leahy, and indeed his family, endured a torrid few weeks where they received online, telephone and face to face comments of a despicable nature.’
Just like in Mayo, relationships had broken down in Cork to the extent that a mediator – Kieran Mulvey of the Labour Relations Commission – was the one travelling down as peace envoy with newly installed GAA director general Paraic Duffy in tow.
Coincidentally, the self-same Mulvey, in his capacity as chairperson of Sport Ireland, was present when the Government funding of ladies GAA to the tune of €1million was announced to much fanfare in June 2016.
Arguably the biggest success of the GPA has been to ensure the painful fight that the Cork players felt compelled to carry out wouldn’t have to happen in the same public fashion. With official recognition and the responsibility of state funding for player grants – the last deal negotiated between the GAA and GPA between 2017-2019 was worth €18.6 million over three years – has come a structure where any coups are generally bloodless.
Those quick to criticise the commercialisation of the GPA forget the constant stream of negative publicity that stemmed from endless minor versions of the Cork strike, with players, managers and county board officials at constant loggerheads.
The GPA being inside the tent has gone a huge way to calming the inevitable tensions between players and management, between players and county board, whether over gear or mileage allowances or all the other elements that used to seep into the public domain.
It’s hard to believe then that the Mayo ladies stand-off has been allowed to spiral into a public mudslinging contest. Why didn’t the WGPA learn from the GPA’s body of hard-earned experience, take a lesson from a school of hard knocks?
The original statement confirming
the Carnacon Eight were quitting the county panel could have been released through the WGPA, in tandem with a WGPA statement, given Fiona McHale’s position.
The language used referenced ‘player welfare’ issues that were ‘personal and sensitive’ to those involved, which immediately clouded the reputation of Peter Leahy.
We then had Cora Staunton going on Newstalk’s Off The Ball, Leahy responding on The GAA Hour with
Colm Parkinson. Then the limitedinvite press conference clouded the waters further before a Leahy statement was given to The42.
Leahy, at least, rounded off with an open invite: ‘As far as the players who have left the panel, I hold no grudges personally and I never asked anyone to leave the panel in the first place. I would be delighted to sit down with anyone who wanted to play for Mayo and discuss with an open and transparent view of them wanting to play for Mayo.’
The past week should have been a celebration of the women’s game which is going from strength to strength, as evidenced by the record attendance of 50,141 at the finals triple-header at Croke Park.
Instead, it has been a lesson in how history seems destined to repeat itself.
‘IF THE WGPA NEEDS ANY ADVICE FROM US WE ALWAYS GIVE IT’