GPA clearly a well-run body but are their demands sustainable?
Players’ organisation CEO Paul Flynn is on the ball but at what cost to the GAA?
PAUL FLYNN probably didn’t much expect blowback from a throwaway answer to a hypothetical question. Especially at an informal media briefing on Wednesday at the headquarters of the Gaelic Players Association, where the six-time All-Ireland winner is in situ as CEO.
The implications of a one-line response quickly crystallised though to some of those in the room.
Instead of 15 per cent of the GAA’s commercial income – valued at just over €2.94 million in 2018 – Flynn didn’t rule out the GPA seeking the same percentage of gate receipts in the next three-year framework agreement which is up for negotiations. Based on 2018 ticket sales, that would be worth a tasty extra €1m or so to the players’ body.
Puffff. You could almost hear the extra million that the GAA is set to generate from putting an extra tenner on the price of an All-Ireland final ticket go up in smoke. Like a conjuror’s trick: now you see it, now you don’t.
Suddenly, all the disquiet and unease about the GAA’s controversial ticket price hike looked justifiable. No wonder supporters have been vocal in their criticism of a matchday league ticket jumping by 33 per cent, if a whack of the financial gains are going to flow towards the players body.
Except Flynn wouldn’t be doing his job properly if he wasn’t setting the bar high in terms of looking for the best cut for his members. That is his very role. If this was the first shot fired in the negotiations salvo, well, it certainly struck a nerve. There is a certain irony in criticising [Flynn or] the GPA for doing its job too well, in terms of the framework agreement and the €6.2m for annum deal that was hammered out last time. That one is on the GAA. Current president John Horan was part of the last negotiating team on behalf of Croke Park. The problem is, it’s the GAA who aren’t representing their full membership properly, and seem happy to kow-tow to the demands of the players body that look increasingly unsustainable. On the very weekend Horan was installed as president at Congress in February 2017, Donegal chairman Sean Dunnion was the only one to raise a warning. In looking at fine print of the new GPA agreement and the allowances agreed as part of the players’ charter, he didn’t expect to be the sole voice in the wilderness. What struck him immediately was that it would add significant financial pressures on already overburdened county officers.
In his last year as chairman, he said that’s exactly how it turned out. ‘It certainly did increase the demands on our county. In my last year, there was absolutely no doubt that the costs escalated in and around anything that was in the players’ charter. It would have been a big challenge. We did have to step up our fundraising to balance the books in that particular year, 2017’.
He is in no doubt that the current model is not sustainable, never mind a heightened version of such: ‘I’m not sure anybody is at breaking point but there are red flags being raised as to is it sustainable. I spoke about that a number of times, asking was the current model sustainable. I don’t believe it is. If we continue to pour more money into the inter-county game, something is going to give. Inevitably, people are going to get burned out. The fundraisers are not going to be there. I don’t believe the current model is sustainable.’
Connacht Council secretary John Prenty has been consistent in criticising the ‘madness’ of an intercounty spend that broke the €25m mark in 2017 when all the counties are totted up together. Dunnion isn’t sure that Prenty’s call for a ‘cap’ will work but says a ‘critical review’ is urgent.
‘It has come to a crossroads. There needs to be a critical review of where the expenditure on intercounty teams is going. I’m not sure a cap would work but there certainly needs to be some type of a critical review,’ Prenty said.
‘We crossed the million threshold
‘PEOPLE DON’T UNDERSTAND WHERE MONEY GIVEN TO THE GPA IS SPENT’
last year. It’s not just down to the senior teams, it’s filtered down through the system as well which is part of the problem.’
As for the idea that the GAA might hand over 15 per cent of gate receipts rather than commercial income? He can’t see that happening at all.
‘I couldn’t. And I would hope they wouldn’t. One of the things with the GPA that leads to suspicion is that people don’t understand where the money is being spent that is going into the GPA. I know they are doing some great work for players but transparency of where the money is being spent is probably the main reason people would be suspicious.’
In fairness to Flynn, he is doing his bit to try and offset those suspicions. In his first address as CEO on the eve of the GPA’s AGM, he answered any questions directed at him, the accompanying annual report providing a comprehensive picture of the workings of the players’ body and all the various programmes that they offer.
John Horan has also been front and centre in pushing the tier two Championship debate along, unpalatable as it is for some counties. Dunnion is adamant a new summer model is key to any review of where the association is going.
‘There’s another couple of years of the Super 8s. Maybe then that’s the point that we need to have this critical review. The game is suffering, no doubt about it. There are so many games that are uncompetitive. And people know that. And they’re not attending matches, particularly in the Championship. It’s far more attractive to go to the League,’ Dunnion stated.
‘Is the current Championship structure fit for purpose? It’s probably not. I think at the end of this three-year cycle of the Super 8s – or even before that – there certainly needs to be a review.’
As to why he issued his own warning of the financial implications at Congress in 2017 as this year’s event rolls into view, he said: ‘It didn’t get a huge amount of traction but I couldn’t let it pass that day without saying it. We could see what it was going to mean for ourselves.’
Two years on, and maybe it’s time to heed his latest warning.