GAA transfer system leaves weak exposed

ACCORDING to the proverb, the devil takes a hand in what is done in haste.

There may be some truth in that as there is no doubt that the humble and the righteous have come off second best in Shane Walsh’s bid to transfer from his home club Kilkerrin/Clonberne to Kilmacud Crokes.

There is considerable doubt as to whether the 29-year Galway star will succeed, given that his student status under GAArule may not qualify as the permanent residency change required and may, therefore, be rejected.

What is already clear is that Kilkerrin/ Clonberne lost the PR battle last week when the club chairman Ian Hynes vowed that his club would ‘fight it all the way’ which is a bad look as he was effectively saying they would unite to obstruct the wishes of, arguably, the finest player they have ever produced.

To be fair, this week Hynes took a more considered view. ‘We are obviously not going to stop him playing football and if it goes ahead, we’re going to shake his hand,’ he told his local newspaper.

However, without Hynes letting his tongue do the fighting in haste last week, a light would not have been shone on an injustice being perpetrated in open view.

While there is no devil in this affair – and Kilmacud would be rather foolish to pass up on the opportunity of Paul Mannion partnering up with Walsh in this year’s championship, once the opportunity presented itself – neither is there any remote sense of fairness.

And while it is not the GAA’s place to prevent players with legitimate reasons from transferring, even if Kilmacud with their 4,800 members – incidentally that is twice the population of the Clonberne side of the parish – and seven adult teams are some way off being in a position where they will have difficulty fielding a team.

However, the GAA does have a duty to guarantee that some regulation is in place to ensure that its most powerful clubs do not simply cherrypick talent at both the expense of weaker units, and indeed their own members, to fast-track success.

The easiest way to do that in urban areas is for the GAA to put in place a roster of adult clubs where players who want to transfer into the city would be assigned a team based on a club’s greater need rather than its overarching ambition.

If such a system was in place, we are betting that Kilkerrin-Clonberne would have had little reason to speak in haste.

Indeed, they may not have had to speak at all.