It was always going to come down to who blinked first. And it would appear the fixture makers have called the GPA’s bluff. The divisive player representative body have been agitating for the pre-season competitions to be done away with, but they can hardly stir up anymore dung with fixtures and competition structure already in place.
The only way the proposed abolition would work would be if the start of the National Leagues was brought forward. Which seems unlikely to happen at this stage. So the non staging of the O’Byrne, McKenna and McGrath Cups and FBD League in football and Kehoe, Walsh and Waterford Crystal Cup competitions in hurling would be simply giving in to petulance for no reason.
So as not to be utterly hypocritical, I’ve no problem admitting I was wholly in favour of the GPA at the time of its inception. When it was innovatively and positively led by Dessie Farrell.
At the time, issues such as players’ mileage and medical expenses and getting decent gear and meals after training and the like needed urgent and genuine attention.
By and large, those concerns have been rectified, though naturally expenses can always be better. The players are the ones who need and deserve to be looked after above and beyond anybody else.
To that end, it was not only logical, but crucial, that the formation of the LGPA followed to run alongside the male equivalent. For their needs were and shamefully still are in need of proper acknowledgment and restitution. I won’t claim to know all or even a fraction of the matters lady players are seeking betterment regarding, but, what is known is that the chasm between the lads and ladies in the area of expenses is an absolute scandal.
It’s a long held ambition of mine to get some of the top minds in GAA together to decipher – for my own curiosity as much as anything else – why there’s such an aversion to professionalism in the Association. There’s no doubt players are worth some form of reward for the extensive effort they put in.
There’s plenty of money in the GAA, you don’t draw the crowds our games do and not get bang for your buck. That’s without mentioning sponsorship and advertising revenue and – for me, a bit of an elephant in the room – county team sponsors.
That is not, in any way, a criticism of those who do back county teams, rather a pondering of whether sponsorship money could be distributed differently to the greater benefit of the players. Just a thought.
Surely that’s the kind of thing the GPA should be chasing on behalf of their membership. Or for players to have more input to playing rules etc – referees could absolutely be included in the latter part of that. Any of the above would be more in their line to pursue than trying to do away with competitions.
However, perhaps the greatest test of whether the GPA are worth their salt or not remains ahead. News broke recently that there are proposals – at the very least – to remove Leitrim, Longford, Louth, Cavan and Fermanagh from the National Hurling League. Now is the time for the GPA to put up or shut up.
Where is their condemnation of such an asinine, insulting idea? Would it not be more in their line of business to ensure that players get an adequate number of games rather than seeing such opportunities culled quicker than a herd of cattle with a reactor within.
More to the point though, whoever came up with the reasoning for such a disgraceful proposal needs to have a good look at themselves in a mirror. If, as appears to be the narrative, in lieu of fielding teams for a normal season’s duration, they are to be given funding towards, wait for it, Hurling Development!
Now, the common ground between Stephen Hawking and I probably goes no further than the wheelchair and the glasses, but, you wouldn’t need to be of the late professor’s academic acumen to conclude that the best way to get better at something is by greater exposure to whatever it may be. By encountering those of commensurate aptitude or slightly greater than on a regular basis.
Absolutely not by cutting them off from competitive action at a level which is fair to them for the vast majority of the year. If the GPA are really exactly what they say on the tin, there will presumably be uproar on behalf of the four counties involved in this abomination of a mess. Or are they, as I suspect, only interested in the elite.
While not for a moment disputing the venerated position Gaelic Games command in Irish life, they don’t have the monopoly on players’ attention as might once have been the case.
Players know there are opportunities elsewhere now and are not afraid to explore them. As evidenced by the defection of gifted Cork hurler Ben O’Connor to Munster Rugby and young Monaghan starlet Karl Gallagher being linked with a switch to the Australian Football League.
If those who are meant to don’t look after the players, they’ll look after themselves and it’ll be the GAA’s loss.
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