Parsons and Gilroy comments show thorny issues the GAA must tackle

By Kevin Egan

Like thousands of other parents last weekend, I was in Celbridge GAA club in Kildare for the Gary Kenny Festival of Football, dodging the raindrops as hordes of kids pulled on their club colours with pride and enthusiasm, oblivious to how we were all getting drowned.

For those unaware of the festival, it’s built around back-to-back underage football tournaments that draw clubs from all over Ireland, with U-10 boys in action on Saturday, followed by U-12 girls on Sunday. It’s an incredible celebration as well as a gargantuan logistical project, but it’s brilliantly managed by the host club and provided a wonderful experience for all the players involved.

While St Aidan’s, my new home club just across the Shannon, was on a half hour break between games, I wandered across the have a look at Ród Óg team in action. It was great to make conversation with a few of the parents of those players, people I hadn’t met in a while. As you might imagine, there were some very natural footballers wearing green and gold colours out there, including a very brave and sharp goalkeeper, and an elusive, jinky inside forward, in the finest tradition of the club (and if that players turns out to be from St Brigid’s or Clonmore Harps, don’t come at me!).

It was great to talk, great to see the players in action, and great to commit a few names to memory, perhaps to hear of them again when the 2032 Offaly minor football panel is announced.

It all came to mind again this week reading the words of former Dublin footballer Pat Gilroy, who asked the question in the Irish Times this week, why are we (the GAA) so wedded to a British system, that system being the arbitrary lines that make up our counties.

As a Ferbane native and resident of Dysart in South Roscommon, there were plenty of clubs in action that were less than an hour away from either my family or current home, so logically, they should be of more interest than a Ród Óg team representing three adult GAA clubs, all of which would have been an hour’s drive away when I played on those fields back in the day.

A British system it may be, but the affinity is there and it’s undeniable, because you wander over and you find yourself wanting to see the Offaly team thrive, even in a (theoretically!) non-competitive environment like that.

However, Pat Gilroy also made the point in his article that the GAA continues to move very quickly down the path towards professionalism, and it’s his fear of that eventuality that motivates his desire to move the Association back towards a more community-based model.

As an individual, Gilroy’s bona fides are unquestionable. He has given tremendous service to his club (St. Vincent’s), to his county, and to the GAA as a wider organisation, in a variety of roles. The practicalities of killing off the golden goose that is intercounty football and hurling are such that it will not be considered, but that doesn’t mean that his raising of a very real problem for the GAA should be ignored.

It was fitting that Gilroy expressed his views on the same week that GPA CEO Tm Parsons casually lobbed in a hand grenade about how the GAA and the state should reward players who turn down contracts from the AFL.

Parsons also posited that the GAA should also find “a few bob” for a team holiday for every intercounty team in the land. Needless to say, he offered no stipulation as to how this would be funded, made no suggestion as to where the line should be drawn in terms of what teams would qualify, gave no indication if he expects the LGFA and Camogie Association to do the same for their teams, offered no clue if the holiday should be two weeks in Bali or two nights in Ballyshannon, nor indeed did he provide any detail whatsoever.

It is Tom Parsons’ remit to advocate on behalf of intercounty players and to try and extract more benefits for that particular group, and he knows all too well that getting into the weeds on matters such as practicalities and covering costs is not going to garner any support for his ideas. So, of course he’s going to throw his suggestions out there, and let other people worry about the nuts and bolts of how to make it happen, not to mention letting others take the flak for what’s involved in paying the bill, and indeed the other unintended (or perhaps, unstated) consequences.

It is increasingly problematic that there is no-one whose role it is to fight for the future of the association and to think long-term about where it is headed. Or perhaps there is someone whose job it is to do that, but they are incredibly silent if so. There are delegates elected to do that, but in some cases they are ineffective, and in some cases, such as when it comes to Allianz’ sponsorship of the National Leagues while they continue to be involved in the Gaza genocide, those delegates are just told that an external committee has said that everything is fine, but they’re not allowed to talk to anyone from that committee, or even to have a discussion among themselves.

Either way, as is the case all across global society, democracy is failing to serve ordinary people in the face of ardent vested interests and big business.

The question about where the line is between amateur and professional for an intercounty player is incredibly difficult to answer, and trying to get to the bottom of it is like trying to walk barefoot through a field of nettles just to try and close the door on a stranger’s car.

You’ll draw a lot of pain on yourself, and there’s no personal benefit to be had, and it mightn’t even rain anyway.

The demands on players are huge, bigger than ever – but whose fault is that, and if that is the problem, surely the onus is on the GAA to try and reduce those demands, not to try and balance the books with murky compensation?

Right now, Kevin McStay oversees a body that’s trying to fix something that’s not broken, which is the sport of Gaelic football. Perhaps it would be better to employ a group to try and show the same vision when it comes to creating an intercounty competition that doesn’t demand that any team serious about competing for the Liam MacCarthy and Sam Maguire cups doesn’t have to spend a million euro doing so.

Clare hurler Shane O’Donnell, a very intelligent and well-spoken man, pointed out his unease at his likeness being used to promote what was then GAA Go, and has since become GAA+, and it would be inhuman not to empathise with someone whose image was used to promote something that he fundamentally didn’t believe in.

But if the idea is that a player should have ownership over their own image, and control over how they use that image, then if they endorse private business for money, often while wearing county colours and county crests as they pose for promotional photographs and video clips, is that not getting paid for being an intercounty player? If a garage provides free use of a car to local star footballer, is that not professionalism?

And we phrase these as questions, because it has never been properly thrashed out, or resolved in any way, despite the obvious need for that to happen. If we wait for the moment when Kerry GAA puts a five-year contract in front of David Clifford, making him a paid employee of the county just for kicking a ball, then the ship will have sailed.

Tom Parsons, or his successor, will already have negotiated so many concessions that fielding a Leitrim hurling team, and maybe even a Leitrim football team, is either utterly unviable, or else it can only be done if they operate on a complete shoestring, meaning that they simply cannot realistically compete with financial heavyweights like Galway and Mayo in the Connacht championship.

This is not a future we want, and more than that, it’s not the future that the participants of the Gary Kenny Festival of Football deserve.