BY JARLATH BURNS
editor@gaeliclife.com
IT LOOKS like the hostilities between the top players and the top table might finally be coming to an end with the amicable agreement which emerged from the ten weeks of talks between the GPA and the GAA. As former chairman of the nascent Players' Committee I, like many others, was relieved to see agreement, although I fully understand the sharp intakes of breath which greeted the sums of money involved in the reconciliation.
I can assure you that there wasn't one day in the last ten years that I didn't waken up hoping to see headlines heralding the demise of this organisation. And if I got a pound for every time I heard the words 'According to insiders, they have only six months left', or 'there's a big row going on in the GPA that's going to finish them', I would be a rich man, but they never went away and they were never finished. And in each county I visited, I was reassured that there was absolutely no support for them. Subsequent GAA leaderships tried everything to move them off the stage. From fobbing them off, kicking for touch and playing for time, but they always came back in waves and more strident than ever.
The first sign for me that negotiation would have to replace annihilation came in 2006, when they announced that as a protest, for one game, teams would come out on the field 15 minutes late. This was a real opportunity for those players who did not agree with them to show their mettle. But this act of civil disobedience met with 100 percent uptake. Not one player or team broke it.
And in December 2007 when they announced their all out strike, again I waited patiently for dissenters, but only a couple out of one thousand, Philip Jordan and John McEntee came out strongly against it. When I read Jordan's comments, I scoured the country looking his number and rang him to thank him for standing up for the values of the GAA. But the expected flood of dissenting players didn't happen and the message was sent out loud and clear. The players support the GPA and want the GPA to represent them.
It was never good for our games that our top players were in dispute with the GAA. It disappointed us that young men who had been taken at a young age, coached, skilled and their talents developed to an extent that they were able to ply them on the highest stage, were not at one with the grassroots. It left us suspicious and at times disdainful of lads who were busting themselves for county and club, but differed from us on how they should be treated. We groaned when we read statements of GPA support from players who we felt should know better and kept hoping the GPA would just go away. Over this time I must have done interviews for a hundred theses on the subject of player power and professionalism and each and every one of them concluded that we were moving at breakneck speed towards professionalism sooner rather than later.
And it was us, not the players who started this train rolling the first time we put sponsors on their jerseys, advertising on sidelines, sold competition rights to corporate Ireland and put every match on TV, enjoying the extra revenue this took in. The money raised went back into the counties and clubs, but it was earned off the back of the extremely marketable county players.
Meanwhile clubs and counties also got in on the act, using the same tactics employed by Croke Park to entice corporate sponsors, run gala dinners and set up their fund raising associations. When their teams were successful the money flowed into holiday funds and right into players' pockets as 'spending money' as if all money wasn't 'spending money?' Anyone who gave players cash to spend on foreign trips is equally guilty for encouraging the climate which pushed the amateur ethos to its outer limits.
The first masterstroke pulled by the GPA was to use their power to gain their own sponsorship and in this arena they flexed an impressive muscle. Club Energise ambushed the official Lucozade product, Opel trumped Toyota, Halifax was in competition to Bank of Ireland and even the Carphone Warehouse deal was confusing, considering Vodafone were the official GAA partner. But players will always get endorsements and this card was played with great skill and deftness by the GPA. And there is no doubt this affected the GAA's ability to promote a united front to potential sponsors. This problem was only going to get worse as time went on, unless serious action was taken to pool the combined resources of the GAA and the county players for maximum corporate effect.
The figure it took to end the strife is big; over a million euro. It's a serious ball of money, but we shouldn't be afraid. They were looking for five million and were going to walk out if they didn't get it, so they haven't got all they want. And it won't simply flow out of Croke Park and into their bank account. I know that because we got a budget to run the 125 Year. If anyone thinks the money was lodged in an account with a cheque book and two committee signatures required to release it, believe me, think again. In Croke Park, once the money is pledged, your problems are only starting. Every single piece of expenditure had to be justified, sometimes twice, then three quotations had to be received, rigorous assessment of every single deal was carried out and every event was reviewed forensically. And that's exactly how it should be. So whatever player welfare initiatives are run, they will be watched, scrutinised and reviewed robustly. Based on my experience of the GAA Finance Department I am not in the slightest bit worried about that part of it, as long as the programmes are of benefit to the players. .
However, I can understand the anxiety of those who say that our only concession was the amateur status which was there anyway. But believe me it has suffered some shaky moments during the past decade and might not have survived until our 150th birthday. In the GPA Team of the Year, each recipient received two grand and player of the year got a car.
This put our own All-stars firmly in the hapenny place and Opel got a brilliant deal on that one because of the access they got directly to the top players for a fraction of the cost of doing an official GAA gig. Telling the GPA to get stuffed was only going to cause more of this type of ambush marketing and just plain hassle for the GAA. To clear the stage of this debris leaves the way open again for the GAA to be sole negotiators for sponsorship and the million euro will be well eclipsed by the increased revenue gained by this development.
Lots of negative comment has emerged around the issue of granting a so called 'independent' body a specific place in the GAA rule book and how this will damage the association, but if we look closely, isn't every club and county independent? Sure, they have to abide by the rule book, but every club who pays a manager is exercising their disdain for that golden rule and many clubs operate at splendid isolation from the GAA code. This is AGM season, but how many clubs will run their affairs strictly in accordance with rule for this most important occasion? And the GAA has many other independent bodies within its remit. The Players' Committee was independent as is the Handball and Rounders Associations and Cumann na mBunscoileanna, the Higher Education Committee, Scór and even the DRA.
And finally. The old argument. Sure if county players don't like it, they can just walk away. No one makes them become part of county teams. But can they?
Armagh's All Ireland minors were honoured last Friday night. Every speaker, while gushing in their praise of the lads, also laid down the challenge that in ten years time the question would be asked, 'Where are they now?' Our top young players face serious pressure to 'make it' at county level. All our coaching strategies, elite player workshops, High Performance University Nurseries, all put players down a path towards the county team from which there is really no return. We hardwire them into wanting to play in Croke Park, wear the county jersey, to be the best they can be. When they arrive at that place, can we really then say; well after all your work, your boyhood dreams, your training, this is the commitment, and if you don't like it, there's the door?
It's us, the coaches and trainers who put them through that door in the first place, fill them with desire, courage, dedication and then expect them to train, to present medals, to be role models, to be drug tested, have their performance analysed and criticised by the media and by every two bit hurler on the ditch, to be available for their club and then if they do walk away, we lambaste them for not fulfilling their potential.
All this is about the players, our elite players, the lads who fill Croke Park, who dedicate their lives to being the best they can be, those who showpiece our games as the beautiful spectacle they can be. Without our players we are nothing. And we need to show loyalty to those who negotiated on our behalf. As someone who faced the GPA at the beginning of this decade, I can assure you they are tricky customers and whether we like it or not, had a thousand of our best players right behind them.
Lots of talk around this issue has been of people going to the toilet in the vicinity of tents. I always feared that if we brought them inside the tent they would pee round us, but not any more. This deal ensures that in ten or twenty years time, the tent will still be there.
