Last Saturday’s National GAA Club Forum brought well over 300 GAA Club people from every County in Ireland to Croke Park. From the first part of the day to its closing session one consistent message dominated the proceedings:”We want to strengthen our amateur status and retain our volunteer base: these things aren’t for sale.”

Time-after-time this message came up loud and clear from the floor. People are open to all sorts of other changes … but these core values remain sacrosanct. If there’d been a vote taken on Saturday, pay-for-play would have been cast to oblivion. Let’s finish the job at Congress on April 11/12 in Sligo!

Full Steam Ahead to Congress

Getting the pay-for-play issue onto the agenda for Congress was a huge achievement. It leaves things a very long way away from the fait accompli attempted on 8 December last. In Pauric Duffy’s own words on Saturday last, we’ll “get a proper discussion there”.

But things remain unclear in other ways. We don’t yet know for example what motions will be on the Clár at Congress. We understand Fermanagh’s motion, unanimously endorsed at the Fermanagh County Convention, has been rejected. Yet we equally understand that a yet-to-be-framed Central Council motion on the issue will be on the Clár. To a lot of us there’s just something not-quite-right there.

Replying to a question posed at the National Club Forum on Saturday our President Nickey Brennan spelled out his position as follows:

• The grants/awards/pay-for-play proposals will be published by mid-March
• They will be circulated freely within the GAA and beyond
• There will be full consultation prior to Congress
• They will be debated openly, honestly and fully at Congress

If “mid-March” is Friday 14 March, that effectively leaves just three weeks maximum for a “full consultation” prior to Congress. That compares very poorly with the time given to debate issues such as player burnout; the hurling championships; and, of course, things like Rule 21 and the opening up of Croke Park.

But our task remains the same, to get this issue debated and then rejected in such a way that it never comes back onto the GAA table again. And we’re still of the view that any proposal to give money to GAA people, players or otherwise, requires a change to Rule 11.

No doubt Central Council’s motion will seek such a change. If it doesn’t … we’ll be back!

The Tide Keeps Flowing

The O’Connell’s Boys Club in Dublin has submitted a motion to its County Committee seeking to mandate the Dublin Central Council delegate and delegates to Congress to vote against any attempt at pay-for-play in the GAA. The O’Raghallaigh Club in Drogheda is doing the same in Louth. And one of Ireland’s great GAA Clubs, St Gall’s of Antrim, has voted against grants/awards/pay-for-play.

All of us should be doing similar things through our own Clubs and County Committees. Saturday’s Club Forum gave a very clear message about where the grass-roots stand on all this.

It would be criminal to let them down.

Why The Grants/Awards/Pay-for-Play Scheme Has To Be Opposed

There are many, many reasons why we shouldn’t touch the grants/awards/pay-for-play scheme with a barge pole. Here’s twenty to start with:

• It flies in the face of our Rule 11 which clearly states that “a player, team, official or member shall not accept payment in cash or in kind in conjunction with the playing of gaelic games”. As such it represents an attempt at the most fundamental shift ever in GAA ethos and policy. And it shifts the entire focus within the GAA from “We” to “Me”.

• It is a policy which, if introduced, will never be reversed: once the principle of paying players is introduced, experience in every other sport in every other setting shows that the only issue for debate thereafter is: “How much more?”

• The GAA is about giving, not taking. The GAA gives the money it earns back to the people of Ireland in the form of facilities; coaching; games development; and equipment. Only by retaining our amateur status can we ensure this reinvestment continues, generation after generation.
• Playing for your County is a choice, not an obligation. Always, always, always in the GAA you do what you do because you want to. If you don’t want to … then don’t do it. That brilliantly simple concept has served us so well for 124 years. This proposed arrangement totally undermines that understanding.

• Paying this money establishes a dangerous precedent. The GAA will have to pick up the tab when the government, as it inevitably will, drops out

• Inflation and claimed “increased-costs-of-playing-gaelic-games” will have to be factored in

• There is no moral argument for not paying the same money to the inter-County back-room people who put in the same time and effort. Counties will have to come up with the money and the arrangements to do this.

• Once we start paying back-room teams, there is no moral argument in turn for not paying other County Committee people: they put in as much (if not more) time and effort and without them there would be no County GAA to start with.

• It is not at all clear who carries the legal liabilities (of which there will be many) in all this. The first case for “wrongful dismissal” or whatever from a County panel is inevitably on its way.

• The “Bosman” and other EU rulings mean once money becomes involved and “restraint of trade” issues invariably follow, the GAA won’t have a legal leg to stand on in terms of stopping players transferring to Counties where their financial prospects are better

• There will be a financial incentive regime in place in the GAA which discourages elite players from putting themselves at risk in Club games

• There’ll be no incentive or justification to address the current poison of paid managers in the GAA … which should be an absolute priority for the GAA

• Some players will inevitably object because they have to play more matches than players from other Counties to reach the Championship Quarter-Finals and be awarded the money that comes with that. This will fatally undermine the structure of our Championships.

• The first headline as follows is already on its way: “That refereeing decision cost us ‘so-many-thousand’ euros”

• We will have a scenario where County A’s players get the money on the basis of attending 80% of, say, 100 sessions whilst County B’s players will get it on the basis of attending 80% of, say, 50 sessions

• The scheme seriously expects people with full-time jobs to “visit schools and youth facilities” as part of their new “GAA contractual arrangements”. The costs of those school and other visits will have to be picked up by someone: that someone will be the Counties.

• The GPA has already claimed players should be entitled to a share of TV money (”HQ Warned to Share TV Money Around”, Setanta, 23 October 2007). The GAA will have no moral (let alone legal) justification for opposing such a future GPA claim … paid directly to them of course by a third party, the TV company. (No doubt it will be backed up by the threat of strike action – which in the new pay-for-play context it will actually be a strike)

• The rest of the GAA is still expected to fundraise to provide elite facilities when the users of those facilities are going to have to be paid to use them

• The new contractual requirements placed on players are the diametric opposite to the supposed concern with over-burdening players … and on which we recently held a Special Congress

• The GAA will be morally and legally unable to oppose a sponsor who offers a County panel a large, performance-based, sum of money to win a title

And Finally … Keep The Faith … All 900+ Of You!

The mantra for opposing pay-for-play in the GAA remains the same. We work within (and want to protect!) the GAA’s structures and systems … so:

• Bring this issue up in your Club and bring it to your County Committee to swell the growing tide of GAA opposition to it
• Make sure your voice is heard when it reaches the floor of Congress
• Make sure your Central Council delegate reflects your County’s feelings the next time this issue is debated at Central Council
• Talk to people about the damage pay-for-play will do to the GAA … and how Ireland will suffer as a result
• Keep hammering home the point that nobody in the GAA has to do anything: we’re all volunteers … and if the burdens are too much we should just walk away or reduce our input
• Above all, in the GAA we don’t pay people to play our games!

Finally, the 900^th person registered with us last week. Not bad for a small rump of malcontents!