Now everybody knows why those promoting player grants/awards/whatever ran scared of the DRA - they knew that what they had attempted to foist on the GAA back on 8 December hadn’t a legal, let alone an ethical leg to stand on. The panicky mantra this time around about compliance with EU law shows just how close to disaster the GAA had been brought last November/December. Serious questions have to be asked about the levels of competence shown right the way through here. And those questions remain about the latest offering to an increasingly sceptical GAA membership.If there was any doubt that “Of One Belief” and those of like mind got it exactly right late last year and Central Council got it frighteningly wrong, then the frankly embarrassing expenses denouement of 17/18 March spells it out loud and clear. Last December we were told we were scare-mongering … that we were dinosaurs/backwoodsmen/The Taliban … that all the bases had been covered … that the amateur status was “copper-fastened” by the deal. Now the “copper-fastening” scheme is in the bin (a bin we’re confident is firmly copper-fastened!!!) and we’re presented with a whole new scheme and a whole new language. The last batch of very nervous assurances turned out to be as worthless as the grants they applied to.

In one of Irish sport’s great ongoing turnarounds, the cash-for-elite-GAA-players terminology has been changed yet again. We’ve so far waded our way from “grants” through “awards” to “eligible expenses”   (can the term “dig-out” now be all that far away?) But the outcome remains tellingly the same: inter-County GAA players will be given sizeable amounts of cash simply because they’re inter-County GAA players. That’s the one sad, unchanging fact in all of this mess.

As the morass deepens we’ve been told by our President (”Off The Ball”, Newstalk, 18 March) that inter-County players, having had their GAA mileage rates already paid by their County Boards (at 50 cents a mile), can apply to have their rates topped up to Civil Service levels (at €1.27 a mile). It’s simply unbelievable.

In one of the GAA’s most ironic twists ever, we now have the GPA -which originally rightly railed at the fact that some elite GAA officials got better mileage rates than elite GAA players - endorsing exactly the same sort of grubby discrimination they said they came forward to oppose. Principle … where are you! But then maybe part of the GPA’s well-versed “plight-of-the-inter-County-player” is being cursed with cars that are, just as a fact of life, much more expensive to run than those driven by anybody else involved in the GAA. Maybe, to steal a phrase from another person; another time; and another place, the rest of us want to try it sometime!

You’ve Shown Us the Money … Now Show Us the Shopping List!

The new “Eligible Expenses” scheme is very long on the “How” (ie we get chapter and verse on the mechanics of the thing) but totally and worryingly short on the “What” (ie just what is going to be included in these mysterious “Eligible Expenses”). In plain GAA language it’s not good enough. GAA people at Congress in a fortnight’s time are being asked to sign a blank cheque. We were last asked to do this on 8 December last year: we all now know the narrow escape the GAA had then. There’s an old Irish saying that goes: “Fool me once, shame on you … Fool me twice, shame on me!” It seems fairly relevant here!

Let’s look at the new “scheme”. At first glance alone here are some of the problems with it:

• Just what are “Eligible Expenses”? It’s time to show us the beef! Give us a list of what’s in and make it clear what’s out. If that fairly simple exercise can’t be done … well, why can’t it be done?
• On whose authority is the GPA to be unilaterally introduced to important decision-making roles within the GAA?
• Why is the GPA the only party to all this not defined in the document?
• What are the legal liabilities for the GAA in involving a non-constituted body like the GPA in its corporate governance?
• Will team mentors/back-room people be eligible for these “enhanced expenses”? If not, why not?
• Ditto re people involved in inter-County Under 21 and Minor teams
• Ditto re referees, in many ways among the most important GAA people of all
• And what about the driver who brings County Players to training etc in his/her car: does the inter-County player then revert back to being a 50-cents-a-mile as opposed to a €1.27-a-mile burden?
• Who’s going to handle the administrative nightmare this will introduce at County level?
• What kind of expenses regime is it that’s performance-based? Expenses are expenses are expenses: if they’re tied in to some sort of performance-related arrangement they’re not bona fide expenses. Are we seeing a major GAA Trojan Horse here?
• Any encouragement of pooled player travel (and another stated government policy) now goes out the window
• Most seriously of all, after all the honeyed words about player burnout we’re now about to lever even more training/performance demands onto inter-County players: that’s simply not what we should be doing

There is a simple answer to all this. If the government has €3.5m to spare for the GAA, then split it between the various County Boards to help them fund their increasingly complex and expensive GAA work.

Equally, another thought. What about €25,000 for every County Board and €1,000 for every GAA Club in Ireland … but tied to them doing programmed work to address one of our huge community problems, binge drinking? Even give it on condition that they provide match funding/resources. Or do we just talk about those things … in the firm understanding that we won’t ever do anything about them?

DRA Business

Our first case at the DRA effectively ended in a no-score draw. But watch this space! The holes in the 17 March agreement (though maybe it too will turn out not to have been an agreement at all either) are already emerging. And options are being considered.

Whatever happens next we’d want to put on record that we have been treated with total decency and respect by the DRA. They’re honourable people doing an honourable job for the GAA. Sin é.

“Of One Belief”: Not a Group!

Several people have taken to calling us a group and querying our right to make our case and use options like the DRA. We’re not a formal group and always made that very, very clear. We’re much more than that. We’re GAA members and volunteers who have taken exception to how GAA volunteers and members have been persistently disenfranchised in all this. We believe in the GAA and have been committed to it. We like to think we’ve helped make it what it is. But we don’t want to see it destroyed for the next generations on the basis of the greed and short-sightedness of some members of this generation. But, having said that, we’re not about squabbling and quarrelling with fellow-gaels. The GAA deserves much better than that. But it also deserves better than some current/recent proposals!

“Of One Belief” is a branding or banner that we use. It’s nothing more and nothing less. And as of today there’s 1,031 of you signed up to it. Not a bad state of affairs!

To Close: The Best Line Yet!

From one of our classy and very honourable (but un-named) national GAA journalists:

“Of One Belief has certainly achieved a re-routing of the parade!”

Brilliant!

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