At the start of 2009 the GAA magazine “Gaelic Star” asked us to submit a short piece on our position on the pay-for-play grants, one year on. The article as published is presented below. We thank “Gaelic Star” for its interest and coverage: it gave us a better hearing than the GAA’s top table did!
The GAA was always different. It was better; special; above and beyond things like greed and selfishness. It was us and we were it. For 123 years it stood up to whatever the fates threw at it – the “Parnell Split”; the Civil War; the northern state; poor times. But the eventual virus some members couldn’t resist was the Celtic Tiger’s disastrous ethos of “it’s-all-about-me-and-sod-the-rest-of-you.”
As Irish banks collapse around us, we’re given a stark “insight-with-hindsight” explanation: “They ignored the fundamentals”. Our GAA leadership also ignored GAA fundamentals when it capitulated on the poison of pay-for-play. The plain people of Ireland now pay for the financial recklessness of Ireland’s elite: they’ll also pay for the pay-for-play recklessness of the GAA’s elite.
Unbelievably, our leadership and the GPA intone the delusion: “By taking this money we preserve our amateur status.” What’s next in double-speak? Teetotallers saying that by taking alcohol they copper-fasten their abstinence?
There are loads of better uses for this money. But let’s sideline the 100 teenage Irish girls who will die of cervical cancer because a government which assigned €10.5m to the grants “can’t afford” their €10m vaccination programme. Ignore the ravages of alcohol and drugs. Be blind to the €6m cut in the GAA’s 2009 budget. And forget those bulwarks of Irish society, our 2,750+ GAA Clubs which struggle heroically and willingly to fund and deliver gaelic games for all of our players; of all abilities; and at all levels.
The real disaster here isn’t these opportunity costs. It’s that our leadership and the GPA fractured the core GAA dynamic that energised and sustained us over 123 years. Brilliantly simple, brilliantly powerful, it said: “Here’s what those who went before you left for you. It’s uniquely Irish; it’s the best about; it’s given and taken for free. No one else on earth will make you this offer. If it adds to your quality of life, develops you as a person, then come with us. If not, walk away and leave it, no worse than you found it, for others.” That dynamic prospered. Until December 2007.
The grants then officially threw money into our playing equation, to inevitably overrun the GAA drivers of place; community; choice; volunteerism; unity; equality; and local pride. Every sport that’s chosen this poisonous road proves it doesn’t work. Club rugby and professional soccer in Ireland teeter on the brink. Sadly, not even their own people care any more.
Is that the GAA we want? “You-owe-me” as a core value? Fundamentals which sustained us for 123 years cast aside in the face of bullying (a threatened strike, by people who chose to be involved in the first place; benefited greatly from it; and were free to walk away at any time)? If only we’d had an Obama-like President to insist that abandoning ideals for expedience isn’t acceptable.
Ireland’s economic collapse makes us look at ourselves. What we see isn’t attractive. Greed corrupted entire organisations … and entered the GAA. Our leadership needs to reinstate GAA fundamentals (including addressing the parallel poison of paid managers). The GAA and Ireland will be better as a result. We can’t afford to mimic the financial crisis and realise only when we look at the wreckage, what’s been lost; how; why; and because of who.
Let’s get rid of pay-for-play before it gets rid of the GAA we’ve been bequeathed and only hold in trust. To coin a phrase: Yes We Must.