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!

It looks like the reconvened DRA hearing may take place on Friday 14 March. We’re going back because of two basic things. First, we don’t think the GAA centrally has lived up to the commitments it gave at the last hearing back in January. That’s something we take no pleasure in. And second, we believe that Central Council’s motion asking Congress to say it’s “satisfied” the grants/awards don’t break Rule 11 has no standing at all in GAA Rule. Congress makes rules. It’s not there to say it’s “satisfied” specific things don’t break specific Rules.Dessie Farrell (presumably on behalf of the GPA) has asked to appear/be represented at the hearing. This interest in openness and participation is a bit rich after months of secret, behind-closed-doors negotiations on the grants. And what was that a while back about small rumps of malcontents … ? No matter. This isn’t about scoring points. Our view is simple. The GPA is not part of the GAA. The DRA has no jurisdiction over the GPA. This is a case between two parts of the GAA, using the proper GAA systems and procedures. It’s got nothing to do with third parties. So our view is we’ll be keeping it properly “in house.” Nothing personal Dessie … just business.

Presidential Unanimity

Over the past week all three 2008 GAA Presidential candidates have expressed, at a minimum, very grave reservations about the proposed grants deal. Tipperary’s Sean Fogarty struck the clearest of chords with many “Of-One-Believers” when he said: “At the outset we should never have entered discussions on it.” Liam O’Neill meanwhile commented: “If we renege on our amateur status history will not judge us kindly.” And finally Christy Cooney is clear that: “If it affects Rule 11 it shouldn’t happen and it’s up to Management and Central Council to convince Clubs and Counties that it doesn’t.”

Defenders of paying our inter-County players cash to play gaelic games are becoming an endangered species. But when the best that one national journalist who supports the scheme can come up with is an intimidatory “Sign up to grants – or else”, it’s hard to be persuaded by the logical and ethical brilliance of that particular argument!

Dublin Deliberation Deferred

In the light of the forthcoming DRA hearing and Central Council’s meeting of 17 March, St Joseph’s/O’Connell’s Boys GAC agreed to defer until April its motion due for debate at last night’s Dublin County Board meeting. The Club’s motion was fairly straightforward: it mandated Dublin to vote against the “November 2007 Agreement” (or any modification of it that continues to break Rule 11) at Congress. A number of other Dublin Clubs had already rowed in behind St Joseph’s/O’Connell’s Boys on this issue.

But Because We Pay Managers …

There’s a weird circular argument going round that because there’s a raft of “illegal” paid managers at work across the GAA, then it should be OK to also illegally pay elite players. And that those who oppose the grants are thereby hypocrites. Our position is very clear on this: we oppose paid managers. We think the principle of outside, paid managers at Club or County level attacks the very ethos of the GAA. They’re a cancer … and just because part of the body has a cancer is no reason to inject botulism into another part of it.

If the grants debate is won and the idea of pay-for-elite-play is binned, then we need to address the pay-to-manage syndrome with the same vigour. Let’s do it. Let’s bring in rules about who’s eligible to coach/manage teams, rules that run parallel with our existing rules which determine who’s eligible to play for those same teams. It’s not beyond the bounds of GAA possibility to do it. And it’s something we can address jointly, from Central Council down to the grass-roots.

That’s of course, if we’re serious about it! And if that hypocrisy doesn’t run farther than some might think!

Every Club and County in the Land and Beyond

Because those who should be doing it aren’t doing it, we’ve been trying to facilitate a discussion on the grants issue across the GAA. Over the past weekend the text below has been emailed to GAA Clubs; Counties; and Provinces, not just in Ireland but round the world. Nearly 2,400 GAA units have now received the following:

“Speak Now … Or Forever Hold Your Peace!“

What This Is About

At this year’s Congress the GAA will take one of its most fundamental decisions ever – whether inter-County GAA players should be given cash for playing our games. For whatever reason this issue isn’t being discussed across the GAA as it should be. But many, many GAA people are hugely concerned about it. We would like you to debate it in your Club or County. Your County will be voting on it at Congress. Make sure the votes cast on your behalf reflect what YOU think!

We’re All Adults Around Here

We have a particular view on the cash payments. We’re totally against them. But we don’t expect people to unquestioningly follow our line. We want you to discuss this issue and to reach a conclusion you’re content with. We hope you’ll share our view. This circular sets out why we oppose paying some GAA players to play gaelic games. It’s going to every GAA Club and County. Circulate it to your colleagues/members. Read over it and make up your minds. What you’ll read here isn’t being discussed across the GAA as it should be. But the GAA is us as much as anyone else. Let’s make our view count!

If Grants Are Paid To Inter-County GAA Players, Then …

• Our Rule 11 (”a player … shall not accept payment in cash or in kind in conjunction with the playing of Gaelic games”) is blown asunder

• Under EU law, the players’ GAA activity will become an economic activity and be subject to EU commercial law: our fundamental GAA principles and rules about eligibility; transfers; and so on will go out the window. Players will be able to move as they/sponsors/whoever sees fit. And they’ll hold “restraint of trade” powers over GAA Committees at Club and County level. It wouldn’t happen? Look at the Bosman; Deliege; Meca-Medina; and Kolpac cases at the European Court of Justice.

• Our amateur status will be gone and it won’t be coming back. Those behind the grants deal say it “copper-fastens” our amateur status. European commercial case law says something totally different. Which of them do you think will turn out to be right?

• For the first time in GAA history we will have two classes of GAA players/members … those who pay for the games and those who are paid to play them.

• We’ll have established the principle that inter-County players get money because of who they are. That process won’t stop.

• There will be no moral nor legal justification for not paying the teams’ backroom people … then the team liaison people … then our County Committee people … then …

• For the first time in GAA history single decisions by referees; umpires; linesmen; and fixture-makers will decide into whose pockets tens of thousands of euros will go

• Illicit “sponsors” will be able to offer teams cash prizes for winning things: the EU “economic activity” reality will mean we can’t stop it

• Once the government pulls its funding (as it inevitably will) the GAA will have to pick up the bill

• Club players picked for their County will have a clear financial incentive not to risk injury at Club level. The Club/County divide will grow dramatically.

• Any chance we have of tackling the poison (and it is a poison) of paid managers in the GAA will be gone

• Volunteers will increasingly say: “I’m off!” They have in every other sport where payment was introduced. Just look at Club rugby in Ireland (if you can find it) ten years after pay-for-play came in.

And No, We Don’t Have To Do This!

Let’s remember a few basics that have got lost in the fog here:

• In the GAA nobody has to do anything! If players think the burdens are too great, they should walk away … just like the rest of us should. We’re volunteers, ALL of us!

• In the GAA there’s no such thing as an “Inter-County player”: we have Club players who happen to get picked for their County

• Amateurism and volunteerism are at the heart of what the GAA has been and done for 124 years: change that and you break the core GAA dynamic. And Ireland suffers disastrously as a result.

It’s our choice and ours alone whether we accept pay-for-play, however it’s dressed up. Oppose the grants. Let’s get back to doing what the GAA was set up to do, providing “no charge” gaelic opportunities for the people of Ireland. Join us at www.ofonebelief.org

O Wad Some Pow’r

The great Robert Burns put it as only he could:

“O wad some pow’r the giftie gie us

To see oursels as others see us”

In that light what about this from the Mayor of Wexford, George Lawlor, at last weekend’s Leinster Convention:

“Some people who seem to be shouting the loudest seem to be abandoning the fact that were it not for the GAA they would not be in the economic circumstances they find themselves at the current time. Also, in relation to power bases in the GAA, it has to be said that the day when a club secretary or chairman or county board delegate decide they want to go on strike, I think that’s the time you will see who are the powerhouse and who are the engine room within this organisation.”

Confused? Not Half As Much As We Are!

“I would be surprised if county boards made a decision on a document that they haven’t seen.” Pauric Duffy on 3 March 2008.

So how come Central Council could make a decision on 16 February, on the same document it hadn’t seen either, to seek Congress’ “satisfaction” with that document and its contents? We certainly expressed surprise then … but who else did?

Is there just a wee bit of double standards at work here?

And Finally, Keep The Faith, All 950+ Of You! The Next Month is Critical!

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 very significant 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 when this issue is debated at Central Council on 17 March
• 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!

To close on another positive note, the 950^th person registered with us yesterday. Not bad for a small rump of malcontents!