When you look in the rear view mirror at 2007 fading into the distance and you think about it a bit, it seems like the GAA year just gone by will mainly be remembered for just one thing… money, writes An Fear Rua…

True enough, we had our Kilkennys, our Kerrys, our Sligos and our Waterfords. But then, each GAA year, in its own way, produces more than its share of heroes and heroines. In that respect, 2007 was no different to ’77, ’67, ’57 or even ’47. The real difference this time was … money.

The biggest milestones of 2007 were not who toppled who as provincial champions or who retained their titles. They were the following:
• The opening up of Croke Park to international matches in rugby and soccer
• The agreement between the Government, the GAA and the GPA on the payment of grants to inter-county players.
• Negotiations on sponsorship of the major competitions
• Negotiations on broadcasting rights

We don’t have the back of an envelope handy, but we’d say the amount of money involved in the package of goodies outlined above wouldn’t leave much change out of €100 million.

In the case of the deal with the GPA, the amount involved was €3.5 million – a mere drop in this GAA ocean of money. Whether you call it ‘pay for play’ or not doesn’t matter any more. The floodgates have been opened. The damage has been done. We regret now that a campaign we had given succour to over the years – in genuine empathy with the players – has resulted in such a travesty of an outcome.

The GPA and their spokesmen often point to the increased streams of income coming into the GAA from items like sponsorship or broadcast rights as justification for financial payments to players. In arguing that toss, they are seriously missing the point.

Since it was founded back in 1884, the GAA – at national, provincial, county and club level – has been in the money raising business. When Dermot Power tries to screw a few extra quid out of RTÉ or TV3 for broadcasting big games, or Peter McKenna tries to charge more for advertising hoardings on the perimeter of Croke Park, in principle what they’re doing is no different from your own club trying to get the local solicitor to cough more for, say, sponsoring the scoreboard. But would club players come into the AGM asking for more ‘expenses’ simply because the club has had a good year at the Lotto?

The GAA has always made a clear distinction between the need to continually raise large amounts of money to fund grounds, equipment, under-age, training and so on – and to go about it professionally – and the amateur status of players. The results are visible in almost every one of the 2,000 'plus' clubs as well as in county and provincial facilities. There is no doubt that, in the past, players and their families should have been looked after much better. But the players of the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s or ‘80s didn’t start looking for money simply because some commercial sponsor threw a few million on a table up in Jones’s Road. Nor should their successors in 2008.

Increased commercially driven funding into the GAA at any level should not – cannot – be used to justify monetary payments to what is, essentially, a transient generation of inter-county players.

There is plenty to occupy the GPA apart from chasing more cash for players – changes in the rules, player ‘burnout’, the standard of refereeing and umpiring. Practical things that would make like better for players. Let them get on with it.

The Chinese have a way of naming each of their new years after an animal. 2008 is ‘The Year of Pig’, regarded as a particularly auspicious year. Our demand on behalf of ordinary GAA members for 2008 is that the pigging that went on last year will cease. And that the GPA will give us at least twelve months without anymore talk of … money.


Bliain na Muiche ... The Year of the Pig

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