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

[Tiger Craig]

A few ways around it :

1) All GAA players be invited to apply for a pro (really semi-pro) contract. The GAA to be the employer. Part of the terms of the contract is that the employer can assign the employee to any branch of the company (ie. county team) that they see fit. No different than working for a bank and being sent to a particular branch. That way the player cannot complain about where they are sent (unless it is completely unfeasible which is ulikely in a country the size of Ireland). Maintains county "loyalty". Players cannot demand a transfer as there is only 1 employer (the US Major League Soccer model)

2) Players are invited to apply, with the acceptance that they will play for whoever picks them (the US NFL & NBAand Australian AFL model). If they don't like it, they can always stay with their amateur minor league club.

3) stay as is - some players will be paid under the table, others will go to AFL, others will quit, most will just play.

[Aerlik]

A few ways around it :

1) All GAA players be invited to apply for a pro (really semi-pro) contract. The GAA to be the employer. Part of the terms of the contract is that the employer can assign the employee to any branch of the company (ie. county team) that they see fit. No different than working for a bank and being sent to a particular branch. That way the player cannot complain about where they are sent (unless it is completely unfeasible which is ulikely in a country the size of Ireland). Maintains county "loyalty". Players cannot demand a transfer as there is only 1 employer (the US Major League Soccer model)

2) Players are invited to apply, with the acceptance that they will play for whoever picks them (the US NFL & NBAand Australian AFL model). If they don't like it, they can always stay with their amateur minor league club.

3) stay as is - some players will be paid under the table, others will go to AFL, others will quit, most will just play.

Sorry TC, No.1 won't work because the whole ethos of the GAA, the fundamental heart of the organisation if you like is the parish and it will be next or near (dare I say totally) impossible to get it to work.  Imagine, a Derry club man playing for Antrim ?

No. 2 would require a salary-cap type limit on the power of big counties like Dublin or Cork, Derry or Tyrone.

Just imagine if the Dockers were formed the same time the Eagles were.  Who'd have won the premiership first?    The downside to that would be Freo would have had first pick of Junky Cousins.

[Hound]

If the ECB can't get their eighteen counties to act in "best interests" of the game, what chance that the GAA will be able to it's thirty-two plus counties to act in a collective (i.e. cartel-like) manner?

That point is absolutely true deiseach, but nothing to do with the grants. The grants will have no impact on this whatsoever, no matter what stories quidnunc comes up with about players going to the Euopean Courts so they can get their extra 200 euro per annum from playing with a good team!

At any stage any county can try and break the current rules (or go to court to get the rules changed) in order to poach players from different counties. There are counties that push the existing rules as far as they can in order to encourage players to play for them - but so far no county has decided to take the GAA on regarding a change in rules. There is no question that the GAA mindset is different to the ECB mindset. That may well change in the future, but these grants would be totally irrelevant to that.

And I repeat, even in the highly unlikely event of a Clare footballer going to the European Courts to get rules changed so he can get his extra 4 euro a week, no court could force Kerry or Tyrone or anyone else to take him. The counties will contiue to use their current selection processes until the counties themselves or the GAA decide to change the poilcy. No player or court can impact that, unless they have the support of a renegade county - and to repeat one more time, that can happen at any time and has nothing to do with the grants.

The grants change nothing.

[deiseach]

If the ECB can't get their eighteen counties to act in "best interests" of the game, what chance that the GAA will be able to it's thirty-two plus counties to act in a collective (i.e. cartel-like) manner?

That point is absolutely true deiseach, but nothing to do with the grants. The grants will have no impact on this whatsoever, no matter what stories quidnunc comes up with about players going to the Euopean Courts so they can get their extra 200 euro per annum from playing with a good team!

At any stage any county can try and break the current rules (or go to court to get the rules changed) in order to poach players from different counties. There are counties that push the existing rules as far as they can in order to encourage players to play for them - but so far no county has decided to take the GAA on regarding a change in rules. There is no question that the GAA mindset is different to the ECB mindset. That may well change in the future, but these grants would be totally irrelevant to that.

And I repeat, even in the highly unlikely event of a Clare footballer going to the European Courts to get rules changed so he can get his extra 4 euro a week, no court could force Kerry or Tyrone or anyone else to take him. The counties will contiue to use their current selection processes until the counties themselves or the GAA decide to change the poilcy. No player or court can impact that, unless they have the support of a renegade county - and to repeat one more time, that can happen at any time and has nothing to do with the grants.

The grants change nothing.

Hound, you can say as many times as you like that these things have "nothing to do with the grants", that "the grants would be totally irrelevant to that" and the "the grants change nothing". The grants will change things. The idea that the GAA will rumble along as it always has, with the only thing different being that the players have a few extra quid in their pockets, is fanciful in the extreme. All the other sporting organisations that have been mentioned in this thread, whether it be soccer, handball, cricket or judo, thought they could maintain the status quo. They were all proven wrong. Given the current body of precedent for employment law - and a plaintiff would not have to go all the way to Luxembourg to argue their case, there is a perfectly acceptable forum on the north quays in Dublin where they can utilise the precedents established in the ECJ as being binding under Irish law - any attempt to prevent a person moving to a better paid post on the basis of quotas would be doomed to failure. Now, perhaps any county that attempted to poach a player on this basis would be considered a 'renegade county'. But when you consider that a county in England considered it worth incurring the wrath of their peers to secure an advantage in winning the cricket county championship, a title that anyone who knows cricket will tell you is about as meaningful as the FBD League or the Waterford Crystal Cup - Shane Warne has agreed with Hampshire that he can miss a few matches this coming season so he can play poker - then it isn't a great leap to see a county being happy to screw its neighbours over in order to win Sam or Liam.

[DUBSFORSAM1]

Deiseach - The difference is that the counties in England play their players in a professional sport - Gaelic players are getting grants from teh Govt and are not employed in anyway by the GAA.....The case taken was due to the fact they were getting paid by their own sporting body and the body therefore were the ones denying her the oppurtunity..

[deiseach]

Deiseach - The difference is that the counties in England play their players in a professional sport - Gaelic players are getting grants from teh Govt and are not employed in anyway by the GAA.....The case taken was due to the fact they were getting paid by their own sporting body and the body therefore were the ones denying her the oppurtunity..

So you're saying the courts would be happy with an argument that it was all right for the GAA's rules to prevent someone earning a bigger crust, however small that bigger crust might be, because the whole crust was coming from a third party? Even though it was activity under the auspices of the GAA from which said crust was being earned? I find your faith that the courts would buy such a Chinese wall to be dubious, to say the least.

Let me put it this way. What happened to Jean Marc Bosman could not have happened in England where, if a player was offered less than his previous contract when this contract was up, he could walk away from the club and transfer fees be damned. The authorities in England probably believed their more reasonable system protected them from any consequences of Bosman winning his case. They were incredibly wrong, and the ripples are still being felt to this day. Once money changes hands for services rendered, you are subject to employment law. No amount of sophistry will change the fact that once the grants scheme comes in, the way the players interact with their 'employers' will change.

[DUBSFORSAM1]

Deiseach - The difference is that the counties in England play their players in a professional sport - Gaelic players are getting grants from teh Govt and are not employed in anyway by the GAA.....The case taken was due to the fact they were getting paid by their own sporting body and the body therefore were the ones denying her the oppurtunity..

So you're saying the courts would be happy with an argument that it was all right for the GAA's rules to prevent someone earning a bigger crust, however small that bigger crust might be, because the whole crust was coming from a third party? Even though it was activity under the auspices of the GAA from which said crust was being earned? I find your faith that the courts would buy such a Chinese wall to be dubious, to say the least.

Let me put it this way. What happened to Jean Marc Bosman could not have happened in England where, if a player was offered less than his previous contract when this contract was up, he could walk away from the club and transfer fees be damned. The authorities in England probably believed their more reasonable system protected them from any consequences of Bosman winning his case. They were incredibly wrong, and the ripples are still being felt to this day. Once money changes hands for services rendered, you are subject to employment law. No amount of sophistry will change the fact that once the grants scheme comes in, the way the players interact with their 'employers' will change.

Ok Deiseach I will try and explain this in a simple way -

I work as a independent consultant, my company "ie me" is employed by an agency on behalf of the bank I work in....My rates are paid by the agency so I am not an employee of the Bank where I work as I don't get paid by them so I have no "employee" rights as such with the bank as I am not their employee...

[deiseach]

Ok Deiseach I will try and explain this in a simple way -

I work as a independent consultant, my company "ie me" is employed by an agency on behalf of the bank I work in....My rates are paid by the agency so I am not an employee of the Bank where I work as I don't get paid by them so I have no "employee" rights as such with the bank as I am not their employee...

You still have employee rights from being a citizen of Ireland and the EU. Imagine the stink if the agency said that they weren't sending you to work in a particular bank because, despite the branch in question wanting to employ you, the  banks head office had a policy of not employing Dubs in that branch. Somehow I can't see the "we make our own rules" argument would cut any ice with the beak should it ever come to court.

[pedro]

Lads, I am just thinkin in my head here. Would anyone be opposed to a GPA initiative to increase current milage rates from the existing 50c a mile to, say €2 or €3 a mile? Now this would be well within the rules of the association and would probab;ly mean more money for the players themselves. I am in no way saying this should be done or anythin but I am wondering whether people would have a problem with that initiative rather than the grants proposal.

In essence it is pay for play but under existing rules it technically isn't pay for play. Maybe I am totally wrong but that would be my take on it

[quidnunc]

Ok Deiseach I will try and explain this in a simple way -

I work as a independent consultant, my company "ie me" is employed by an agency on behalf of the bank I work in....My rates are paid by the agency so I am not an employee of the Bank where I work as I don't get paid by them so I have no "employee" rights as such with the bank as I am not their employee...

The irony! Deiseach's contributions have been much more erudite than yours, and then you come out with this garbled nonsense. I cannot make sense of it no matter how many times I read it. Try some punctuation for a start.

Again, it doesn't matter who pays the money - Chelsea FC players are affiliated to the FA Premier League, but it doesn't pay their wages. Their wages are paid by the club/agency called Chelsea FC, or by Roman Abramovich basically. They are entitled to all the freedom of movement rights established by Bosman.

[believebelive]

If the ECB can't get their eighteen counties to act in "best interests" of the game, what chance that the GAA will be able to it's thirty-two plus counties to act in a collective (i.e. cartel-like) manner?

That point is absolutely true deiseach, but nothing to do with the grants. The grants will have no impact on this whatsoever, no matter what stories quidnunc comes up with about players going to the Euopean Courts so they can get their extra 200 euro per annum from playing with a good team!
At any stage any county can try and break the current rules (or go to court to get the rules changed) in order to poach players from different counties. There are counties that push the existing rules as far as they can in order to encourage players to play for them - but so far no county has decided to take the GAA on regarding a change in rules. There is no question that the GAA mindset is different to the ECB mindset. That may well change in the future, but these grants would be totally irrelevant to that.

And I repeat, even in the highly unlikely event of a Clare footballer going to the European Courts to get rules changed so he can get his extra 4 euro a week, no court could force Kerry or Tyrone or anyone else to take him. The counties will contiue to use their current selection processes until the counties themselves or the GAA decide to change the poilcy. No player or court can impact that, unless they have the support of a renegade county - and to repeat one more time, that can happen at any time and has nothing to do with the grants.

The grants change nothing.

Hound - can i ask you where u are getting the figure in bold above. As far as i know there has been no release of details of what different teams will get with respect to the present grants proposal.
And the difference between All Ireland finalists and 2nd round qualifier losers was 20 euro per week if you take the originall figures put forward by the GAA/GPA to the government.

I would genuinely be glad to hear where you get these figures from as it seems you know more than the rest of us.

[DUBSFORSAM1]

Ok Deiseach I will try and explain this in a simple way -

I work as a independent consultant, my company "ie me" is employed by an agency on behalf of the bank I work in....My rates are paid by the agency so I am not an employee of the Bank where I work as I don't get paid by them so I have no "employee" rights as such with the bank as I am not their employee...

The irony! Deiseach's contributions have been much more erudite than yours, and then you come out with this garbled nonsense. I cannot make sense of it no matter how many times I read it. Try some punctuation for a start.

Again, it doesn't matter who pays the money - Chelsea FC players are affiliated to the FA Premier League, but it doesn't pay their wages. Their wages are paid by the club/agency called Chelsea FC, or by Roman Abramovich basically. They are entitled to all the freedom of movement rights established by Bosman.

The Chelsea footballers are "professional" footballers who are employed to play football for a club and paid by the club.....GAA players are amateur who get their wages paid by their employers and who get a Govt grant....that is a totally different scenario or can you not comprehend that..

[deiseach]

Whether it is a grant or a wage, the ability to maximise your income is compromised because the rules of association discriminate against people on the basis of where they are from. It would be akin to the Scottish executive offering lower  grants to students because they were from England. Either the grants are the same regardless of where you are from or you allow people to move in a meritocratic fashion. The choice is yours . . .