RANT
Rising ticket prices is another clear sign that the paid bureaucrats across our association, have firmly wrestled control (and strategy) away from the volunteers.
As summary of how it works:
A well-meaning provincial volunteer officer identifies that the association could benefit from placing a full-time coaching officer in the province, to provide leadership, direction etc.
After 6-12 months in post the new officer identifies and propositions that the need an S&C specialist officer too, who initially starts on a part time time basis, but quickly “proves the need” for a full time role.
Now there’s two of them, and they’re full to the gills of plans for how to improve everything GAA. They push and proposition hard that a dedicated nutritionist is needed, and a specialised primary schools lead coach is needed. And voila they appear.
Of course at this point they need a (well-paid) head of department to oversee their progress, and it’s only right that these coaches pass on their skills to the next generation, so they all enjoy at least one of a junior officer and/or a university placement student.
With all these staff floating around, there’s now a clear need for a HR manager and a recruiter. Plus an office admin because none of the coaches are ever on hand. So we’ve a new department, and need a head of operations to lead them.
And at this point it would be folly not to have a well-paid CEO to set the vision and shake hands with everyone.
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That’s been the path of the GAA during my adult life.
Every year the Association expands its employee base and wage bill.
And you don’t need an accountant to realise that the only sure fire way to ensure that profits continue in an upward trend, is to raise ticket prices.
Why a non-profit organisation needs to have an upward trend in profits has always baffled me, but that’s for another day.
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The most pertinent question to ask here isn’t why ticket prices have to go up. This is obvious. The right question to ask is whether 30 years or so after the first full time officers came on board, has the Association improved any for their “efforts”?
It has. There’s been improvements.
But not a lot.
We (the clubs) have a lot more paperwork to do as a result of all these officials being in place. We (the followers) have currently a worse end product, due to over over conditioned, mistake-free football coached across the board. And to pay for this bureaucracy, we (the fans) are getting shat upon by ticket prices.
Personally I’ve no interest in the GAA being a commercial organisation. I don’t want to see it competing with soccer.
I’d truly love to decimate the paid ranks of the GAA.
Very good post. This gradual take over of GAA teams by the merry go round coaching fraternity has definitely not resulted in a better spectacle. Yes, the players are more skilled and better conditioned than ever but the games are often dull and lack excitement. Most of the money is being sucked out of the association by a small army of paid coaches, nutriotinists, S & C coaches etc The hundreds of members in each club help fill the coffers to pay a handful of these same merry go round managers. While this growing upward pressure on income remains, the cost to individual members and the paying public has to increase proportionately be it through tickets sales, sponsorship or live streaming. The rising ticket prices are only a symptom of the growing costs which the GAA have failed to address.
If there are an average of 40 clubs in each county I'd guess that at least 30 of those are paying coaches. If the average cost of a senior management team is £30k (some will be considerably more, some will be less) that is almost £1m per county that clubs are paying out on senior management set ups. There is a large part of the problem.
