Spillane article

[twohands!!!]

I just can't see any way around managers getting paid myself, much as I'd love to.

Put them "through the books" and the ultra-black market of sponsors sending envelopes directly to managers, will become the norm for everyone. The GAA can't control this. Send a top investigative journalist onto the case and he might unearth and shame a few, but the majority will trundle on.

Tie them to club membership, and they become strength and conditioning coaches / physios in name, which means they can run the show from the sidelines, in every way apart from wearing a bib on championship days.

These moves would only feed whispers and resentment, while changing nothing.

It's an insipid part of association's culture.

+1
You are bang on and no amount of waffling about tying managers to club memberships or putting their income through the books will solve the problem. That is, if you regard it as a problem in the first place.
I believe that most managers derive most if not all of their income through covert sponsorship deals- probably with the knowledge of county boards or club executive. I mean that clubs or cbs could manage to pay some of the payments being bandied about on this board and prevent it showing up on the books.
Apart from that, a great many clubs and counties are already struggling to keep going as it is without stuffing thousands of euros into brown envelopes on the qt.

Will these lad end up with a very minimal pension if taxes not paid on earnings?  A bit like the lads in parts of the UK who were paid cash "off the books" for years and are now destitute in their old age?

Maybe be an idea for the GAA to insist on tax clearance certs from the Revenue for anyone who wants to manage a senior intercounty team?

Another possible idea is to ask the government to increase the reporting requirements and financial controls for sporting clubs and associations.

Make it so that every club/association that is looking to fundraise from the public in any way or receive tax payer funds have to provide five years of all their financial reports for the the charity regulator to post on the charity regulator's website, with increased requirements in terms of the detail on where money is spent. The last few years have shown that simply requiring audited reports is inadequate.

There should be complete visability in terms of every cent spent by any sporting club or association, especially as regards salaries and expenses.

[From the Bunker]

I find it gas that Spillane who has been making a lot of money from the GAA for years now should begrudge inter-county Managers getting rewarded for their time.

It's like lets me sit up here in my Ivory tower getting well paid for writing a few columns and a bit of TV. Meanwhile you should get nothing for spending most of your year Managing a football team for nothing.

[thewobbler]

I just can't see any way around managers getting paid myself, much as I'd love to.

Put them "through the books" and the ultra-black market of sponsors sending envelopes directly to managers, will become the norm for everyone. The GAA can't control this. Send a top investigative journalist onto the case and he might unearth and shame a few, but the majority will trundle on.

Tie them to club membership, and they become strength and conditioning coaches / physios in name, which means they can run the show from the sidelines, in every way apart from wearing a bib on championship days.

These moves would only feed whispers and resentment, while changing nothing.

It's an insipid part of association's culture.

+1
You are bang on and no amount of waffling about tying managers to club memberships or putting their income through the books will solve the problem. That is, if you regard it as a problem in the first place.
I believe that most managers derive most if not all of their income through covert sponsorship deals- probably with the knowledge of county boards or club executive. I mean that clubs or cbs could manage to pay some of the payments being bandied about on this board and prevent it showing up on the books.
Apart from that, a great many clubs and counties are already struggling to keep going as it is without stuffing thousands of euros into brown envelopes on the qt.

Will these lad end up with a very minimal pension if taxes not paid on earnings?  A bit like the lads in parts of the UK who were paid cash "off the books" for years and are now destitute in their old age?

Maybe be an idea for the GAA to insist on tax clearance certs from the Revenue for anyone who wants to manage a senior intercounty team?

Another possible idea is to ask the government to increase the reporting requirements and financial controls for sporting clubs and associations.

Make it so that every club/association that is looking to fundraise from the public in any way or receive tax payer funds have to provide five years of all their financial reports for the the charity regulator to post on the charity regulator's website, with increased requirements in terms of the detail on where money is spent. The last few years have shown that simply requiring audited reports is inadequate.

There should be complete visability in terms of every cent spent by any sporting club or association, especially as regards salaries and expenses.

How can you audit something that doesn't exist?

I know you mean well with what you're proposing. But the crux of the issue is you won't find a paper trail linking it together, as the money managers receive either a) never actually comes into the association (sponsors making direct payments), or b) is never recognisable as income; it is an addendum to the declared figures on gate receipts, lottos, and other cash fundraisers. Short of appointing an auditor to attend all potential income generation events - which would be both unconstitutional and more costly than the managers they are pursuing - there is no way of breaking this code.

[APM]

I find it gas that Spillane who has been making a lot of money from the GAA for years now should begrudge inter-county Managers getting rewarded for their time.

It's like lets me sit up here in my Ivory tower getting well paid for writing a few columns and a bit of TV. Meanwhile you should get nothing for spending most of your year Managing a football team for nothing.

Agree, but it doesn't make him wrong! and it isn't just county football. 

There are a long list of people reaching into the pockets of communities up and down the country in the name of preparing club and county teams:

- Managers - Organisation, man management, doing the line etc etc
- Coaches (a variety of kinds) - but not the job of a manager
- Physios - treating injuries, pitchside, rub downs etc
- Performance / video analysis
- Sports Psychology


Don't get me wrong - some of this is defensible in the interest of player welfare - particularly physios, but there are a lot of trimmings. 

You have stuff like this - and I don't know if it's still going?
http://www.breakforball.com/other-services/

What is the objective here?  Only one team can win any given competition at the end of the year - so what is it all about? Excellence? Commitment? Competitiveness? ....Money?. 

It starts with some big shot on an ego trip, deciding to pay for Ballygobackwards GAC to have a manager.  The manager gets paid per session, so the training starts earlier in the year and its three nights a week, all in the name of getting the edge on our rivals - the players are taking out gym memberships for a strength and conditioning winter programme.  It's ultra-competitive and there are 30 lads training every night early in the year.  The manager prefers if the players use a particular phsyio and they run up a sizeable bill.  Ballygobackwards don't win the championship, therefore now need to pay a better manager and we need bonding weekends.  But by this stage the big shot has disappeared, but the club continues to fundraise to pay a manager and has also built a gym.

The highpoint is a Senior Final in which they get badly beaten but within two years they are back in Intermediate football.  Ballygobackwards still has the gym, but the players aren't using it.  They no long field a reserve team and only have 10 players training some nights.  They are still fundraising  (from all of the usual suspects in the local community) - some of it being used to pay an outside manager, who insists on a coach and a physio.   

Is this sensible?