The medias relentless push towards professionalism in the GAA....

[J70]

Great piece all right from Brolly. However, the criticism of the hypocrisy of the GAA regarding the wink and nod brown envelope culture is perfectly valid. If amateurism is going to be the official policy when it comes to managers, then it should be enforced.

[deiseach]

Why are ye happy to pay the county boards Secretary, pay the school coaches, pay the county groundsman, never mind the president, I could go on, but I'm sure you get my drift, so whats the problem with paying the county manager? There is no logical argument to defend the difference in this roles. Infact my logic would be if the president can take a three sabbatical from his career and his salary paid for him by the GAA, why can't the manager, anyone care to logical explain why this couldn't, shouldn't happen?

Yes, there is. They are paid for their jobs. You need specialist skills to be a schools coach or a groundsman. I'll give you the President, the only 'skill' they require is being able to be elected, but otherwise the GAA should pay people for work and not pay those who are doing it for play, which includes team managers of all stripes.

I'll turn your logic right around on you. Who in the GAA should not get paid? I remember talking to a rugby lad about how his club would raffle their Six Nations tickets every year - and by 'raffle', I mean 'flog it to some corporate shyster for fifty times its face value'. "No one will do anything for free these days" was his rationale. Beware Pandora's box.

[seafoid]

Where is the money supposed to come from? Mortgage arrears ?

[Sidney]

Everybody should ask themselves the following questions:

Is the "momentum towards professionalism" in the GAA "irresistible" as Conlon says? If so, why?

Who is pushing that point of view? Is it mainly GAA members themselves or is it mainly a media thing?

Do you think payments to managers should be legitimised? If so, why?

If managers were to be legitimately paid, how much payment should be legitimised? Should it be on a supply and demand "free market" basis where a manager can name his price or should it be only a fixed amount with a specified maximum limit?

Would under the counter payments still continue anyway if a specified limit wasn't considered enough by a manager?

If managers were paid, should players be paid? Would players look to be paid if managers are paid?

If players were paid, where would the money come from? Should players be paid more than managers?

Which teams would get paid? Would it be just senior inter-county? Would it be only some senior inter-county teams? Would the Leitrim hurlers get paid? Would the top club teams get paid? What about Women's GAA?

If payments to managers were legitimised, would anybody want to manage a team without looking for payment?

If players were paid, would they be able to move between counties? Would rules against this be seen as restraint of trade under the law?

Should players be allowed to move between counties anyway like Seanie Johnston is trying to do?

If players were paid would it have an effect on the county system, and if so, what effect?

[Bord na Mona man]

Everybody should ask themselves the following questions:

Is the "momentum towards professionalism" in the GAA "irresistible" as Conlon says? If so, why?

Who is pushing that point of view? Is it mainly GAA members themselves or is it mainly a media thing?

Once Croke Park was opened to soccer and rugby, I predicted that the media (especially the Indo) would need a new hobby horse to flog and that campaigning to get players paid would be it.

Five or six years ago when money (debt) was sloshing around the place, a crusade like this might have gained more momentum. However, the country is stone broke at the moment and most counties are struggling to balance the books.

It is as much a non-runner now as anytime in the last couple of decades.

[carmenabu]

http://www.derryjournal.com/sport/gaelic-games/brolly_s_bites_who_is_the_gobshite_1_3557614


Interesting piece from Joe Brolly on the media's pursuit of professionalism.

Not his greatest fan but spot on here i think.
[/quot


Love the way the article finishes

"Who exactly is the Gobshite?

Joe Brolly wrties in the Journal every Friday"

But in all seriousness, I have to agree 100% with what Brolly is saying.  Nobody is forcing people to play or manage a team, if they don't want to put in the commitment for free, then they should just walk away. There will alway be someone else willing to step in.

[Zulu]

That's precisely the problem, there isn't always someone to step in. On top of that most players are demanding a level of coaching that is beyond what many are capable of, so you end up with a fairly small group of people willing and able to do the job.

[seafoid]

Maybe the GAA could strike back by starting a campaign to insist that all newspapers are run profitably. 

[Jinxy]

Players say the demands now are unsustainable.
Lets say for the sake of argument that we accept that they are unsustainable.
Why is professionalism deemed to be the only solution to this problem?
What's stopping us reducing the demands?
Some people will say that this is regressive, but is it really so regressive if the alternative is to sunder the association?
Limit the number of training sessions per week and have this independently monitored and verified.
Any breach of this should be subject to financial sanctions.
A level playing field for all, plus the county boards would be delighted to have their expenses reduced.
What would be the problem with this?
I would be quite happy for players fitness levels to drop back to a level whereby it is not possible for them to cover every single blade of grass in Croke Park.
It would be better for the game as well.
What exactly is stopping us doing this?

[Zulu]

The real world for one thing. How can you limit training and how (realistically) monitor this? Or what's to prevent players being given extra training that they now have to do unmonitored? Competitive sport isn't about level playing fields, it's about the exact opposite with everybody trying to get an edge. If we try to stifle teams preparation then we may as well retreat into the shadows and let soccer and rugby take centre stage.

[Jinxy]

Get the GPA and the players on board.
Present them with a choice.
a) We continue on with the status quo, where you feel too much is being demanded of you
or
b) We try to implement a system whereby collective training sessions and separate conditioning work are monitored either in terms of the number of hours per week spent training. The Scientific and Medical Welfare committee in Croke Park will put an upper limit on this.

How do you monitor the latter option?
You simply stop paying for it.
If the players say we'll go with option b) and yet choose to break the agreement that's on their own heads and at their own expense.
This is easier with collective training where meals, expensed travel etc. are provided.
It gets trickier when it comes down to conditioning work on their own time.
You can't stop a guy going to the gym but surely you can stop someone telling him he has to go to the gym.
If they feel they are being put under pressure to do so they can take it up with the GPA.
The reality is Zulu, even if you can't enforce option b) properly, by choosing that option the players have taken away the 'too much is being demanded of us' argument.
Maybe they are demanding too much of themselves?

Some sort of choice has to be presented to the players so we know exactly what it is that they want.
To train like lunatics and be paid for it, or to row back on the demands a bit so they don't feel they are constantly under pressure.
Even if they say, 'No, we want to keep training at the level we currently are' that gives you a starting point.
A meaningful discussion has to take place where this can all be thrashed out.
Within the association.
And it needs to take place soon because the media are going to keep filling in the blanks themselves.

[Zulu]

But I don't think you're tackling the problem there. The problem isn't IC football but the fact that the best players are being asked to play club, university and county level (possibly in both codes). This means that lads are not able to put in the proper foundations for the demands of the games nor do they get the proper rest or recovery as they are straight into club action once the county is out. Professionalism or payment to managers isn't even a minor issue in the GAA compared to our idiotic season and the fact that the better the player you are the more teams we load on you while the majority of the players sit around doing nothing. But we see from the Railway cup thread that GAA folk don't want to make hard choices, they prefer to look at everything in isolation. The GAA is a ship without a captain and nobody has a clue where we actually want to go.

[deiseach]

Professionalism or payment to managers isn't even a minor issue in the GAA compared to our idiotic season and the fact that the better the player you are the more teams we load on you while the majority of the players sit around doing nothing.

The biggest problem the GAA faces. +1

[HiMucker]

Anyone who thinks intercounty players get fit at county training is living in the dark ages.  Players must be fit to go to training not training to get fit.  Fair enough they might do the odd collective fitness session but id say its more for a top up or monitoring than anything else.  Limiting the number of county training sessions will not make one blind bit of difference to the fitness levels of teams.

[Leo]

Why are ye happy to pay the county boards Secretary, pay the school coaches, pay the county groundsman, never mind the president, I could go on, but I'm sure you get my drift, so whats the problem with paying the county manager? There is no logical argument to defend the difference in this roles. Infact my logic would be if the president can take a three sabbatical from his career and his salary paid for him by the GAA, why can't the manager, anyone care to logical explain why this couldn't, shouldn't happen?

I have no problem with the payment to full-time coaches; properly qualified and utilised, the future of the games needs this.
The idea of a paid county secretary is barmy especially when most counties have an army of paid office administrators anyway. In most counties the paid secretary is a lifelong GAA insider with little or no commercial ability, trying to wear too many hats,  when what the county requires is an executive officer  with commercial experience and who is employed by the county and answerable to the county executive; what we have is the tail wagging the dog.

On then to the question of paid managers. What should be done is that each county, depending on factors such as its size of membership, level of competition, travelling distances, etc. is given a budget for county team management (to include all personnel including manager, selectors, physios, drivers, water carriers, etc.) within which they must operate, with increments to reflect seasonal progress (e,g, increases to reflect the extra championship games as a team progresses).
County officers to sign off on this and a proper annual audit conducted to ensure compliance, expuslion from competition for breaches. This will force county boards to exercise a high level of care and scrutiny when making appointments, and proper monitoring and help cut out the brown envelope culture and the semi-pro merry-go-round that we currently have. It might also get us back to something of a level playing field. (While we are at it we might put a cap on the runaway train that is county training regimes).

Comparisons with rugby are not valid as it has a true international dimension both at national and club level that creates a cash cow for IRFU & the 4 provincial pro clubs (whose player contracts are all owned by IRFU!!) every year.

Comparisons with Irish League soccer or League of Ireland might be more valid - the unsutainable and poorly regulated nature of their professional set-up has been demonstrated on a continuing basis with clubs folding or on the brink of liquidation every year - Cork City, Drogheda Utd., Shelbourne, Derry City, Glentoran, Newry City, etc. etc.

The country cannot support an internal professioanl sport in any code. If we don't openly grasp this nettle now and put in a realistic fix we will damge the unique ethos of the GAA beyond recovery.