Meeting of Grassroots to Discuss our Strategy re GPA

[Maximus Marillius]

those who believe these grants will have no long term effect on the gaa are seriously deluded or niave,i can tell you now if these grants go through which looks likely you can mark the date and look back and say that was the day the gaa died as we no it.

I'll bet a grand that when rule 21 went there was many a memeber said the same or rule 42, it called scare mongering. The GAA will never allow professionalism into its ranks, well  not in the next 20 years at least. No one knows the future.


Nag I would love you to come and work for me...because your idea of being paid is very different from mine. I pay my employees, not the government, infact the government doing nothing for me but take my hard earned cash. When ever the GAA start to pay these lads, then I'll take up the fight.

[believebelive]

DMarsden - A few points - Firstly congrats on presenting some well reasoned arguments -

Now you said; "i would venture that the overwhelming majority of county players would be in favour of a shift in emphasis towards club football. everyone is a clubman first and formost are they not? i know that this is high on the gpa members'agenda."

I cant agree with you 100% there. They did make recomendations to Paric Duffy concerning the player burnout report but I have read these and simply believe that they do not go far enough. Furthermore if the GPA's membership were balloted on these recomendations then I would wager the majority would want even more of a reduction in their playing time. Also,  the agreement signed last week, IMO, ensures that the inter county player now has to committ even more.

I'm not anti GPA but I am not pro them either - I just think that their management/decision makes has decided that grant aid is the biggest issue facing players and ran with it.

[NAG]

Max

In your infinite wisdom tell us how these grants our going to work?

Who draws up the county the panels and therefore by proxy decides who gets a grant and who doesnt?
Who tells the government ministers and officials, the players bank account details or home address to pay the cheque too?

I will let you in on a wee secret it will be GAA men in Croke Park over seeing this whole proceedure. And when the goverment decide hold on we dont want to pay this 5m a year any more where does the money come from, 'cos once you pop you cant stop'.

Be realistic man at least.

[believebelive]

those who believe these grants will have no long term effect on the gaa are seriously deluded or niave,i can tell you now if these grants go through which looks likely you can mark the date and look back and say that was the day the gaa died as we no it.

I'll bet a grand that when rule 21 went there was many a memeber said the same or rule 42, it called scare mongering. The GAA will never allow professionalism into its ranks, well  not in the next 20 years at least. No one knows the future.


Nag I would love you to come and work for me...because your idea of being paid is very different from mine. I pay my employees, not the government, infact the government doing nothing for me but take my hard earned cash. When ever the GAA start to pay these lads, then I'll take up the fight.

Max - there is a huge difference between rule 21, rule 42 and this debate - In the first two incidences yes there was people who thought that the association would be negatively effected by any tampering with these rules but the crucial thing is is that the majority of association members disagreed with them! 30 out of 32 counties, when they asked the opinion of their club members, decided to delete rule 21.
Democracy Max - it has not happenned with respect to this issue.
If it did and the majority backed the governemnt paying grants then it would be the right thing to do! If the majority do not agree however then it is not the right thing to do!

[orangeman]

The GPA was formed initially ( or at loeast that's what we were told at the time ) to improve player welfare - we all thought that this was about training gear, mileage etc -

But now that conditions have improved they have moved on to the next step - a "grant". Now that is in the bag, what is next ?

I think we all know what's coming next !

[BennyHarp]

Shane Sweeney left the tyrone panel due to work commitments and there is no dispute that is a reasonable excuse and I agree all amateur players should be allowed to choose if they want to play or not. I'm glad you mentioned Mickey Coleman, he left the panel because he wasnt getting an opportunity to play and wasnt prepared to put the considerable effort in to remain on the bench, which again is fair enough and he already has an all-ireland medal in his back pocket - adding further weight to my argumnet that inter county players are a rare breed of not only hightly skilled but totally dedicated individuals who return year after who deserve the grants coming their way!!

[Maximus Marillius]

those who believe these grants will have no long term effect on the gaa are seriously deluded or niave,i can tell you now if these grants go through which looks likely you can mark the date and look back and say that was the day the gaa died as we no it.

I'll bet a grand that when rule 21 went there was many a memeber said the same or rule 42, it called scare mongering. The GAA will never allow professionalism into its ranks, well  not in the next 20 years at least. No one knows the future.


Nag I would love you to come and work for me...because your idea of being paid is very different from mine. I pay my employees, not the government, infact the government doing nothing for me but take my hard earned cash. When ever the GAA start to pay these lads, then I'll take up the fight.

Max - there is a huge difference between rule 21, rule 42 and this debate - In the first two incidences yes there was people who thought that the association would be negatively effected by any tampering with these rules but the crucial thing is is that the majority of association members disagreed with them! 30 out of 32 counties, when they asked the opinion of their club members, decided to delete rule 21.
Democracy Max - it has not happenned with respect to this issue.
If it did and the majority backed the governemnt paying grants then it would be the right thing to do! If the majority do not agree however then it is not the right thing to do!

You have A fair point and the congress vote on the issue will put that to bed, after all they have all been elected.

Nag as I have said before I will trust the trustees that we have elected to put together a solution to satisfy the questions you ask. Is any system perfect....you only have to look at the munster football champiopnship to answer my point. Our association will not allow real pay for play to happen, I am confident in that. Nag I never read your posts against the uni grants for players or volunteering secs postion being made into full time paid professional posts. Where are you on that front

[believebelive]

those who believe these grants will have no long term effect on the gaa are seriously deluded or niave,i can tell you now if these grants go through which looks likely you can mark the date and look back and say that was the day the gaa died as we no it.

I'll bet a grand that when rule 21 went there was many a memeber said the same or rule 42, it called scare mongering. The GAA will never allow professionalism into its ranks, well  not in the next 20 years at least. No one knows the future.


Nag I would love you to come and work for me...because your idea of being paid is very different from mine. I pay my employees, not the government, infact the government doing nothing for me but take my hard earned cash. When ever the GAA start to pay these lads, then I'll take up the fight.

Max - there is a huge difference between rule 21, rule 42 and this debate - In the first two incidences yes there was people who thought that the association would be negatively effected by any tampering with these rules but the crucial thing is is that the majority of association members disagreed with them! 30 out of 32 counties, when they asked the opinion of their club members, decided to delete rule 21.
Democracy Max - it has not happenned with respect to this issue.
If it did and the majority backed the governemnt paying grants then it would be the right thing to do! If the majority do not agree however then it is not the right thing to do!

You have A fair point and the congress vote on the issue will put that to bed, after all they have all been elected.

Nag as I have said before I will trust the trustees that we have elected to put together a solution to satisfy the questions you ask. Is any system perfect....you only have to look at the munster football champiopnship to answer my point. Our association will not allow real pay for play to happen, I am confident in that. Nag I never read your posts against the uni grants for players or volunteering secs postion being made into full time paid professional posts. Where are you on that front

One probel with that Max is that if we simply let congress decide on everything we would still be banning people for playing soccer!

[NAG]

Max

Thats because I am not against any of these things, students are giving up the chance to work part time to earn some money towards their living expenses which is entirely different from someone in full time work getting money to play. The grants to students are a good idea because it allows them to play football through their college days without having to panic about money.

Secondly the paid administration posts are in my opinion becoming to frequent but there is a case to be made that because of the growth in gaelic games and the time needed to run them that these posts have become impossible to run as volunteer posts its just too much to ask a man to do as well as try and earn a living for his family.

These in no way justify the pay for play that is now being put before us, the players do it because they love it and if they dont love it they wouldnt do it, I honestly believe that this is the road to no town.

[DMarsden]

Where does everyone stand on county players going part time at work and having their salaries topped up by county boards. Or even the select few who take a year out and getting a full salary? this is a practice going on for generations.

[Maximus Marillius]

As far as I can see the only money were are really pissed off about giving to players/students/managers and officials is the money that the government want to give, instead off the money we are actually giving. :: The Tom Fool award for the year goes to the grassroots

[Bensars]

Where does everyone stand on county players going part time at work and having their salaries topped up by county boards. Or even the select few who take a year out and getting a full salary? this is a practice going on for generations.

Can you provide examples to back this claim ?  Generations ?

[behind the wire]

dmarsden you are probably right that this goes on. one of the gpa top table being a prime example of this. however this is usually due to the input of a sympathetic businessman and not the county board itself. it must be appreciated that not every county would have the financial backers to support this and i dont think it would be feasible to universally adopt this.

once again this is pointing towards elitism. i.e. are we really going to suggest that kilkenny's best footballers should be allowed to take of work fully supplemented by the gaa?

this does happen among the elite, and in my opinion it shouldnt. however if a sypathetic businessman wants to give a top player a handy number then we cant complain about it.

bottom line is though, there should be no payment from county boards. it just isnt feasible.

[his holiness nb]

Where does everyone stand on county players going part time at work and having their salaries topped up by county boards. Or even the select few who take a year out and getting a full salary? this is a practice going on for generations.

I'd seriously consider giving some sort of proof to that claim. Otherwise I'd delete it.
Incidentally, if you are against pay per play, and your above claim is true, how come you havent been giving out about it?

[behind the wire]

As far as I can see the only money were are really pissed off about giving to players/students/managers and officials is the money that the government want to give, instead off the money we are actually giving. :: The Tom Fool award for the year goes to the grassroots

max i always thought you had more sense. you make very valid points regarding payments to managers, this is true. and the grass roots are the guilty ones here. but the way forward is to stop payments to managers, not pay the players because the managers are getting paid.

***again i would hope that no one will resort to using the argument that students get grants - i have already expressed my view on this and it is clear that no one within the gaa actually has a problem with this. it is completely different to the present grants argument/ pay for play.