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No way can the EU or anyone else impose new rules on the GAA regarding who can play for what county. The only time we might get into trouble is if some counties try and push out their boundaries - even then I don't see individual counties ever challenging the GAA rules - but if they do its them at fault, not the players.

There are none so blind... In fact, you are deliberately twisting what is clearly obvious.

It wouldn't be about "individual counties ever challenging the GAA rules" or the EU imposing "new rules on the GAA regarding who can play for what county".

It would be about a player challenging the rules and the EU saying that the GAA, being to a party to a grants system constituting "economic activity", has rules of transfer that are unfairly restrictive for its participants. If Rory O'Connell or Derry Foley or Na Fianna are prepared to go to the courts over suspensions/disqualifications, sure as hell players are going to go to court to enable themselves to earn more money.

I don't recall anyone saying the EU would impose rules on who could play for any county. But in a Deliege/Bosman-type decision, as long as grants were paid, ANY GAA player could assert his legal right to play for ANY county and earn as much as his potential will allow.

The whole international soccer comparison proves irrefutably that your arguments are invalid.

How exactly is that then? An Irish international soccer player earns nearly all of his income from club duty. He earns relatively little from internatonal duty, infrequent as it is. It is not worth his while, for the money or his reputation, to seek to play for another country, even though in many circumstances he could.

And the Kenyan athletes have absolutely nothing to do with Bosman or the EU!!! Thats just down to nationality rules in the relevant countries.

I didn't intend it to be an exact comparison. It was just the first example that I thought of. But it is still relevant, because it shows that sportspeople can represent a country other than their own in international competition, even if their qualification grounds are tenuous and money is obviously their primary motive. Once participation in any sport is legally established as a profitable enterprise, the ordinary rules of territorial jurisdiction and the governing body's will/ability to enforce them, shrink to insignificance.

do international footballers get paid for being on international duty?

International soccer players do anyway.

Why doesn't the Bosman apply to International teams?

Most people competing for international teams would have too much pride in their own country to seek a transfer to another country, let alone force a legal case to get that transfer. Plus international teams play irregularly, which means that they are engaged with clubs as their primary source of income, and they may have lost their international place from season to the next.

But Bosman would almost certainly apply if it were put to the test. Hence Kenyan athletes are running for countries like Denmark and Qatar and it is allowed, although many people are unhappy about it. 

The judge did not say "regardless of who paid it".

My interpretation is that the fact it was the judo federation paying it was very important.

I was paraphrasing the judge, but the point still holds true.

A legal person, having analysed the judge's decision, concluded that "it does not matter whether the players receive the grant directly from the federation or from elsewhere; what matters is that the grants are paid to them consistently over a period of time and are dependent on their participation in the sport. The hullabaloo over whether it is the GAA or the Sports Council that pays the grant would then be irrelevant. Paying a grant for participating in a sport establishes an economic link under EU law."

The argument that it matters who pays is silly for another reason. The GAA would be distributing the money. It would be a party to and partner of the agreement; it would be aiding and abetting. Someone who is laundering money can't just say, "It's not money, I'm just distributing it and I have no responsibility for it."

And even in the unlikely event of you being right, what's the worst thing that can happen?

Player transfers can only happen if they are allowed under GAA rules. If young brilliant Clare footballer wants to play for Kerry, but Kerry won't take him because he doesnt qualify, there is nothing he can do - Bosman or no Bosman. Only if the Kerry (or other) county boards change their rules or policies on accepting outsiders would there be any chance of unrestricted inter county transfers.

You just don't understand this, do you? It is blatantly obvious how a Clare footballer could take a case about unfair restriction of his attempts to join Kerry:
1. Kerry reach the last 12 of the football championship practically every year without fail. Therefore the Kerry players would be entitled to the higher rate of grant. Clare footballers have not reached the last 12 in a decade and are unlikely to do so most years. Therefore the Clare footballers would get the lower rate of grant.
In any given year, the Clare footballer can take a case to the ECJ, on the precedent of the Deliege case, to say that the GAA's rules on transfers, COMBINED WITH the grants scheme, is an unfair restriction of his potential to maximise his earnings accruing from football. He would argue that he is discriminated against because of his county of birth, over which he has no control.
The ECJ would inevitably - as the vast majority of legal decisions are based on precedent - that the inter-county footballer was a "non-amateur" and patently engaged in an "economic activity", and that the GAA rules put unfair restrictions on his economic movement. He would win huge compensation, and it would mean that as long as the grants were paid, any player should have freedom of movement by transfer.

The most profound effect of this would probably be that good club players from, say Kerry, could demand transfers to a weaker football county, such as Clare, in the hope of getting onto the Clare county team. They would argue that it is unfair discrimination to say that they cannot go to Clare in the hope of earning money from playing football, when they were born in a county where there is greater competition. And they would inevitably win their cases. So all established transfer rules would be dead letters. So there's a lot of scope for a businessman, in Denis O'Brien style, to step in and say,"I want to act as a benefactor for Clare football; can we get 20 good players up from Kerry?"

It all comes back to the one thing, that many can't get into their heads. No matter what the players may want, there is no chance of professional GAA unless and until GAA officialdom brings it in.

To reiterate or synopsise my argument above, the GAA's laws on transfers are automatically superseded by European law when there is a proven ecoonomic activity and incentive. You can't seem to get your head around this.

And by the way, in every other sport that became professional, the professionalism actually happened (a) against the stated wishes of the governing body; or (b) the governing body tried to bring it in in a controlled way, but soon found out that it was a beat that could not be tamed or kept in subjection.

Óg-Seán's Twelve

Quidinc - You need to get your facts correct on this issue......She was getting a grant from teh Belgian Judo Federation and because she was getting this grant (ie her association were paying her) the Bosman ruling applied......in this case the GAA are not paying the players so this doesn't apply.

Oh, believe me DFS/Kingdub, I have my facts straight. But you don't seem to understand the legal principle involved. Because the grant constituted an "economic activity", it did not matter who paid it. (Never mind the fact that the GAA would be distributing the money if the grants are paid!)

And just in case you think you can bluff me, I've done some more homework on this:

Deliege was not picked by the Belgian Federation to take part in a European tournament, and she then argued in court that the Federation had limited her ability to qualify for the Olympics, and by extension, her economic earning potential, citing the Bosman precedent.

The Belgian and European Judo federations, backed up by several European governments, contended in defence that judo was an amateur sport irrespective of the grant paid, and that the grant alone would not make her a living, so Bosman could not therefore apply.

The judge ruled in Deliege's favour, on the basis that the grant constituted "economic activity" regardless of who paid it, if it went to enhance her sporting performance. As she received the grant, he decreed, she was a "non-amateur", if not a "semi-professional".

Interestingly, the judge also ruled that there IS a difference between a grant to a sportsperson and a scholarship to someone at university.

Facts straight enough now?

I was unaware of this issue , I stand corrected .

Well maybe now we can sit down and talk, without the need for binding arbitration. 

[In the Deliege case (the Belgian judo participant), the European Court of Justice ruled that her grant was an "economic activity" and therefore the Bosman principles did apply.]

Grants are not the same are payments ,so the bosman doesn't apply

Ok, the message just isn't getting through to GNevin. So I'm going to have to spell this out clearly once more:


In the Deliege case (the Belgian judo participant), the European Court of Justice ruled that her grant was an "economic activity" and therefore the Bosman principles did apply.

End of that particular argument.

GNevin's response to the list of 20 reasons is one of the most pathetic efforts at argument I've ever seen.

He doesn't put up a proper argument against any of the 20 points, and resorts to sarcastic talk about anti-grants people being "moral" about cloning. In case you didn't notice (although I'm sure you did, given your remarkably telepathic line of thinking with GPA HQ), but the GPA's whole case for grants is based on the argument that it is morally wrong for GAA players not to get grants when some other sportspeople do.

Yes, GNevin, no sarcasm - the GPA has been pleading about the "plight" of inter-county players - that is the moral argument to beat the band.

The following is just unbelievable:

No grants are not effected these rulings

Of course, how could I forget, we in the GAA are not subject to European law. We live in our own little bubble and if someone takes a case based on the Bosman or Deliege cases, we can depend on a clever county secretary to get the GAA off on a technicality. The European judges wouldn't be able to handle our boys...

 Posted by: AZOffaly
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I think we've had this debate on here about 15 times at this stage, and most of those arguments were used by the 'anti' camp. I don't think we need to get into it all again.

I agree with a lot of them, but as I said, we've been there and talked this to death.



AZ, I admire the stance you've taken on this issue up to now, but your above response is misplaced on so many levels.

How is the issue talked to death when it has NEVER been discussed at any national body of the association other than Central Council?

We were talking about opening Croke Park to soccer and rugby for 5-6 years; we've only been talking about the grants for 3 months!

Most of the scenarios outlined in this list are realistic future scenarios if the grants are paid. You are going to have row after row if they are paid, for the reasons outlined and more. Going through every issue now in debate is much more preferable than ceaseless wrangling over how much a player is "worth" when you factor in inflation etc.

The pro-grants camp have absolutely no genuine answer to the legalistic implications of these grants. And yet you say, "go ahead lads, plough on anyway".

Believe me, this "debate" hasn't even begun yet.

He did do something seriously wrong.

No, he did not do something "seriously wrong". He did not commit a crime, threaten anyone, physically or verbally abuse anyone or do anything deliberately against the GAA in Cork or anywhere else. At worst he made a mistake which has been seriously conflated out of proportion by certain malevolent interests. When he took the job, even if it was mistake, it would not have been unreasonable for him to think that the board and the footballers would sort out their differences anyway. His biggest mistake was to not realise quite how unreasonable some of the protagonists, chiefly certain Cork hurlers, are, and to not realise that these hurlers would continue to push their twisted agenda at all costs.

Nonsense, another 'thin edge of the wedge' argument, players will always play if they are being correctly supported by the people who's job it is to support them. If a similar situation occurred in another county then those players would be entitled to withdraw their services also

Yes of course they're entitled to "withdraw their services", but that's not what they're doing. They're on "strike" and holding out a veiled threat to anyone who would try to play in their places. Even though quite a number of them had no right to assume they would be picked for the panel this year anyway.

Ultimately, if certain hurlers had stayed out of this, this whole mess would almost certainly have been solved long ago, because the more reasonable footballers would have been willing to reach a compromise with the county board.

Uladh, you are misrepresenting me.

I cited Nickey Brennan's comments in reply to DubsForSam's reference to "what the GPA/GAA say about not looking for pay for play". This is relevant because it shows that even officials who have tried to accommodate the GPA - when a gun was put to their heads - do not trust them. And if you think that Nickey is entirely "unconnected to the issue", you are naive. Who do you think authorised the intervention of Kieran Mulvey and Paraic Duffy in Cork? Who has to speak on behalf of the GAA and to ultimately carry the can for the association amid this strike and its consequences for the association?

While they may have some legitimate grievances, the Cork players - well, the hurlers at least - have not shown "admirable" motives and intentions. There has been no change to the hurling management system, yet at the drop of the hat they waded into someone else's battle. If this was a hurling issue they might have more support. They have got too greedy for power. Calls for officials to resign are not just misguided methods; they reveal far-from-admirable intentions of getting rid of anybody they don't like.

I don't really have a problem with the Cork footballers' position. They understandably feel disadvantaged by recent decisions. And none of them comes across as being firebrands. Unlike certain Cork hurlers.

And you are also wrong about Teddy Holland, Uladh. He may have made a mistake, he may be stubborn, but he has been stigmatised for the rest of his life because of his alleged mistake, which was really only a small incident in a war between certain Cork hurlers and the board. And he does not have the free cars/sponsorship potential of the Cork hurlers (who he was not going to manage). And despite all of this we have not heard him say one thing offensive to anybody.

TH is in an impossible position. If he stays on, Cork people and some reactionaries in the media will blame him for everything wrong in Cork. If he quits, it comes across as an admission that he did something seriously wrong. And if he has a wider view of the association he may also realise the consequences of his stepping down in terms of encouraging further overstated stunts of player power. I genuinely don't think he had any idea of how much weight would be put on his shoulders, whatever about his alleged mistake.

[I want to make one matter quite clear today though, lest there be any misunderstanding or ambiguity on anyone's part. Since the GPA was launched the notion of pay-for-play has been on their agenda. Despite recent comments from some of their officials, I am of the view that this remains the ultimate aim of the GPA in some form or other.]

How many people actually believe the GPA leaders when they claim they're not about pay for play? 2? 3?

Even Nickey Brennan stated unequivocally that the GPA IS about pay for play in his 2006 Congress address:


"I want to make one matter quite clear today though, lest there be any misunderstanding or ambiguity on anyone's part. Since the GPA was launched the notion of pay-for-play has been on their agenda. Despite recent comments from some of their officials, I am of the view that this remains the ultimate aim of the GPA in some form or other."

This wouldnt be the same Mick Dolan, the senior GAA offical in Cork, who has vanished without trace since this episode erupted?

Strange, I seem to recall that Mick Dolan led the county board delegation into last week's talks with Kieran Mulvey. And of course he chaired the county convention and county board meetings over the last few months. Clearly rumours of his demise are altogether exaggerated.

Mick Dolan is the Cork Chairman. Jerry O'Sullivan, father of Diarmuid, the Cork hurling full-back is the County Vice-Chairman. That's why the players' attempts to portray this is as a Frank Murphy lone dictatorship are so farcical. Frank might have some dictatorial qualities, but not to the extent that he could force everyone to vote the way they did.

Why did Jerry O'Sullivan support or acquiesce in the new selectors' system? Was he doing it to get back at the players, who included his own son, one of the leading GPA men and strikers in Cork? (If we believe this version of events Frank Murphy can weave such spells that fathers can hate their own sons.) Or was it not that he happened to believe, rightly or wrongly, that the new selectors' arrangement was best?

Whatever about the rights or wrongs of the selectors arrangement, does anyone believe that the Cork footballers would take their grievance to a ridiculous strike scenario if Donal Og Cusack were not agitating full time in the background?