Ballinderry Shamrocks in favour of players grants

[cornafean]

Although I cannot speak for Hound, the following statement raised my own eyebrows:

The Irish Govt. is not paying anything out because it wants to but because it legally has to.

It was decided to not only pay grants to athletes and sports people but to all those who could be said to provide a public service in their communities.

Can you illuminate us as to where, when and by whom this momentous decision was made?

From what you say, it must apply to all sports coaches & trainers, jersey-washers, scout leaders, church ushers, Vincent de Paul helpers, meals on wheels volunteers, active age group leaders, credit union committee members, school management boards, the guys who play Santa in the village hall at Christmas, etc etc etc, all of whom can now sue the Government in the European Courts if they don't get paid.

Sorry, I just can't accept that this is true.

One last (really last) point concerns the OOB. Fair enough they may never have contemplated taking a case to Europe - but plenty of media reports suggest otherwise

I have followed closely every single piece of coverage I could find about OfOneBelief.org in recent months, and although a serious volume of rubbish has been written about them (including a lot of stuff, emanating mainly from the Indo stable of newspapers, that seems to have been written with the purpose of blackening OfOneBelief.org and its leaders and supporters) I have yet to read anything that suggested that they had ever even considered taking a law case to Europe.

Is anyone really gullible enough that they believe ALL of what they read in the papers on this (or indeed any) subject?

[Lar Naparka]

Fair points, cornafean, and I think they deserve a reply.
"Existing EU legal precedents in relation to sports grant payments to athletes suggest otherwise..."
is what you wrote yourself!
I took this to mean that you were conversant with the relevant EU directive. Sorry if I took you up wrong but I assumed you were referring to a monumental court case taken back in 1995. It was taken by a Belgian judo player (if that's the word) against the Belgian Govt. and resulted in the directive I am referring to.
How I came to know about this has been mentioned in detail in my first post. Obviously standards of eligibility apply. In the case of teachers I've indicated that the responsibility of assessing an individual's entitlement rests with the appropriate Boards of Management.
The Dept. of Ed negotiators did mention that a degree of public accountability was necessary, hence the decision add teachers' grants to their pay cheques so that it would be included in their tax liability.
Charlie McCreevy did refer indirectly to this when he stated that GAA players would not be included in the general payout because of their amateur status. In plain speak; giving grants to amateurs does not allow for public accountability.
Can we agree that since then negotiations have been concentrated on finding ways around paying out public money to amateurs and at the same time not contravening rule 11 of the GAA rulebook?
The latest version of the deal appears to have done just that- a classic Irish solution to an Irish problems as the late Charles Haughey might have put it!
With regards to groundsmen and tea ladies and others who provide social benefit to their communities at large with their voluntary efforts, I don't imagine that any application has been made on their behalf so I'll never know if they would be successful in a claim or not.
First, such a claim would need to be lodged on their behalf and then standards of eligibility would have to be met. In the case of GAA players the current benchmark appears to mean being part of a championship intercounty panel for the coming season and the degree of public accountability will be provided by a sports council established outside of GAA control.
Remember that Nickey Brennan took pains last December to distance the GAA from the administration of any such scheme.
I feel that the answer to the classic Irish problem I mentioned above is to pay travelling expenses instead of financial grants.  Has any serious mention been made to the fact that not all players incur travelling costs?
I don't think any will be made. Mind you, I may be proved wrong on this point but I'm not prepared to hold my breath either.
"Is anyone really gullible enough that they believe ALL of what they read in the papers on this (or indeed any) subject?"
Well; speaking for myself, I certainly don't! Indeed I would say that newspapers, the tabs especially, have been even-handed in their approach. They have been scathing in their treatment of the OOB, the GAA and the GPA in equal measure. The GPA in particular got a huge amount of abuse, especially during the staging of the postal ballot.
Quite probably, the OOB reports in the same papers could be along the same lines. One in particular, a Herald follow-up to the GAA press release I have mentioned in my last post, was along the lines of: any OOB intention to pursue their case to Europe being well and truly scuppered by the expert legal finding that the deal did not contravene European law.
My reading of this release would indicate that the legal opinion referred to the deal as a whole and not just to possible implications for the GAA, which you say was a prime concern of the OOB.
I can't recall ever getting that impression from what I may have read about them and I have felt that their opposition was more broad-based than but I have not been following their actions in minute detail

However, my main point all along has been that the GPA has negotiated a deal for themselves for monies they are legally entitled to and that the GAA (Nickey Brennan) has officially distanced itself from the implementation of this scheme.
The deal, while elitist in nature, was perfectly legal and the application was understandable.
We will never know how a claim on behalf of bagmen, tealadies , car drivers et al would have fared out because no application was entered on their behalf.
The members of the OOB, Mayo County Board and fellow travellers seem to be mostly dedicated conscientious persons but their opposition has been voiced far too late to have had any effect on the outcome.
The deal is done and, for better or worse, we will have to live with it.
And I do rest my case here.

[cornafean]

I took this to mean that you were conversant with the relevant EU directive. Sorry if I took you up wrong but I assumed you were referring to a monumental court case taken back in 1995. It was taken by a Belgian judo player (if that's the word) against the Belgian Govt. and resulted in the directive I am referring to.
How I came to know about this has been mentioned in detail in my first post. Obviously standards of eligibility apply. In the case of teachers I've indicated that the responsibility of assessing an individual's entitlement rests with the appropriate Boards of Management.
The Dept. of Ed negotiators did mention that a degree of public accountability was necessary, hence the decision add teachers' grants to their pay cheques so that it would be included in their tax liability.
Charlie McCreevy did refer indirectly to this when he stated that GAA players would not be included in the general payout because of their amateur status. In plain speak; giving grants to amateurs does not allow for public accountability.
Can we agree that since then negotiations have been concentrated on finding ways around paying out public money to amateurs and at the same time not contravening rule 11 of the GAA rulebook?
The latest version of the deal appears to have done just that- a classic Irish solution to an Irish problems as the late Charles Haughey might have put it!
With regards to groundsmen and tea ladies and others who provide social benefit to their communities at large with their voluntary efforts, I don't imagine that any application has been made on their behalf so I'll never know if they would be successful in a claim or not.

Sorry, to be honest, I don't have a monkeys what you are talking about. The Belgian Judo player's case had nothing to do with the question of the State being forced to pay grants to athletes and meals on wheels ladies. Rather, it had to do with the question of whether the recipient of a grant could claim that her sporting activities constituted an economic activity and whether she could enjoy certain rights and entitlements on that basis.

The case was neatly summarised on the ofonebelief.org website

http://www.ofonebelief.org/2008/01/30/dra-delight/
*** Quote

But it would equally hold no water at all as far as some very "un-plain" legal people at the heart of the EU are concerned. Following a case taken to the European Court of Justice by Christelle Deliege, the Court ruled in December 2005 that since Mme Deliege received money, including some from her own judo federation as grants to improve her sporting performance (now where have we heard that before?) as a result of taking part in judo, her sporting activity actually constituted an economic activity ... and therefore enjoys the full protection of Community law.

On that basis, if we give money to our players then all our tried-and-tested GAA rules and understandings about registrations; transfers; and even the management of our games immediately go out the window to be replaced by EU work/employment-related rules and regulations about restraint of trade; image rights; access to GAA income; and so on.

end quote ***



and in the Sunday Tribune, by Kieran Shannon
http://www.tribune.ie/article.tvt?_scope=Tribune/Sport/GAA&id=83956&SUBCAT=Tribune/Sport


quote ***

And, of course, there's the motion from Central Council itself last week, calling that Congress is "satisfied" that the scheme is in accordance with Rule 11.

The Of One Belief group contend that motion is out of order for not including any amendment of Rule 11 when the scheme is in breach of Rule 11, which states: "The Association is an Amateur Association. A player, team, official or member shall not accept payment in cash or in kind in conjunction with the playing of Gaelic Games."

As far as Conway is concerned, how can the grants scheme not constitute either "payment in cash or in kind"? "Once we start paying our players in a structured way it's the road to perdition, " says Conway. Because, he says, there is a precedent in European law which could have huge ramifications. Just like Jean-Marc Bosman went from being a nobody to a household name overnight in the world of soccer, so too could another Belgian, one Christelle Deliege, in the world of Gaelic Games.

In 1997, Deliege, a former European judo champion, took a case against her governing body when she was overlooked for the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympic Games. Though judo defined itself as an amateur sport, Deliege contended that by virtue of the government grants and sponsorship money she received from participating in the sport, non-inclusion constituted a breach of her "economic activity" as protected in European law.

Deliege ultimately did not get her way, with the European Court of Justice deeming that since governing bodies could hardly select everyone for a national team, the Belgian federation were within their rights to overlook her, but in its ruling the court accepted certain principles. Deliege's participation in the sport, by virtue of receiving grants and sponsorship, constituted economic activity.


end quote***




For a similar analysis, from a non-GAA perspective, read this

http://www.europeanvoice.com/archive/article.asp?id=4329&print=1

quote***

Big money puts sports ball into European Court
By Rory Watson

WITH the historic Bosman verdict already under its belt, the European Court of Justice is being asked to pass judgement on two more cases with potentially wide-ranging consequences for the sporting world.

The Luxembourg-based judges are examining whether EU rules on the free movement of people and the right to provide services apply to the highly competitive worlds of international judo and professional basketball.

The cases reflect a general rise in litigation as sportsmen and women explore how far Union rules are relevant to their fields, encouraged in part by the huge sums of money at stake.

In the first case, leading Belgian judoist Christelle Deliege is using the EU's treaties to challenge her country's procedure for national team selection.

The French-speaking judo expert, who has been regularly overlooked by the Belgium's predominantly Dutch-speaking federation, is claiming that the procedures violate Union rules on the right to provide services as set out in Article 59 of the Treaty of Rome.

If successful, her case could have an impact on other individual sportsmen and women who live off their skills without any contract between themselves and an employer.

The second case more closely follows the route first trod by Belgian footballer Jean-Marc Bosman when he used EU provisions on the free movement of people successfully to overturn rules governing the way the soccer transfer market worked.

Finnish basketball player Jyri Lehtonen and his club Castor Braine are challenging the practice of transfer deadlines, under which players may not take part in matches if they have changed clubs after a certain date in the season.

Lehtonen's lawyers, who previously acted for Bosman and are also representing Deliege in her case, believe the restrictions violate EU competition and free movement rules.

In an unusual display of unity, the Belgian Basketball Federation is also keen for the ECJ to provide a ruling to clarify what is becoming an increasingly confusing picture.

Meanwhile, the idea of creating a sports dispute resolution panel to arbitrate in costly disagreements between sportsmen and women, their clubs and national federations is gaining support among MEPs.

© Copyright 1997 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved

end quote***


...and again here


http://www.sportbusiness.com/news/130918/judo-league-wins-euro-case

quote***

JUDO LEAGUE WINS EURO CASE

Thu, 27/09/2001 - 23:00
Spain | United States | Football Soccer | Law | Martial Arts

A European Court of Justice adviser has said the Belgian Judo League had the right to limit which of its members could participate in European and international competitions.

Advocate General Georges Cosmas at Europe's highest court rejected a complaint by Belgian judoka Christelle Deliege that she had been unfairly kept off the Belgian team to the Olympics in Barcelona in 1992 and Atlanta in 1996.

If the court follows the legal opinion, the chances for amateur sportsmen and women to have the right to compete without restraints imposed by national federations could be subject to the whim of local sports leagues.

The European Court of Justice should make its final ruling in this case before the end of this year.

Deliege, rated excellent in the under 52 kg judo category since 1987, claimed her participation in sports amounted to an economic activity and therefore she should have the right to compete without restraints imposed by the Belgian judo federation.

The court's advocate general has accepted that amateur sport might be an economic activity, but has said that sports groups may impose limits which are "purely related to sport."

Deliege's case, sometimes likened to that of footballer Eric Bosman who won the right at the EU court to move from one football team to another, will once again require the court to consider if a league's restraint on a player amounts to a breach of an EU citizen's basic right to provide services.

Deliege raised the issue of unfair competition but the advocate general, like the court in Bosman, has not said whether he believes the Belgian Judo League is abusing a dominant position over its sportsmen and women.

Reuters
end quote***

[Lar Naparka]

"Sorry, to be honest, I don't have a monkeys what you are talking about. The Belgian Judo player's case had nothing to do with the question of the State being forced to pay grants to athletes and meals on wheels ladies."

To be perfectly serious I would be inclined to agree with that last sentence now that you have kindly explained the matter in detail for us all to see. I am not being sarcastic in any way either when I suggest that you have obviously given the matter more thought and time than I have done, or intend to do.
At first or even seconds reading I don't get any obvious connection either but there has to be implications arising from that finding..
You see, the Dept of Ed did draw such implications from what is I presume is the case we are both referring to.
I have mentioned that in the course of a pay negotiation meeting the Official side came up with a totally unexpected offer and cited "that case in Belgium" as the reason for so doing.
The person who made the offer was real enough and was part of a negotiating team that were all physically present at the time and none demurred.
If he was talking through his arse then the rest either were too polite to object or were under the same delusion. I don't know or care what the reason was; the bottom line is that the grants were paid out and continue to be paid out.
In the considerable discussions that subsequently took place in setting up and overseeing the scheme the matters of public accountability and eligibility standards were discussed in full and both criteria certainly apply.
The development of the scheme to include the classes of people who would be eligible and the standards expected were mentioned in general conversation and in all cases have come to pass.

[Uladh]

what is "ofonebelief"'s one belief?

[orangeman]

I think the one belief is that it's an amateur sport whose players shouldn't get paid ( although it's ok to pay others involved in the sport ) !

[Hound]

I took this to mean that you were conversant with the relevant EU directive. Sorry if I took you up wrong but I assumed you were referring to a monumental court case taken back in 1995. It was taken by a Belgian judo player (if that's the word) against the Belgian Govt. and resulted in the directive I am referring to.
How I came to know about this has been mentioned in detail in my first post. Obviously standards of eligibility apply. In the case of teachers I've indicated that the responsibility of assessing an individual's entitlement rests with the appropriate Boards of Management.
The Dept. of Ed negotiators did mention that a degree of public accountability was necessary, hence the decision add teachers' grants to their pay cheques so that it would be included in their tax liability.
Charlie McCreevy did refer indirectly to this when he stated that GAA players would not be included in the general payout because of their amateur status. In plain speak; giving grants to amateurs does not allow for public accountability.

Jeez Louise. Talk about a little bit of knowledge being a dangerous thing!!

You have clearly no idea what McCreevy's tax relief was. The reason it could not extend to GAA players was nothing to do with public accountability, and all to do with the fact they received no taxable pay from playing sport - therefore tax relief would be worthless because they don't pay tax on the sporting earnings!! Zero to do with accountability.

And the teachers have nothing to do with Beligan Judo players!! The teachers argued that they weren't being paid for yard duty, because it was their break time too. So a deal was done. Nothing, zero, nada to do with Judo. And your earlier comment that it was an unprovoked out of the blue offer from government is just plain wrong.

[Lar Naparka]

"Jeez Louise. Talk about a little bit of knowledge being a dangerous thing!!"
Hound, thanks once again for taking the trouble to reply and I do agree with your opening statement, but probably for quite different reasons.

"And the teachers have nothing to do with Beligan Judo players!! The teachers argued that they weren't being paid for yard duty, because it was their break time too. So a deal was done. Nothing, zero, nada to do with Judo. And your earlier comment that it was an unprovoked out of the blue offer from government is just plain wrong."

I never said they had! I went to great pains to point out that the Dept. officials did although.
None of the teacher reps at the fateful meeting in Marlborough Street expected the offer to be made, so it can be said to have come "out of the blue." For some considerable time prior to this offer, teachers throughout the land had been campaigning vigorously for payment for schoolyard supervision.
That demand would have been submitted during the course of that meeting but the offer, when it was made, was totally unexpected. A tough fight had been expected on that one but an offer to pay out certainly was not.
BTW, have you ever considered the possibility that I might have been a lot closer to the scene that you were?
In any event, I have taken pains to point out that what I have said is a matter of public record.  The INTO website maintains a searchable archive of articles from past editions. I imagine the other teachers' unions do the same. Heck! I'll even give you the URLs to go check out if you want!
I know that the press office down Marlborough Street way can be very helpful and the people concerned generally go out of their way to help callers gain access to information they require.
The offer is there to help out if you, or anyone else, want to go down that route.
You could be right also that the offer had nothing to do with Judo-but I heard a Dept negotiator say it had – now who do I believe – him or you?
Possibly your definitions of "out of the blue" and "public accountability" differ from mine.
Take this:
"The reason it could not extend to GAA players was nothing to do with public accountability, and all to do with the fact they received no taxable pay from playing sport - therefore tax relief would be worthless because they don't pay tax on the sporting earnings!! Zero to do with accountability."
I think I have laboured my way through the very same point already, once or twice!
My one difference with you on this one is that Finance gurus think it has everything to do with public accountability. In plain English, any Govt. agency would not contemplate handing out money in the form of gifts unless it could stand over the reasons for giving such gifts and publicly account for same.
That's what I was told anyway and that's the definition I got of Public Accountability when I bothered to go ask!
Out of deference to other board members I'm going to definitely sign off on this one-unless someone asks for online links to back up what I have said at any point.
I would suggest that cornafean, in his recent epic reply to me might have inserted the little word "seems" into the following sentence:
"The Belgian Judo player's case had nothing to do with the question of the State being forced to pay grants to athletes and meals on wheels ladies."
And I then would have agreed with him!  I never claimed it was based on anything-but I said a Dept. negotiator did.
That might have saved him the trouble of landing such a slew of quotations and training slashes across the board.  It might have saved me and I imagine many others from having to put the mouse wheel into overdrive to get to the end of the bloody thing. Again, nothing personal here, but if I ever had had reason to quote extraneous sources at such length I would have used hyperlinks instead  so that  innocent fellow board members would have the option of reading them or not.

Before I finally sign off I'd like, just to point out one last time, that the reason for my joining in still remains the same: for better or worse, The Deal is now with us and we got to accept this fact and move on.

[cornafean]

Again, nothing personal here, but if I ever had had reason to quote extraneous sources at such length I would have used hyperlinks instead  so that innocent fellow board members would have the option of reading them or not.

I did provide hyperlinks to the articles I quoted. Hyperlinks are a nice facility but are of limited use when one wants to refer to, or emphasise, a particular paragraph in a long article. For example, the Kieran Shannon article I quoted and linked runs to over 1300 words - longer than the 1240-odd words (including quotes) in my entire post.

About 5 sentences of the Shannon article were directly relevant to the Delliege case. There would be little point in me asking you and other contributors to trawl through the entire article just to find those 5 sentences. 

And anyway nobody is forced to read the entire quotes, just as nobody is forced to read all of your own lengthy posts. People can read what they choose, and skip the rest.

[Lar Naparka]

Cornafean, I agree with the sentiments of your last post- with the last sentence in particular and I feel compelled to come back to admit this.
I hope there was nothing you'd consider derogatory or personal in anything I may have written here.
I have great respect for your ability to put your points across and I also appreciate the time and trouble it can take to check reference resources. If I ever get tangled up in a war of words again, I'd prefer to have you on my side any time!
It is unfortunate that we seemed to each have been focusing on two slightly different aspects of the matter in hand.

[cornafean]

Latest web update from Mark Conway & friends on ofonebelief.org ....




http://www.ofonebelief.org/2008/03/27/who-was-right-and-who-was-wrong/


Who Was Right ... And Who Was Wrong?

Now everybody knows why those promoting player grants/awards/whatever ran scared of the DRA - they knew that what they had attempted to foist on the GAA back on 8 December hadn't a legal, let alone an ethical leg to stand on. The panicky mantra this time around about compliance with EU law shows just how close to disaster the GAA had been brought last November/December. Serious questions have to be asked about the levels of competence shown right the way through here. And those questions remain about the latest offering to an increasingly sceptical GAA membership.If there was any doubt that "Of One Belief" and those of like mind got it exactly right late last year and Central Council got it frighteningly wrong, then the frankly embarrassing expenses denouement of 17/18 March spells it out loud and clear. Last December we were told we were scare-mongering ... that we were dinosaurs/backwoodsmen/The Taliban ... that all the bases had been covered ... that the amateur status was "copper-fastened" by the deal. Now the "copper-fastening" scheme is in the bin (a bin we're confident is firmly copper-fastened!!!) and we're presented with a whole new scheme and a whole new language. The last batch of very nervous assurances turned out to be as worthless as the grants they applied to.

In one of Irish sport's great ongoing turnarounds, the cash-for-elite-GAA-players terminology has been changed yet again. We've so far waded our way from "grants" through "awards" to "eligible expenses"   (can the term "dig-out" now be all that far away?) But the outcome remains tellingly the same: inter-County GAA players will be given sizeable amounts of cash simply because they're inter-County GAA players. That's the one sad, unchanging fact in all of this mess.

As the morass deepens we've been told by our President ("Off The Ball", Newstalk, 18 March) that inter-County players, having had their GAA mileage rates already paid by their County Boards (at 50 cents a mile), can apply to have their rates topped up to Civil Service levels (at €1.27 a mile). It's simply unbelievable.

In one of the GAA's most ironic twists ever, we now have the GPA -which originally rightly railed at the fact that some elite GAA officials got better mileage rates than elite GAA players - endorsing exactly the same sort of grubby discrimination they said they came forward to oppose. Principle ... where are you! But then maybe part of the GPA's well-versed "plight-of-the-inter-County-player" is being cursed with cars that are, just as a fact of life, much more expensive to run than those driven by anybody else involved in the GAA. Maybe, to steal a phrase from another person; another time; and another place, the rest of us want to try it sometime!
You've Shown Us the Money ... Now Show Us the Shopping List!

The new "Eligible Expenses" scheme is very long on the "How" (ie we get chapter and verse on the mechanics of the thing) but totally and worryingly short on the "What" (ie just what is going to be included in these mysterious "Eligible Expenses"). In plain GAA language it's not good enough. GAA people at Congress in a fortnight's time are being asked to sign a blank cheque. We were last asked to do this on 8 December last year: we all now know the narrow escape the GAA had then. There's an old Irish saying that goes: "Fool me once, shame on you ... Fool me twice, shame on me!" It seems fairly relevant here!

Let's look at the new "scheme". At first glance alone here are some of the problems with it:

    * Just what are "Eligible Expenses"? It's time to show us the beef! Give us a list of what's in and make it clear what's out. If that fairly simple exercise can't be done ... well, why can't it be done?
    * On whose authority is the GPA to be unilaterally introduced to important decision-making roles within the GAA?
    * Why is the GPA the only party to all this not defined in the document?
    * What are the legal liabilities for the GAA in involving a non-constituted body like the GPA in its corporate governance?
    * Will team mentors/back-room people be eligible for these "enhanced expenses"? If not, why not?
    * Ditto re people involved in inter-County Under 21 and Minor teams
    * Ditto re referees, in many ways among the most important GAA people of all
    * And what about the driver who brings County Players to training etc in his/her car: does the inter-County player then revert back to being a 50-cents-a-mile as opposed to a €1.27-a-mile burden?
    * Who's going to handle the administrative nightmare this will introduce at County level?
    * What kind of expenses regime is it that's performance-based? Expenses are expenses are expenses: if they're tied in to some sort of performance-related arrangement they're not bona fide expenses. Are we seeing a major GAA Trojan Horse here?
    * Any encouragement of pooled player travel (and another stated government policy) now goes out the window
    * Most seriously of all, after all the honeyed words about player burnout we're now about to lever even more training/performance demands onto inter-County players: that's simply not what we should be doing

There is a simple answer to all this. If the government has €3.5m to spare for the GAA, then split it between the various County Boards to help them fund their increasingly complex and expensive GAA work.

Equally, another thought. What about €25,000 for every County Board and €1,000 for every GAA Club in Ireland ... but tied to them doing programmed work to address one of our huge community problems, binge drinking? Even give it on condition that they provide match funding/resources. Or do we just talk about those things ... in the firm understanding that we won't ever do anything about them?
DRA Business

Our first case at the DRA effectively ended in a no-score draw. But watch this space! The holes in the 17 March agreement (though maybe it too will turn out not to have been an agreement at all either) are already emerging. And options are being considered.

Whatever happens next we'd want to put on record that we have been treated with total decency and respect by the DRA. They're honourable people doing an honourable job for the GAA. Sin é.
"Of One Belief": Not a Group!

Several people have taken to calling us a group and querying our right to make our case and use options like the DRA. We're not a formal group and always made that very, very clear. We're much more than that. We're GAA members and volunteers who have taken exception to how GAA volunteers and members have been persistently disenfranchised in all this. We believe in the GAA and have been committed to it. We like to think we've helped make it what it is. But we don't want to see it destroyed for the next generations on the basis of the greed and short-sightedness of some members of this generation. But, having said that, we're not about squabbling and quarrelling with fellow-gaels. The GAA deserves much better than that. But it also deserves better than some current/recent proposals!

"Of One Belief" is a branding or banner that we use. It's nothing more and nothing less. And as of today there's 1,031 of you signed up to it. Not a bad state of affairs!
To Close: The Best Line Yet!

From one of our classy and very honourable (but un-named) national GAA journalists:

"Of One Belief has certainly achieved a re-routing of the parade!"

Brilliant!