Good article by Martin Beheny's on pay for play in the Indo & comments by the GPA CEO. For those of us opposed to pay for play & highlighting it, the GAA's answer was always to brush it under the carpet & fudge the issue till the next occasion. They did this by agreeing to fund the GPA giving them big sums & couching the language around the awarding of same. Last year though they broke through the glass ceiling by agreeing to award a percentage of all commercial GAA revenue if certain funding was greater, this has helped open the door for pay for play. Those at the top, present & retired spoke one language to 98% of the Association, yet gave the 2%, millions in funding. Ordinary members see through this contradictory forked tongue double speak as they have been witnessing it for years at club level, as fixture scheduling is based around the 2% of m'ship & those at the top throw a few crumbs to club players & speak of the importance of Grassroots, absolute BS. History will not be kind to the top officials of the last number of years as they will go down in history as being responsible for the introduction of pay for play. Will people accept an increase in ticket prices year on year to pay for this, will clubs accept levies on them to support paying for their county players, will club players accept a four month break without games & watch their buddies as they get paid to play, will the lad selling lotto, lining the pitch, washing jerseys, sweeping the clubhouse continue while some of the lads using it are getting paid ? Volunteerism is dying, start paying a minority & you will see people walk away in droves. The GAA authorities have only themselves to blame as they never tackled the slippery slope to this which was payments to managers at club & county level, all hidden & swept under the carpet. This lead to disillusionment with players & has led us to here. The FAI May be in a mess at the moment but if & when Revenue ever start following the undeclared millions paid over the years in GAA, some very high profile names in Irish society will be exposed, it is s scandal that people who were in highly remunerated positions at work were earning thousands for coaching teams, many of whose players had no jobs, yet these people weren't even declaring the income for tax returns. The GAA will come out with usual double speak on amateurism but the GPA now hold the power & the threat of not playing a televised game for example will be enough to make the top table capitulate, which they did years ago anyways. You could draw the analogy of amateurism with the Railway Cups, a brilliant successful format, massively supported, loved by players & members, then little by little changes were made at the insistence of a few, it began to fade, until even those at the top decided it was time to pull the plug & it died, amateurism is now nearly ready to be laid in the grave beside the Railway Cups. It's an interesting point that an Association whose main representative body at Congress voted against a motion on transparency, where the GPA & GAA refuse to publish the salaries of their top executives, that we are now looking at more funding being granted, yet no transparency. If you want examples of how this will turn out, look at the history of the semi pro set up in the League of Ireland which is littered with many financial corpses over the decades. Paul Flynn & the GPA are holding the trump card as any threat of strike action will scare the TV rights companies who will dictate what the GAA should do as they are paying the big bucks. It's now all about the Dineros.

Uimhir.a.3. (Galway) - Posts: 409 - 04/05/2019 10:20:09    2181795

link

On top of the Super 8s introduction with a few question marks on the democracy involved, Horan is now expressing his preferred Tiered Championship system before it has been properly debated. Are the GPA speaking independently or because the top brass want it in the media what's next after tiered championship starts? The lads on the Golden Goose want an elite Super 8 of semi professional footballers. What about the other football counties, what about hurling? Also a suggestion there to increase expenses the further counties go? So-called weaker counties, with minimal sponsorship because of limited media exposure, will rarely be entitled to extra expenses.

Rather than try and spend money, on grassroots, on marketing and growing the GAA they seem to want to make it cosier for the Super 8 football counties. This is a shameful neglect of intercounty football for most counties. Let them all have increased expenses and if counties advance do a deal with sponsors for some more benefits rather than screwing already cash-starved counties.

GreenandRed (Mayo) - Posts: 7345 - 04/05/2019 13:54:18    2181821

It's something that needs to be discussed.

I'd have huge issues with it personally.

My perception would be that going the opposite direction and capping spending on county teams and taxing and redistributing sponsorship money would be better for the health of the games.

I'm not against money being spent on inter county players needs. I'd rather it put the emphasis on player welfare initiatives rather than just putting cash into the hands of the best players.

Whammo86 (Antrim) - Posts: 4226 - 05/05/2019 11:20:32    2181921

Totally opposed to pay for play. Introduce that concept, and you can write off the smaller counties who are striving to field teams to compete with the bigger counties. The system is already favouring sides with a bigger drawing potential.
The elite will get stronger, at the expense of the lesser lights. The GREEDY PLAYERS ASSOCIATION, seem to set the agenda.

thelongridge (Offaly) - Posts: 1741 - 05/05/2019 12:50:31    2181943

hogg (Carlow) - Posts: 321 - 05/05/2019 23:49:15    2182056