Gilroy: sort out payments ‘hypocrisy’

By Brendan O’Brien

Friday, March 12, 2010

PAT GILROY has called on the GAA to end decades of "hypocrisy" and either tackle under-the-counter payments to managers or legitimise the practice under the association’s own laws.

The issue has taken centre stage again after a TV3 investigation in which five counties admitted to paying managers in a manner that contravenes the amateur code.

"It’s a decision that needs to be made by the association," the Dublin manager said yesterday. "The hypocrisy needs to be gotten rid of. There’s no point in half paying it.

"Why should players play for a guy who’s getting whatever he’s getting and they get nothing? It should just be sorted and make it legitimate or tackle the ones who are doing it because it’s pretty obvious where it’s likely to be happening."

Dublin are one of those counties that have made a point of not paying above and beyond to their manager and, in football at least, they have preferred to fill those positions in-house rather than bring in outside expertise.

"You can have two views on this thing. You can say that you bring guys in and they can raise the standard in the county. That has been proven in the past but apart from maybe John O’Mahony how many counties have actually won the All-Ireland that had a manager from outside?

"The tradition within the GAA would be that it’s someone from within. I’d hate to see Dublin go outside the county for a manager. Despite our lack of success at All-Ireland level I think it’s still the right thing to try to develop our own and to keep it there. I would hate to see Dublin paying a manager as well.

"That’s my own personal opinion, but there’s merits then also in some of the suggestions that people make, that maybe managers should be employed to do a bigger job than just managing the county team, to spread a way of playing football in the county. So, there’s merits in it all."

Meanwhile, the slim prospect of Dublin and Tyrone playing their round seven NFL fixture in Croke Park rather than Omagh appears to have disappeared as Dublin have already made their arrangements for the trip north.

Mickey Harte had raised the possibility prior to the league’s start but it met with little enthusiasm from his own county chiefs while Dublin have also declined to run with the idea.

After three wins from their first three fixtures, Dublin take on Monaghan tomorrow knowing that four more points would probably secure a final berth for them but Gilroy isn’t thinking along those lines right now.

"If we end up there, great, but it is not the be all and end all for us. We are changing the team to give fellas opportunities.

"You have to give fellas a chance to play together without making drastic changes the whole time. The final isn’t our focus. If you think like that you probably won’t end up there. It’s about just one game at a time."

All in all then, things are looking up in the capital but Gilroy will have seen previous sides knocked down as quickly as they have been built up and is not about to get too carried away this early in the campaign.

"We were very lucky (against Mayo) last Sunday so I haven’t felt any hype around the place or seen any people getting the run of themselves. The last two games we didn’t play particularly well but we won.

"They weren’t performances that were good enough to start talking about All-Irelands. We are delighted that we won but we are not doing things that would make us stick out as All-Ireland contenders."

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Friday, March 12, 2010