Is it all about the money or looking after club players?
Andy McEntee has done the GAA’s club players a huge service by his courage in calling out the ongoing contempt with which they are treated within the GAA.
McEntee, who trained Ballyboden St Enda’s to win the All-Ireland Club Football Championship and who now takes up a new position as Meath senior football manager, is uniquely placed to survey the state of the club game.
Knowing what he was going to walk into, he could have been forgiven for choosing to say nothing, or next to nothing. It says much for his integrity that he had the decency to speak out loud and clearly.
His team, Ballyboden St Enda’s, had just been beaten by Kilmacud Crokes in the Dublin championship and he gave a brilliant interview to Óisín Langan for Off the Ball on Newstalk: “Let’s be honest, it’s very difficult for a couple of guys to win an All-Ireland on a Saturday and play another game seven days later. It’s ridiculous. It’s totally unfair. And it’s not because we lost, I said the same last year when we came out the right side of the result.
“All clubs are committed to training for 10 months of the year, for what? One game? It doesn’t make sense. It needs to be changed and I’m kind of laughing at the proposals to have a pool stage at the latter end of the All-Ireland series.
“That’s just a money racket, that’s all that is. That just doesn’t make sense at all. That means more games for the inter-county players and drag it out even further, and less of a window for club players. I was looking at this the other day, doing the percentages. I think inter-county hurlers and footballers account for about half-a-percent of the playing population of the country.
“Now, I’m going to be wearing a different hat shortly but all the resources are going into that half-a-percent. That doesn’t make sense.”
McEntee called for the inter-county season to be shortened, but then explained precisely why this would not be done in any meaningful way.
As he said himself, when you do that “you’re losing out on revenue because there’s an advertising element to this and you’re trying to make money. But is this about making money or is this about looking after the players? Everything, the GPA, the whole lot, is aimed at looking after a half-a-percent of the playing population. I’m not so sure there’s a future for that.”
When it comes to plain speaking, this is as plain as it gets.
One of the great wheezes of recent years has been the triumph of the narrative that paints inter-county footballers and hurlers as some sort of downtrodden, oppressed minority.
It has fostered a culture of entitlement that extends even to universities where it is now argued that GPA members should receive special treatment above other students by virtue of the fact that they commit so much time to playing inter-county football and hurling. (In this respect it is worth having a look at the remarkable GPA publication Guiding Principles for Implementation of a National Network of Elite Athlete Friendly Educational Institutions).
And in the rush to facilitate this narrative, the GAA hierarchy have not just capitulated, but conspired. The two big GAA initiatives — launched amid fanfare this year — are all about the half-a-percent. Firstly, unprecedented sums of money and organisational influence were handed over in the GAA-GPA deal that was announced in July. And secondly, the proposed new championship structure in football essentially sets up a system which will ensure even more big inter-county matches for an elite within an elite. (And the claim that the revamped football championship is designed to facilitate the better playing of club games could politely be described as absurd.)
These two things would be hugely questionable in themselves. But what makes them most dispiriting is that there is no accompanying plan to provide a proper programme of games at club level.
The GAA can be very proud of the fact that it has financed — partly from central level — the building of an extraordinary infrastructure of clubs grounds and other facilities across the island.
But, in the way of things now, once you hit the age of 16 if you are an ordinary club player your programme of serious, competitive matches will be determined by the needs of an inter-county elite.
Andy McEntee asks whether there can be a future in that? The truth of it is that there just shouldn’t be.
It is now, regrettably, apparent that no leadership will be provided from Croke Park in respect of the development of a proper programme of club matches. The radical, transformative surgery that is needed will not be undertaken. It is even clear that basic protocols will not be put in place setting out the imperatives of playing club games in timely fashion. Put simply: Croke Park has no plan for club players.
So where might an alternative future come from? The answer can only lie with county boards.
A blunt question: What exactly is a county board for? Currently, it seems clear that the operations of county boards are consumed primarily with inter-county matters.
And, in a way, this is understandable. Everybody wants to see their county win and they see the way certain successful counties abandoned club games and imagine that this is the path to glory.
But in county after county there is a stagnation among adult club teams that is undeniable. How this helps a county team be successful is not readily apparent.
So why not try a different path? Why not actually deny the managers of county teams the ultimate say in what happens in a county? Why not set out at the beginning of the year a clear calendar of club games that is immutable and dictate when players should be available to clubs and in what manner? Why not, for example, work with neighbouring counties to have divisional leagues on Friday or Monday nights?
The thing is that, in the beginning, the formation of county boards was designed to facilitate clubs to play matches against each other.
This is a basic thing — so basic that it should not need to be said. It is time to make this most basic of things real again.
The annual conventions of county boards all across Ireland will be held in the coming weeks and months. Are there men and women out there who will now take a lead and fight for club players? Or will we just stick with the usual platitudes?
