New ball game for Fitzgerald

ONLY months into his role as chairman of the Limerick County Board, Pat Fitzgerald is striving to come to terms with the commercial realities of life in the modern GAA.

As he oversees the €12m redevelopment of the Gaelic Grounds on the one hand and on the other attempts to give direction to a more efficient running of Board affairs, he poses interesting questions that are relevant to every county and of major concern to the Association.

With senior panels now officially extended to 30, the cost of preparing Limerick’s teams for the Allianz National Hurling and Football Leagues will increase in line with other counties.

Last year, they had an over-run of €150,000, in the day-to-day running of the Board, linked principally to team expenses. Plans are now in train to introduce accounting control on all activities on a monthly basis. Limerick need to change how they operate as a county, not merely from the perspective of training teams, but from a whole administration structure.

Obviously, costs are related to the length of involvement of teams, mainly in the championship. Travelling expenses for one of their teams last year was €62,000. Meals for another cost €46,000.

Fitzgerald acknowledges the obvious dilemma for county officials like himself. “Limerick is considered a very strong GAA county. The appetite and ambition for success is so strong that if you are seen in any way, shape or form to be curtailing activities, you don’t want success. That creates the pressure to train more, to develop more and to coach more your senior teams.’’

He dismisses the notion that counties don’t need to have 30-strong panels for the League and championship. “ When you say ‘optional,’ the county that cuts it below 30 is seen as the county that doesn’t want success. As far as we are concerned, if you tell a manager he can have only 24, then you have a serious problem,’’ he adds.

For him, the fundamental issue is what the GAA expects of its inter-county players and where all the increased training/playing activity can be reconciled with its amateur ethos.

“I think at the top level we need to look at what we mean when we talk about the ‘amateur status,’ with teams training three and four nights a week and playing at week-ends. We need to put down on paper what we mean by amateur games - from an administration point of view, as well as from a players point of view,’’ he adds.

“County officers are now expected to give a full-time service. If you are talking about the four or five senior officers of any Board, they are expected to give between 30 and 50 hours a week minimum to administer their counties.

There’s no question but that the players ‘make’ the game and that there would not be an Association without them. But, the level of support now required to run the organisation is getting serious.’’

He emphasises that he is not advocating a cutback in inter-county games activity (although he also addresses serious concerns about the effect of recent increases on clubs). “When we say our games are amateur, are we talking at inter-county level that the maximum activity should be two training sessions and a match per week, or are we saying we expect them to train five or six nights a week and a match on a Sunday.

“I would like to see somebody from Headquarters look at the financial implications of where we’re going, first of all. Secondly, and probably most important of all, the effect of that level of activity on the club needs to be examined. I feel we have already started to do damage on club activity. We need to stand back to see that we don’t do any further damage.

“If you are fairly successful and players are removed from their clubs, we’re telling a huge amount of players at club level that they cant have no activity until the elite players are finished. We’re really driving them into the hands or other codes and other activity. While we structured our championships with extra games the time span allowed for inter-county activity chokes the progressive activities needed at club level necessary to sustain our Association.’’

Already this year the Board executive has had several meetings with the Limerick teams, to keep them abreast of developments. Fitzgerald says that he finds the players ‘very understanding.’ Interestingly, however, he concedes that there is a ‘gap’ in player awareness of what happens at national level. “There is an understanding there that while Croke Park is being built, they need the finance to finish it off. But, even with club level there needs to be a greater understanding of how the GAA itself operates, viz-a-viz where it spends its money in coaching and games development.

“Maybe that’s an education process we have failed to do properly within the organisation, not just at player level. That awareness is not there among supporters and that is what heightens and fuels the expectation to look for ‘higher this and more of that.’

Limerick team expenses in 2002

Senior hurling: €125,000.

Senior football: €155,000.

Intermediate hurling: €10,000.

Junior football: €5,000.

U-21 hurling: €93,500.

U-21 football: €35,800.

Minor hurling: €30,500.

Minor football: €30,500.

Masters: €3,000.