Cork hurlers refuse to play ball on DVD over holiday cash

CORK hurlers have justified their decision not to co-operate in the production of a DVD on this year's All-Ireland hurling championship saying that Setanta Television did not make a realistic contribution to the players' holiday fund.

The players had sought a sum between €5,000 and €10,000, it emerged yesterday. In a formal statement, they pointed out that the concept of a "commercial alliance between Setanta and the Cork squad" had been rejected outright.

After the initial approach by the company, three players had been offered €350 to appear in the DVD and, even after this was increased to €750, they declined to participate.

The statement - issued through the GPA office in Dublin - made it clear the players had acted on a matter of principle.

"While Setanta retain the rights to use GAA match footage for video and DVD productions, the Cork players were aggrieved at the attitude adopted by the company towards the All-Ireland winning squad," it pointed out.

Describing the production as "a slick commercial venture," goalkeeper Donal Óg Cusack said it was illogical that Setanta could pay millions to the GAA to acquire the rights to the games, while the players "saw nothing" from a venture such as this.

"An endorsement by the Cork hurling squad would arguably increase sales and contribute to our players' holiday fund, yet all we were offered was a small fee for player interviews," he said.

In an interview later, Cusack said that at a time when they were fund-raising for their holiday (to New Zealand), they looked to Setanta for a figure to be paid into the fund - "maybe €10,000, or €5,000, something like that! We would have given it plenty time and promoted it as much as possible."

There was absolutely no question of the players calling for a boycott of the DVD, he said, but the players felt it was important that Cork fans "should be aware of their position in regard to this product." Their wish was that people would look at the issue from their point of view, from the perspective of players "being really stretched" in the amount of time devoted to training and playing.

Cusack explained that while it was the players themselves who took the stand, clearly it had the support of the Gaelic Players Association - for the reason that all the squad were members of the GPA.

"The decision not to co-operate was theirs. At the time we were working out how to raise enough money to go on holiday. This would have been a perfect tie-in," he said.

Agreeing that there was a broader issue to their stance - the whole question of image rights - Cusack pointed out that there was no formal structure in Croke Park for dealing with such matters as this.

"If there was a structure in place we would know what to do in these situations...and this kind of rubbish would not be happening at all," he said.

"It's very simple. It comes back to us being used for a financial venture and we are not taken into account. We know when companies are dealing with Croke Park they are under the assumption that players will just fall in line and do what they are told and be available.

*The 2003 accounts for the Central Council show that a figure of €4.3m was raised under the heading of 'Media Income.' This figure represents the fees received for both international and domestic television rights.