“We’ve not gone away you know,” says Dessie
“This year has seen the opening of negotiations between the Association and the GAA, and our most recent meeting with Croke Park would suggest there are grounds for optimism,” he said.
The Carphone Warehouse sponsored GPA chief said 2002 had seen an unprecedented airing of grievances by inter-county players.
“Players have grown tired of staying silent in the face of shabby treatment by the authorities. The GPA has clearly established a strong presence, and looks forward to vigorously representing the views of the players well into the future,” Dessie Farrell said.
He said he hoped that 2003 would see the implementation of a number of the GPA’s key goals, including proper compensation for players, and the development of proper player welfare structures.
“We are reasonable people fighting for a just cause. As long as the GAA takes heed of our demands, we can avoid the sort of drastic action that will inevitably occur if the players believe they are being taken for granted,” he said.
The players body brings the curtain down on its own season on Friday when the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, presents the SEAT Player of the Year awards in Dublin. Over 800 people are expected to attend the gala event, the only players’ player of the year awards scheme in the GAA.
“It’s a fitting finale to the Carphone Warehouse sponsored GPA season and the scale of the event, in just its second year, is evidence of the great strides made by the Association since it came into being in 1999. On Friday, we will reward individual excellence, but, much more than that, we will celebrate the achievements of all inter-county players throughout the season,” he added.
Farrell rejected the notion that the Player of the Year award is somewhat tainted after a cock-up last year. Last year the GPA informed Galway’s Padraig Joyce that he had won the award only to officially name wing-back Declan Meehan on their awards night.
Farrell said: “We can give an absolute guarantee that the tightest regulations will apply, including having an independent observer at the count.”
Meanwhile, Cork’s hurlers have denied that “difficulties with the manager and selectors” is at the root cause of their festering dispute with the Cork County Board.
The team’s representatives meet for the second time tomorrow night with GAA chiefs in the county on “various matters of mutual concern.”
However, a statement added: “Contrary to recent reports, these discussions have not dealt mainly with reported difficulties between the players and the selectors/manager. The discussions are dealing with a broad range of issues are not concerned exclusively, or even primarily, with a single issue.
“We have stated previously that we do not see it as our right or function to interfere with the choosing or workings of selectors or managers for hurling in Cork.”
The statement also pointed out that the players had invited County Board chiefs to join them in the “statement of confirmation of the position.” However, they had “declined to do so.”
Meanwhile, a meeting of Kerry County Board has been told that the rejection of the SRC report at the Special Congress was a “missed opportunity for the GAA to shake off the cloak of conservatism.”
Beaufort delegate Frank Coffey, a Kerry minor football selector, told the meeting: “we cannot avoid the tag of be called conservative.
“Just look around the hall at this delegate meeting, we are all middle aged conservatives and we can’t get away from that.
“We all belong to ordinary clubs and nobody wants to take serous jobs so it is the same people who will take them year in and year out. In actual fact we are getting no credit for that.”
He added: “The SRC document went too far in trying to cover too much ground. They looked in to too many things. So I think the whole thing should be kept topical and it is our job to do that in here. I hope that there is a motion to the Kerry Convention this year along the lines that the Kerry County Board supports the spirit of opening Croke Park to other sports when the time and financial situation is right to do so and I imagine that they are right at this very time.
“We have to embrace other sports and cast off this conservative veneer that we have.”
The new Kerry senior hurling management team for Kerry has been ratified. Coach Maurice Leahy from Causeway will be joined by selectors Eddie Murphy, former Tipperary All-Ireland medal winner Cormac Bonnar and Joe Walsh, Kilmoyley.
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