Players given role on Council

THE GPA is to give full backing to a plan by the GAA to elect a players’ representative to Central Council via a nationwide ballot of inter-county hurlers and footballers.

The players’ body has been pushing for representation on the Council for some time - something that has been resisted by Croke Park on the grounds that the GPA is not an officially recognised organisation.

There were fears that the GPA could possibly call on its members to boycott the election which is the brainchild of GAA President Sean Kelly.

With a reputed 1,400 members, such an action would have seriously undermined the canvassing of votes among the 1,800-plus inter-county players around the country.

“There’ll be no boycott called by us,” said Dessie Farrell. “This matter was high on the agenda of our last meeting with the GAA.

“Both sides agreed that player representation was needed and we also agreed on the mechanism to do that.

“From what I can gather, this is being done on a county by county basis and we’ve requested that Croke Park send us the wording of the form they’ll be sending to the players.”

As of yet, there is no suggestion that the GPA will recommend that their members nominate any one specific player to take the seat.

“The majority of players are involved with the GPA and obviously we’d like it to work out that one of our members would be selected. It’s a democratic process though and anyway players won’t be climbing over themselves to be elected.

“Players like to play and administrators like to administrate.

“What is important is that players engage in the process.”

Players have not been represented on Central Council since the former Player Committee was disbanded in 2003.

The committee was chaired by former Armagh player Jarlath Burns who also occupied the players’ seat on Central Council.

Meanwhile, Farrell insisted that it was premature to be discussing the possibility of players refusing to give post-match interviews, following the news that RTÉ was to ban all product placement in their broadcasts.

GPA members had been receiving €500 for being shown on air after championship matches with a bottle of Club Energise.

“We met with Glenn Killane, the head of RTÉ sport last week, where we laid our cards on the table and we’re still waiting on an official response from him on this,” said the GPA chief executive.

“I’d be very disappointed if what was reported is the case. Players aren’t contracted to do post-match interviews. They co-operate out of pure goodwill and I’d be disappointed if one of the few areas where players can be compensated for their time and effort has been closed off.

“I don’t want to pre-empt anything before we know exactly what the situation is but players won’t be too happy about this.

“Suffice it to say that players are entitled to do what they want.”