GPA signs €250,000 deal with car firm

THE GAELIC Players Association upped the ante again yesterday in their battle for official recognition with a three-year €250,000 deal with car manufacturers Seat.

The deal will see the GPA’s player of the year in both codes given the keys to a Seat Alhambra car, valued at E20,000 each, while there will also be five awards for the monthly winners from May through to September.

The body’s awards night takes place in November and the players themselves will vote on the winners.

For chief executive, Dessie Farrell, the new deal was confirmation that the association was taking on a growing role in the eyes of the public.

“We’ve been very lucky in that Seat have stepped into the breach and taken on the players’ awards,” the Dublin forward said yesterday.

“It just reflects the growing stature of the players’ association and the huge sympathy out there for players. It shows people are willing to place a worth on the contribution Gaelic players make to society in general,” he added.

Farrell’s contacts have been instrumental in taking the GPA so far in terms of respectability in such a short period of time and he was given a very public show of support from players such as Kieran McGeeney, Eamon O’Hara, DJ Carey and Jason Sherlock at the Burlington Hotel yesterday.

Sherlock was the first GAA player to truly mine his popularity for personal gain when he played on the last Dublin team to win an All-Ireland back in 1995, but the Na Fianna man feels that because of Farrell’s contribution, he will be seen as the first of many to do so.

“In ‘95 players still had grievances, but it wasn’t a major issue they could tackle anyone with because the GAA would have laughed,” Sherlock said. “That was the way it was in my day and I was certainly going against the norm.

“Players have now got together and realised they deserve to be recognised as outstanding athletes. There’s a more general consensus than there was a few years ago and that’s all come from Dessie’s hard work,” Sherlock added.

Farrell was keen to reiterate that pay-for-play was not on his association’s agenda.

“There’s huge confusion about this whole notion of pay-for-play and the bottom line is that while privately some players might harbour those thoughts, the general consensus is that players do not need pay-for-play. What they do want is to be reimbursed for the financial loss incurred from their involvement with a county team.”