Players’ champion Farrell ready for challenges ahead

I don’t ever envisage the day where you will see players on 40 to 50 grand or with win bonuses and a proliferation of dodgy agents around the place.”

GARY LINEKER once tipped his hat to Father Time by mentioning that kids watching soccer on the box today have to be told he was a pretty decent player in his day.

Pretty soon, Dessie Farrell will probably suffer the same fate.

As popular and successful as he was with Na Fianna and Dublin, Farrell’s public persona has long been wedded to his role as chief executive of the GPA, and that perception is only likely to increase as his boots gather dust in the shed.

That said, he hopes to get one or two more wears out of them yet. He went over on his right knee in a club game against Thomas Davis early last month and, though an x-ray allayed fears of further cruciate damage, he admits to being on his last warning.

Either way, he is bracing himself for the long-term consequences of a career where injury was a constant bedfellow. A trip to Na Fianna physio David Lyons last month coughed up the news that he may need a knee replacement for his other joint and he already feels the effects on the colder days when stiffness sets in.

“This was my last season anyway,” he says. “I had contemplated retiring. You get about two weeks where you’re not injured and playing quite well, and then something happens somewhere along the line.”

He makes it abundantly clear in his autobiography how much of a drug playing football became for him, and you wonder how he will cope when he eventually has to go cold turkey.

“There’s a number of things. My own kids are involved (in football) as well and I have been doing a bit with them already, giving the teams a bit of a dig out here and there. I’m involved with an U-14 Dublin development squad as well. That will keep me involved with the game.”

He may be leaving the mud, sweat and tears of the dressing room behind but Farrell’s days will have plenty to occupy them thanks to his conversion into the world of sports politics.

With his softly-spoken manner, he doesn’t come across as the type of character who normally inhabits such dangerous waters. His first real experience of GAA politics, when he attended a Dublin County Board meeting to try and persuade delegates against dropping the axe on Tommy Carr as senior football manager, was an inauspicious start.

He failed, despite his best efforts, but has thrived since — as evidenced by the fact that he has been the GPA’s chairman since 2000 and chief executive since 2002.

“You would never be 100% comfortable in it. Where I’m coming from is the other side of the fence, the wrong side of the tracks if you like. That’s always going to be somewhat of an issue. It just depends on your coping strategies.

“At this stage, it’s water off a duck’s back. It was difficult that night (over Carr) but it was the same the first night I moved into Central Council because there would have been the perception of me being the black sheep. It’s never as bad as you imagine it to be though.”

His interest in player welfare stretches back to the early 90s when he first earned a call-up to the Dublin senior side and he was one of only two “southern” players present in Belfast in 1999 when the GPA was born.

The early years were about survival as much as anything else. Donal O’Neill ran the association from his own house and Farrell’s increasing involvement saw HQ transferred to his own mother’s two-bedroomed home in Stoneybatter for another two years.

Named the first chief executive five years ago, the lofty title didn’t mean he could excuse himself from licking the stamps but the move to Drumcondra signalled a more stable footing from which the GPA has sought to build.

More needs to be done and they could do with more staff to do it. The stream of late night phone calls from players irate about cold showers and colder meals after training might have slackened but his 12-hour days show few signs of ending.

“It’s still fairly hectic. You’re always on call. It can be any time of the day or night. When you’re dealing with players they don’t operate on a nine-to-five basis. That was always part of the territory and I don’t have an issue with that.

“It’s very demanding and quite frustrating sometimes but you are involved in something which you are hugely passionate about. To be able to spend part of your career in something like this is something I would never have thought possible.”

It is hard to see him returning to “civilian life” again. Farrell sees a different path ahead however. A psychiatric nurse and medical rep prior to his GPA role, he has gone on record before to say that he wouldn’t be staying with the players’ organisation indefinitely.

“For the betterment of the association you need to freshen things up and revitalise from time to time. In a small operation like this you do one of two things — you move on and let someone else come in or you bring in extra staff with bigger and better ideas. We’ll see. We’re looking at some sort of restructuring anyway but I wouldn’t see myself staying at it indefinitely.

“There is a streak of begrudgery that is seen in the GAA from time to time that ‘yer man has set himself up for life’, that kind of thing. I would have been conscious of that ‘jobs for the boys’ sentiment when I moved into the position.

“That said, there is an important 12 to 18 months ahead of us and I don’t think I would ever cut all ties. It would be difficult but, that said, no-one can plan. We’re crystal ball gazing here now and who is to say how it will work out? It would always be very dear to my heart.”

The grants proposal for inter-county players has garnered much attention in recent months but official recognition is the biggest fish the GPA wants to land. Such a move would be a win-win situation, he believes. He dismisses concerns that it would erode the player group’s autonomy, claiming that there can never be a scenario where the employer runs the union. “We would become a toothless tiger if that were the case.”

Another issue for the GPA is the changing of the guard. Many of the men who spearheaded the movement since its inception are at the end of their careers or have already called it a day.

Gone are the days when inter-county players had to be thankful for a free pair of socks or an extra few balls at training. These days, mileage rates are no longer laughable and most teams want for nothing at training sessions or on match days.

Isn’t there a danger that today’s young stars could become blasé about all this largesse?

“There’s a new generation of inter-county players about to emerge in the next few seasons that won’t know where all this started from, how difficult it was when the wagons were first circled,” he admits.

“These guys might not be aware that there was a serious attempt to eradicate any player movement but we can’t be precious about that either. Things move on and you move with the times.”

The next generation of ‘shop stewards’, he believes, are already there. Players who are leaders on the pitch can be easily groomed for leadership off it too and the new generation of managers should be more disposed to the GPA’s message than their predecessors might have been.

New players mean new expectations though and, with the game and GAA in general changing beyond recognition in the last ten years, it is fascinating to think where everything will lie in the year 2017.

With players and managers spending inordinate amounts of time in the pursuit of success with their counties — and clubs — the arguments for and against semi-professionalism continue to be made around the country.

“It possibly is a goer but it is a long way off. Before the GAA ever contemplates anything like that we need to understand the real meanings of the terms professionalism and semi-professionalism.

“Pay for play is bandied about but no-one can actually sit down and tell us what pay for play really means. I don’t ever envisage the day where you will see players on 40 to 50 grand or with win bonuses and a proliferation of dodgy agents around the place.

“There’s an onus on the GPA to make sure that things don’t get out of hand, that there is a common sense approach. There’s an onus on all players to ensure that the game continues to thrive and that they don’t get carried away.”