Fistful of dollars the lure as top handballers head for US

AS the GPA and the GAA are at loggerheads over the distribution of funding for players, a number of Ireland’s top handballers head to the US for a cash rich tournament.

Sources close to the negotiations between Croke Park top brass and the Players’ Association admit that the issue of handballers earning money in foreign tournaments has been highlighted on a number of occasions by the GPA in its efforts to secure the €5 million available for the government without damaging the GAA’s amateur status.

The US Open of Handball in California is a professional event run by the World of Pro Handball and boasts a prize fund of $83,000 (€60,000).

But crucially it has no affiliation with the GAA so the players cannot be stopped from playing or earning money.

Paul Brady (Cavan) is no stranger to such competitions. In February 2004 he won $50,000, the largest cash prize in handball history, at the Ultimate Handball Showdown in Seattle when he defeated American handball hero David Chapman.

Brady and Tony Healy (Cork) along with Ricky McCann (Antrim) and Charly Shanks (Armagh) are amongst the Irish competing for the $20,000 (€14,000) top prize in the singles while Dessie Keegan and Noel McHugh (Mayo and Galway) and Egin Jenson (Dublin) and Michael Gregan (Wicklow) are set to contest the doubles.

Explained Healy: “It is now one of the top two events in the United States. The tournament will be broadcast live on the web (www.extremehandball.org and weplayhandball.com) and will feature all of the top players in the world. The aim of this competition is to build the profile of handball. For example, the organisers are producing a television series around this, so there was a camera crew here in Ireland for a few weeks following Paul Brady and myself around and filming our preparation. There will be a big effort to get this onto a television network over there. I head off on Saturday morning and get a couple of days of training before the competition starts on Thursday.”

“I have been playing the USA for the last couple of years and the money was tiny. But now things are changing.”