What a year for the GPA

LOVE or loathe them, one has to admit that it has been a great year for the GPA.

They started off the year by firming up the Government’s grants to intercounty players. In this the GPA played a blinder as they rolled with the punches, convincing everybody that this was to go, and even coolly stepping aside to allow the GAA to give the impression that it was they, not the GPA, that had done all the running on it.

The truth is that many in the GAA and elsewhere were cleverly backed into a corner by the GPA and were forced to pretend that they were enthusiastic about the scheme when they were secretly apprehensive or totally against it.