O’Neill: get back to ‘real amateurs’

TOP GAA official Liam O’Neill believes that the economic downturn facing counties and clubs will provide an opportunity to stop playing ‘ridiculous expenses to team managers’.

He said officials could plead ‘an inability to play’ and get back to a situation of having teams coached by ‘real amateurs.

“It could do a lot to revitalise our Association and end the involvement of those mercenaries who, while pretending that they have our interests at heart, clearly value themselves time more highly than those they claim to serve.’’

Currently the chairman of the Rules Book Task Force and ending 16 years of involvement with the Leinster Council at the annual convention earlier in the week, he believes the GAA can play an important part in helping people to come to terms with the recession.

Rather than cut back on their activities, they should build for the future. That way, when the country gets back on its feet it will find the GAA ‘in prime position’ to lead the youth and the nation in sporting activity.

In this regard, he argues that they should seek to engage with local authorities and government agencies ‘much more aggressively’ than they have.

“We should be prepared to borrow for infrastructural projects on a large scale bearing in mind our capacity to repay loans. Local authorities own land and we have the finance and resources to develop sporting facilities. It should be easy to do business with them with a bit of flexibility on both sides,’’ he stated.