Diligent Duffy driving GAA to the next level

CROKE PARK on a non-match day can be a deceiving place.

Stroll through the corridors and, the odd caterer or cleaning lady aside, it looks quieter than school during summer recess.

The reality is entirely different. Were Gulliver to prise open the stadium’s roof, he would be faced with a small army of worker bees, buzzing furiously in their myriad of offices to keep the show on the road.

Chief among them is Páraic Duffy, the Monaghan man who succeeded Liam Mulvihill as Director General 18 months ago and who has already packed more into that period of time than most of us would in an entire career.

If there is one thing the former school principal has learned, it is that there is no ‘down time’ in this business, only varying degrees of busy, and it doesn’t get any more hectic than the run up to the two All-Ireland finals. Each decider will demand up to 10 days of Duffy’s time.

After that, his attention will turn to October’s Special Congress and, though the postponement of the International Rules has left a gap in his diary for now, that won’t be long being filled.

The routine is familiar to him by now. He lives in Dublin from Monday to Friday. Only the weekends, as well as maybe one night during the week, are spent back home in Monaghan.

A self-confessed sports nut, he hasn’t had time to revel in Tottenham’s best ever start to a Premier League season. The Ashes and World Athletic Championships in Berlin largely passed him by.

The one glimpse he got of the latter lasted half an hour before he fell asleep. None of this is by way of complaint. He once told this paper that working for the GAA was akin to being a kid in a sweet shop and he hasn’t changed his tune.

“It does consume your life and that’s not a complaint. I enjoy working with the GAA. You never know what sort of hours you are going to do. That’s the great thing. It is unpredictable.”

Duffy hasn’t been the only recent high-profile arrival at Croke Park. Nickey Brennan passed the baton of president to Christy Cooney earlier this year, the first time the guard has changed during Duffy’s stewardship.

Many a sporting organisation has both a president and a chief executive in these changing modern times but the GAA may be unique in the fact that both men hold a huge amount of power in their hands.

Brennan, for one, has foreseen the possible difficulties such a scenario could lead to and he suggested two years ago that future presidents may have to take a less central role in policy and day-to-day activities.

Duffy accepts that there is “potential for conflict” but says there has been none between himself and Cooney who sat down and discussed the overlapping nature of their roles when the Cork man moved into Brennan’s office last April.

“We don’t always agree but we always go along the line of what is best for the GAA. I don’t think a full-time president could fade into the background and become a figurehead. As long as we have a situation where we recognise each other’s roles it comes down to how two people operate that. Nickey is right in that there is potential for a problem but I got on well with Nickey and I get on with Christy, so it isn’t an issue.”

Duffy has some way to go to match his predecessor’s record of serving under 10 different presidents but he already appears perfectly suited to a role that requires the dexterity to deal with a plethora of issues.

A Director General can have no specialist subject. Instead he is expected to possess first-hand knowledge on everything and Duffy has no difficulty in jumping from topic to topic in his quickfire way.

For the most part, the conversation sails along at a pleasant pace and he is refreshingly candid. At one point he admits that the GAA may never get the hurling championship totally right and he makes a strong argument in favour of match bans. Only once does his voice betray a suggestion of annoyance and that is when he is quizzed about AFL recruitment. Where some see mountains, Duffy sees a molehill. He dismisses it perfunctorily but it is a rarity in a conversation in which he is happy to cast one eye back on his tenure and another to the challenges ahead.

It’s already been one hell of a ride.

“There have been a few issues but Cork was the most difficult, twice. The footballers one year and the hurlers the other. There are always arguments over whether or not we should get involved in it but if there is a GAA problem, it is our problem.

“You can’t just turn your back on it. You can make a judgement as to whether it was wise for me to get involved in both situations but they had the potential to destabilise the association.”

The other hairy chapter was much more recent. U2’s three concerts in Croke Park generated as much controversy for the GAA as it did money and Duffy admits that it could so easily have gone very, very wrong. It was only when the tickets had been sold that the association realised that the band’s 550-tonne stage would all but destroy the pitch and necessitate its replacement before the following week’s fixtures.

It was a nerve-shredding operation, one that was made all the more unbearable when a protest by local residents delayed the operation for a number of hours the day after the third and final concert.

“When the concerts finished on the Monday and we ran into problems on the Tuesday with the residents and not being allowed to start the work, that was the worst day I have had on the job since I started.

“That day, between Christy, myself and Peter McKenna and his staff, it took enormous effort to resolve that. It was worrying because we were faced with a really bad situation. It was the worst day.”

There was, he admits, no Plan B.

“If we hadn’t got that situation resolved on the Tuesday we would have been in a very bad situation. The matches would have had to have been called off and that would have been very damaging for the association. That was very nerve-racking.”

That, at least, was a one-off issue. Most are longer running affairs, like the current Strategic Plan. Others deliver endless sequels, like the ongoing arm-wrestle with the GPA over official recognition.

Colouring it all is the recession. As Duffy admits, the immediate future promises hardship and the GAA is not going to increase its revenues no matter what he or anyone else attempts to do in the next few years.

They have worked hard to counter it. Attendances have held up this summer despite all the predictions of doom and gloom but the GAA have had to offer reduced packages to do so and that has cut receipts by 10%.

Another blow, expected though it is, will be the imminent relocation to Aviva Stadium of rugby and soccer. Their cousins have been the perfect tenants this past three years and their rent will be sorely missed.

“At every level of the GAA, there is less money out there. Therefore, we have less money to distribute to units. There will be less money to put into infrastructure development. You would like to maintain your coaching and games development money but that is under threat as well.

“The Sports Council’s funding is threatened and that would have implications for us as well. I would suggest that the biggest challenges are still to come. An Bord Snip Nua have suggested that the Sports Council’s funding be reduced by €17m. If that happens the funding to us and rugby and soccer would be significantly reduced.

“That would leave us with a choice. Do we reduce the number of coaches or do we pull money away from infrastructural development to make sure the coaching regime continues? The real challenges are still ahead. This is only year one.”

The GAA had been drawing down €30m a year from the Government in capital funding. That is now gone. The GAA will try to soften that blow with some of its own resources but it can’t hope to make up the entire deficit. No doubt about it, Páraic Duffy will continue to burn the midnight oil.