No progress yet on manager payments document

COUNTY boards have reported no movement on GAA President Christy Cooney’s proposal to establish a discussion forum on payments to managers.

Speaking at Annual Congress in Mullingar in April, Cooney said he intended on bringing all the Association’s stakeholders together within two months to debate a topic which he described in his address as “a cancer running through our organisation’’.

However, a number of county chairmen and secretaries in the four provinces contacted by the Irish Examiner confirmed they have received no correspondence about the forum since Congress.

In his address, Cooney said: “Collectively as an organisation I believe we have to work hard to uphold and crucially protect these same values if we are to continue to represent the beliefs that underpin the GAA.

“With this in mind I propose to call together the chairpersons, secretaries, treasurers and Central Council delegates to a discussion forum within the next two months to gather their views on this topic.”

One county chairman said “something is in the pipeline” but admitted he had “heard nothing” about the matter since Congress.

In the speech, Cooney also said Director General Páraic Duffy would present his discussion paper on payments to managers at the forum with possible outcomes from it being agreed by Coiste Bainistí (Management Committee) before going to Central Council.

It is eight months since Duffy presented the paper to Coiste Bainistí, which has been circulated among members but has yet to be released.

At Congress, Cooney described the document as a “roadmap to moving the situation forward if the goodwill and leadership exists within the organisation to deliver a solution”.

Cooney also stressed his belief that the only solution to county boards found to have broken GAA rules as regard payments to managers should have financial support from central resources withdrawn.