Barry left in limbo in Meath

FORMER Meath senior football boss Eamonn Barry was prevented from running for the position of coaching officer at the annual convention in Navan on Saturday.

Barry was elected to the position 12 months ago and has been strongly critical of the running of the county board on a number of occasions, once describing it as “dysfunctional”.

In an unprecedented move chairman Barney Allen had the GAA membership of all nominees checked before allowing them run for positions, reading out the membership numbers of all contenders.

Having earlier barred former county hurling PRO Martin O’Halloran from contesting the equivalent county board position, the chairman claimed Barry was not a full member of the association when the position of coaching officer came up.

However, Barry disputed Allen’s assertion, reading out a membership number. A decision on the matter was put back to the adjourned convention in mid-January with the Walterstown clubman’s credentials to be checked before then.

Treasurer Pat Clerkin announced that the costs of county senior football team manager Seamus McEnaney and his assistants was €82,307, which was less than the budgeted for €99,000.

However, such a lower figure was due in some way to Meath exiting the championship at the third round of the qualifiers compared to the All-Ireland quarter-finals in 2010.

The financial report showed an overall surplus of €50,668 in income over expenditure for the last 12 months.

A motion from the Kilmainham club proposing a change in the five-year rule for county officers was supported and will be submitted to the annual GAA congress. Under the present rule an officer cannot return to the same position until after a break of five years but Kilmainham propose that the interim period be reduced to two years. Former chairman Pat O’Neill described the present rule as “silly” and Kilmainham’s motion was passed unanimously.

However, there was no support for a Wolfe Tones motion proposing that training for all inter-county teams be limited to three two-hour sessions per week including challenge matches, citing the example of one player, a manual worker, who had opted out of the panel as the training was so strenuous.

However, chairman Allen suggested that the enforcing of such a rule would not be possible, asking: “If Meath were breaking the rule would anyone in the county report the matter?”