‘If we start paying them what do you do then? It’s a nightmare’

‘OF ONE BELIEF’ founder Mark Conway has painted a doomsday scenario for the GAA if it decides to go down the road of paying managers.

The Tyrone man has also not ruled out re-establishing the group who rallied against the GPA Government grants and also criticised the GAA hierarchy.

Conway is furious the GAA areentertaining the idea of legitimising payment to county and clubmanagers.

However, he is not surprised after the GAA’s decision to backGovernment grants for inter-county players.

“It’s been coming for awhile,” said Conway. “That’s why we fought so hard at the time of the grants. That was the step across the line. Once you crossed it you’re on a slippery slope.

“If we start paying them what do you do then? If a manager doesn’t work well and is removed, they’ll have to be paid off, there could beconstructive dismissal and there’ll be employment laws. It’s a nightmare scenario.”

Conway takes issue with Duffy’s argument that the GAA is creeping towards professionalism if it does nothing about the unregulatedpayments to managers.

“It’s already creeping there because of decisions made at Congress in supporting players getting cold hard cash because they’re inter-county players. That fateful day in November 2007 when the powers-that-be struck a deal with the GPA: that was start of it. We argued it then and history has proven us right.”

Heavily involved with supporters group Club Tyrone, which raised €420,000 last year, Conway is against the idea of the money ever going into the hands of the county’s teammanagers. However, he agrees with Duffy that there are suspicions of managers being paid but points out their lack of success.

“I would assume it’s going on, surely. I’m one of these people who believe it’s corrupting the GAA. There are these mercenaries who try to earn a living or a side-living out of this thing. They’ve these huge profiles but they’ve won nothing. You don’t win prizes bringing in somebody out of the blue to manage your team. If you want to be successful you start at U6 and work at it for 20 years. This fixation with the quick fix is making a mockery of what the GAA stands for. I ask again — what have these high profile managers won.”

Conway hasn’t dismissed the idea of the ‘Of One Belief’ group re-organising to lobby county boards to repel the option to pay managers. However, he is aware of how much work was put into opposing the grants the last time around.

“We did our bit the last time. We put a huge effort into it. We paid to go to the DRA out of our own money. That night we had the hearing the only volunteers were on our side. Those arguing for the GAA were paid people or lawyers. It takes a huge effort to do any of these things. As we found to our cost, GAA bureaucracy is hard to oppose because their working hours were made up of challenging the views that we had. The GAA as an entirety, if they want to go down a road, will go down it. We’re not some sort of a conscience for the Association. But our argument would be that if the GAA continues to go the way it’s going it will be over. (Former GAA President) Peter Quinn was laughed at when he said the GAA could collapse in 20 years but he’s not so far wrong. Let’s come back in 20 years and see what we have left. Do we expect people to go out and volunteerhundreds of hours a year when other people are getting paid for doing bits of work? Look what’s happened in soccer and club rugby — it’s staring us in the face.”