Backing for amateur status

THE preservation of the GAA’s amateur status was the abiding message from speakers at Saturday’s discussion forum of county chairmen, secretaries and Central Council delegates.

Little if anything was said in favour of paying managers at the Croke Park summit as county boards now have until February 24 to submit written submissions on the contents of GAA director general Páraic Duffy’s discussion paper.

Speakers aired concerns such as not being able to afford paying managers even if they so wished, the possibility of professionalism taking over in the GAA, and the more prevalent occurrence of unregulated payments to managers at club level.

Nothing was committed by counties as they first gauge the opinions of their clubs before backing one of the options laid out by Duffy or one of their own.

However, early indications are counties, at least at executive level, are reluctant to pay inter-county managers for their services. At the same time, there is acknowledgement in some quarters that they are not being rewarded sufficiently for the vast amount of work being done by them.

Although there are doubts about whether it would be enough to address unregulated payments to managers, there is keen support for increasing the expense packages of inter-county managers, which is listed as a model in the paper.

The in-camera meeting was attended by the vast majority of county board chairmen, secretaries and Central Council delegates. Following the forum, the GAA issued a statement confirming all counties are to deliver either their own proposal or support of one of the options and/or models in Duffy’s discussion paper.

It read: “As part of the consultation process in relation to The GAA Amateur Status and Payments To Team Managers document, a meeting was held with county officials in Croke Park today. A written submission will be submitted by each county after their own internal discussions by the 24th of February 2012 in the next phase of the consultation process.”

Limerick chairman Liam Lenihan had no comment to make on the subject only to say he was “very happy” with the meeting. The subject will be raised at tomorrow evening’s county committee meeting.

“It will be discussed by management and county committee,” said Lenihan. “Clubs will have their say at county committee. Our next meeting is on Tuesday night but the paper has only been circulated.”

At the meeting, GAA President Christy Cooney clarified his comments about payments to managers at last April’s Congress in Mullingar.

Cooney said his phrase “cancer running through the heart of the association” used to describe the issue had to be taken into context.

Cooney has previously acknowledged he had been criticised for using such words and a recent survey found a majority of chairmen disagreed with that view.

Speaking yesterday, Kildare’s Kieran McGeeney indicated his support for paying managers by outlining the amount of work put in by inter-county bosses. He also slammed those who are commenting on managers without being full abreast of the effort and commitment they give to counties.

“We work hard, we work harder than a lot of people realise, probably who give opinions on it withoutrealising,” said the Armagh man.

“I probably would suggest that people do a wee bit more homework before they comment on it. That would be the only comment I have on it.”

There was no discussion on the establishment of a working group, as proposed in Duffy’s document, but the committee is likely to be put in place at the end of February.

There was also no clear mention of issues at county level with the income of some of Croke Park’s paid administrators. A number of chairmen have privately expressed their disgruntlement about well-paid GAA officials dictating to volunteers about financial matters. However, one county board official said everything would have to be on the table if they are to address the issue.