O’Neill keen to nurture youth

A couple of weeks ago in these pages, Dublin hurling boss Anthony Daly referred to new GAA president Liam O’Neill’s views on mentors shouting at children playing hurling and football.

Daly believed the ugliest part of the GAA is the way mentors shout at kids because they want “to go down to the local and boast about winning an underage game” and O’Neill is happy to expand on those views.

“I made a comment at the launch of Féile na nGael in Dublin, saying I hoped no mentor there would berate a child for not having skills he or she didn’t teach them in the first place,” the president said.

“If we thought of that we might shout a bit less — if the child doesn’t have the skills, it’s because they haven’t been taught them.

“I know people get excited but no child should be demeaned while involved in Gaelic games. I’d be strong on that. I worked with children for 35 years and I know how that can impact on them, and people should realise the need to be positive for children.”

O’Neill is stressing the importance of participation during his presidency.

“If we measured success by the number of people with All-Ireland medals, it’s minuscule. If that’s your only focus, then you’re admitting the vast number of people involved in the GAA are failures. I don’t accept that. The great success is to play the games.

“Maybe people say it’s because I’m from Laois, but we don’t feel disappointed when we lose.

“Participation is key, particularly for children. Every parent wants their child to get a game. They don’t want their kids on the sideline. In 35 years teaching, I never heard a child come in on Monday morning and say, ‘I had a great training session over the weekend’.

“They want games, and if we give them games and a positive experience, then we’ll bring the parents with us. That should be our ultimate aim — to spread the feel-good factor of being involved in a GAA club or team, and all the positives that brings.

“Winning is a bonus; participation is the main thing.”

O’Neill is aware of complaints about ticket costs but points to the GAA’s spending programme as justification for those prices.

“The fact is we could open our gates and let people in for free but the contribution at the gate finances us, it allows us hire the coaches we have.

“We’ve spent €20m on games development nationally. We’ve spent a huge amount on infrastructure at national and club level alike, but all that money has to come from somewhere. We have insurance schemes and so on and money for that must come from somewhere.

“I think we’re finding more innovative ways of getting people to our games. I wouldn’t say we have it cracked yet but we’re getting there. You’re working in the dark in that you never know what’s going to happen.

“People will always say afterwards ‘you could have done this differently’, but we’re playing this game live. We’re doing our best and our full-time level at national and provincial level are weighing in behind us on that.”

O’Neill also reiterated his opposition to racism within the GAA in the wake of the Lee Chin case in Wexford.

“You can’t legislate in advance for something that happens. As an administrator, you can only act when something happens.

“Regarding what happened in Wexford, apparently something happened on the field, it was reported by the referee and the punishment was dished out.

“None of us like the idea of anybody being made to feel bad while playing our games. There’s no excuse for anybody being called a name of any sort. We’ve come across it, we’ve dealt with it and we’ll continue to deal with it, but the situation is evolving.

“We don’t know where the next problem will come, but there seems to be fair support for the action we are taking, and we have the Respect initiative and support Give Racism The Red Card. We’ll work with any organisation which can help in this way.”

O’Neill added that he’s enjoying his new role, saying it isn’t a hard job: “If you want a hard job in the GAA, you become secretary of a club or county board struggling financially. That’s hard work.

“What I’m doing now is much easier than when I was club secretary or secretary of the Laois County Board. The only thing is you’re in the last line of defence, and any mistake is in the public eye.”