CPA ‘underestimated scale of problems’ in GAA

The Club Players Association has insisted it is making progress on the club fixtures schedule issue but acknowledged it underestimated the full extent of the problem.

In a statement exactly 100 days since the body was established back in January, the CPA revealed that talks are ongoing with both GAA and GPA officials.

But there was also a grudging acceptance that having initially vowed to bring about meaningful reform in the space of 100 days, that ambitious aim has not been met.

The CPA was knocked back on two significant fronts in February, firstly by failing to gain official recognition and then by being ignored when the ‘Super 8’ football championship structure was voted in.

“In launching the CPA we perhaps underestimated the scale of the problem, and overestimated the ability of the GAA to get to grips with the real issues,” read the statement.

“But 100 days have not been wasted. We have not been officially recognised yet our work continues. It is not about official recognition, we are all members of the same association trying to make it better. What we disagree on is the way to achieve that.”

The statement claimed that while there has been ‘a lot of opinion and discussion’ about how to provide a proper schedule of games for club players nationwide, ‘we are no further along or any the wiser in terms of an official plan’.

“The CPA has continued to engage very positively with GAA management to work towards addressing this issue, in creating a fixtures plan that is based on sound principles.

“The latest dialogue is taking place this week and discussions are also ongoing with the GPA. At these meetings, the CPA will discuss and outline the considerable volume of research and fixtures planning which has been done assiduously in the last 100 days by unpaid volunteers.

“We have over 25,000 members registered to the Club Players Association and we have surveyed all of them for their opinion, something the CPA will commit to doing regularly.

“Over 71% of players said their biggest priority was an unchangeable and predictable fixtures calendar, and in the right forum and with a desire for real change we believe our work offers the basis of a solution for this.”

The statement referenced a number of ‘recent situations around club fixtures in a number of leading counties where the rulebook appears to have been set aside’.

That may have been, in part, a reference to alterations to the club football league schedule in Tyrone which prompted the Omagh club to seek a special county board meeting to investigate why the original schedule was torn up.

A letter from Omagh to all other clubs in Tyrone suggested that club games initially pencilled in for this Sunday may have been brought forward to Thursday as the county team wanted all county players to attend a training camp this weekend.

“The attendant fixture chaos underlines a blatant disregard for the rulebook in an association that applies the rule assiduously in matters of Congress, playing rules and player suspension,” the CPA stated.

The CPA was launched at a press conference on January 9 at the Ballyboden St Enda’s club, home of the then reigning All-Ireland club football champions.

Secretary Declan Brennan told the gathering at the time that his committee had a 100-day plan to ‘do something like a company would, turn it around in 100 days’.

The problem of club schedules being parked to accommodate the inter-county season and then run off in blitz like fashion during windows of opportunity remains in many counties however.

“While there has been a lot of opinion and discussion, there has been little movement on club fixtures,” the CPA stated. “Congress made their decision on the Super 8, which we all now accept and have to live with.

“There has been no attendant fixtures masterplan on the club game in 32 counties. On that issue, as GAA members, we are no further along or any the wiser in terms ofan official plan.

“The problems remains and are being addressed in the usual sticking plaster fashion in individual counties whose volunteers are often ill equipped to deal with the problems they face.”