'Of-one-belief' chief responds to Farrell criticism

A war of words has developed between the Gaelic Players Association and the 'Of One Belief' group, after GPA chief executive Dessie Farrell branded the anti-grants body a bunch of hypocrites in a Sunday newspaper article.

Farrell told the News of the World: "Within the GAA there are plenty of people who go about their business and wouldn't think twice about the GPA or about inter-county players.

"But with some members, a certain amount of jealousy exists. To me, the greatest hypocrisy and double standards come from Of One Belief.

"They are a self-appointed moral guardian of the Association, but where have they been in the last 10 years when payments were being made to managers at club and county level?"

Of One Belief co-founder Mark Conway hit back at Farrell's comments saying that this is not what he and his colleagues believe in and that their focus is to preserve the GAA as an amateur sporting organisation.

"That's a territory we don't want to get into - that's playing the man and not the ball," Conway said.

"We aren't interested in that. This was never about slagging off Dessie Farrell, Pauric Duffy, Nickey Brennan or whoever.

"We might have serious difficulties of opinion with people, but we will focus on the differences of opinion and we'll not focus on the people or the organisations that have them."

However, Conway added: "There's a lot of people that have called us hypocrites and on the basis if we are complaining on the basis that one thing is wrong, why aren't you complaining about everything that is wrong? And that is a valid enough question.

"Maybe we could hold our hands up on that one and say that there were issues that did concern a lot of people, that maybe we should have been raising a bit of noise about them early on.

"I suppose the paid managers one is one of those issues and there is no doubt about it but everybody criticises us about not criticising the paid managers and they don't seem to be doing anything themselves about it."

Conway has called on the GAA's top brass at Croke Park to give guidance on this issue before it is too late.

"We should be getting guidance on that and we aren't getting it. For me I think we could have a very simple change of rule in the GAA.

"We are bound by rule over the various officers we have in our clubs and counties, you have to have a chairman, secretary, treasurer and so on - that's non-negotiable.

"If we could change that to say that for each unit of the Association, be it a county, club, third-level college or whatever;, as well as the officer list we need to nominate each year a manager or a person in charge of each team that the unit fields.

"You have the names of your Under-21, minor and senior managers at inter-county level and in the clubs you have to name your managers from Under-12 up to senior.

"Each of those people at club and county level then must meet the same eligibility criteria as the fellas on the team and the people that are running the club or county. In other words, they have to be members of the club or eligible to play for the county.

"Smart people could get around it and name me as the manager of Kildress (Conway's home club) and bring other people in but you would still be the de-facto manager.

"If we did that I think it would at least show what stand we are taking in terms of who should be managing our teams and for me there's no argument against it," the Tyrone native added.

Meanwhile, as it stands, the Disputes Resolution Authority are set to reconvene on Friday night to hear Of One Belief's prolonged case in relation to the Government grants issue.

The GAA Congress takes place just six days later in Sligo, where motions have been put forward by the Central Council and other GAA units for and against the scheme.