Cooney to address Congress on relations between players and County Boards

GAA President Christy Cooney is to comment on the relationship between inter-county players and their respective County Boards and managements in his address to Annual Congress in Mullingar this Saturday.

The expected comments come in the wake of the Fermanagh footballers' dispute.

Speaking at today's announcement of telecommunications firm eircom as a new sponsor of the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, Cooney said that all parties have to follow the procedures in place.

"It's there as a process to try and bring reconciliation and get parties to agree," he said.

"At the end of the day, County Boards have a decision to make. We try to move the process forward and I will have some comments to make on it next Saturday."

When asked was he disappointed with the way events have unfolded in Fermanagh, Cooney said he was happy with the response of the Fermanagh County Board.

"No (I wasn't disappointed). The County Board have their responsibility and their right to manage their affairs and we respect that right fully and rightly so."

And Cooney says that it does not make the protocol null and void as a result of the Erne County's actions.

"No (it doesn't). There are a lot of things that wouldn't even come to the attention of the media with how we deal with things.

"We do that type of stuff through ourselves and the GPA on an ongoing basis.

"It's just that the Fermanagh one probably got more publicity than any other. A lot of things happen behind the scenes that nobody would know anything about and we work our way through.

"Those are the challenges that face us. It's the first time that we have had this test. Fermanagh had the perfect right to do what they believed was right.

"As I say again, we respect that fully and that is their right as a County Board."

On the issue of ticket prices for the upcoming Allianz League finals, Cooney says that the GAA are examining admission charges at present.

"There will be two double-headers on the Saturday (Division 3 and 4) and on the Sunday (Division 1 and 2)," he said, referring to the football deciders over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend.

"We will have our communications people, ticketing people and financial people looking at putting together a ticket package for the weekend.

"That would probably attract people to come on Saturday and stay around for Sunday and vice-versa.

"We will be looking at those options over the next couple of days and probably announce something on ticket prices if not before the weekend, then early next week."