Club chairmen predict player exodus after GAA pause wage cover from injury benefit fund

Ger Mulryan, GAA director of finance, right, alongside GAA director general Tom Ryan. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

Club chairmen in Kilkenny and Waterford have warned that changes to the GAA’s injury benefit fund will lead to a significant drop-off in participation numbers this year, with one club officer predicting thousands of players will stay away because of the removal of cover for loss of wages.

On December 1 of last year, clubs were informed by Croke Park of an indefinite pause to the loss of wages cover. The correspondence stated that the removal of wage cover was to “partly address” the predicted €4m deficit the GAA’s player injury fund would incur across 2020 and 2021.

This figure was revised downward in the GAA’s annual accounts published last month as an injury fund deficit of €934k was recorded for 2020, with further losses of between €1m and €2m forecast for 2021.

In the same report, GAA finance director Ger Mulryan said the pausing of wage cover will save the fund approximately €1.3m per annum.

Prior to 2021, players who suffered an injury in the course of GAA activity which resulted in them having to take time off work were covered, through the injury fund, for up to €300 per week for a maximum of 26 weeks.

Mount Sion chairman Seamus Cleere and Graigue-Ballycallan chairman Dave O’Neill have raised this issue at county board level in recent months. Both men are adamant the removal of cover for loss of wages will lead players to think twice before stepping back onto the field for the 2021 season.

“An awful lot of people who may have been off work and in receipt of Covid payments, are they going to risk coming back, suffering an injury, and then being out of work? Who is going to pay the mortgage then, who is going to put food on the table? If players behave responsibly, they won’t come back because of the lack of proper cover,” said O’Neill.

“There’s an awful lot more that goes into getting back on the field now. Club and Covid officers are going to have to make sure that everybody has their back-to-play protocols done. If we add to that going off and finding your own insurance, there’ll be thousands of players who won’t return.”

With three Mount Sion players having claimed wage cover through the fund in the past three years, club chairman Seamus Cleere said the change to the injury fund is a “killer” for a “working class club” such as theirs.

“One club in Waterford rang me after I brought it up at Convention and they look now that they may not have a second adult team because a fella of 31, 32 years of age, with a mortgage, young family, working in a factory or working for himself, they are gone.”

Cleere said the GAA should not be putting players in a position where they are wrought with worry stepping onto a pitch because of a lack of adequate cover.

“And the player’s wife above in the stand wondering, when looking at a club match, are we going to lose our house if he gets injured? It is that serious. You are going down the road of adults having to make a decision, should I or should I not play this game because I may not be covered.

“My feeling on it is I think this is the tip of the iceberg. I don’t see this pause being for just 12 months.”

At December’s Central Council meeting, Waterford delegate Brendan Tobin queried the pause on loss of wages cover, as did Cork’s Tracey Kennedy at the February meeting.

On both occasions, GAA finance director Mulryan replied that the pause was necessary to manage the injury fund deficit.

Cleere and O’Neill believe clubs would have no problem making an additional contribution to the injury fund if it meant a restoration of wage cover. In order to make up the expected €2m deficit for 2021, this would mean an additional payment of roughly €900 from each of the approximately 2,200 GAA clubs across the 32 counties.

“Charge the bigger clubs more and the smaller clubs less,” said Cleere, who said another option would be to transfer money across from the GAA’s public liability insurance pot. Clubs, for 2021, are only being asked to pay one-sixth of their insurance premiums.

He said: “I always felt with the GAA that we did look after players better than any other association. That seems now to be gone.”

Graigue-Ballycallan’s O’Neill insisted clubs will be left in financial turmoil if they have to foot the bill for out of work players.

“I would rather, as a club chairman, ask my club to shoulder an additional €800 cost in order to protect ourselves from one case which would cost €7,800 [26 weeks x €300], two cases which would cost €15,600, and three cases €23,400. We can quantify the cost of reinstating this cover. The cost of participation is priceless. The risk to players needs to be removed.”