Cork GAA chief to seek six-month insurance plan for 2021 season

Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Picture: Larry Cummins

Cork GAA CEO Kevin O’Donovan will write to the Croke Park hierarchy asking for consideration to be given to putting in place a six-month insurance year for the 2021 season after Cork club delegates heavily criticised the options put forward by Croke Park to restore loss of wages cover.

With the current GAA insurance year concluding on May 31, Croke Park has proposed the next insurance year run from June 1, 2021 to May of 2022.

Loss of wages cover will be built back into the GAA’s player injury fund for this 12-month period if counties back the first of two options tabled last week by Croke Park which recommends applying a 25% levy to each club’s premium.

The second option relates to an independently administered insurance scheme which clubs can avail of to secure loss of wages cover, or players can themselves subscribe to if their club chooses not to.

Croke Park has asked counties to express a preference for one of the above options before the end of this week, but Cork opted against this approach at Tuesday night’s county board meeting and will instead write to Croke Park asking for consideration to be given to a separate proposal of Freemount delegate John O’Flynn.

The Cork correspondence is to state that Cork’s Central Council delegate Tracey Kennedy will not be in a position to cast a vote on loss of wages cover until a response is received to the Cork mail.

O’Flynn’s proposal is that the 2021 insurance year runs from June 1 to December 31, with loss of wages cover incorporated back into the player injury benefit fund at no additional cost to clubs or their players.

“The obvious option here is that the insurance runs from June 1 up to December 31 this year and it covers loss of wages,” O’Flynn said.

“The clubs or the players don’t pay any additional amount for this year, so effectively you start next year with a new insurance scheme.

“Twice now I have raised it [with Croke Park] and they have not come back with an answer as to why this isn’t a solution. I feel Croke Park want to bring in some additional premium for loss of wages this year so it’ll be there for ever more.”

He said the Croke Park options to restore loss of wages cover are “a mechanism for getting cash up front”.

“I cannot understand how on one hand we are told there is a shortfall in the fund and they need extra payment for covering loss of wages and then on the other hand the GAA come out and they give us an extra five months of cover.

“The actual five months from January to May of 2022, the claims there will be higher than what you would claim on the loss of wages.”

In the face of strong criticism from counties, Croke Park performed a U-turn in late March on their pausing of loss of wages cover when announcing proposals would be drawn up to provide loss of wages cover for the 2021 season.