GPA chief Tom Parsons: All-Ireland League will boost GAA coffers

With a minimum of 11 season games for every county, seven of them championship, Parsons also argues the season ticket will become more attractive if Proposal B is backed

Gaelic Players Association (GPA) chief executive Tom Parsons is convinced the All-Ireland SFC league structure would be financially beneficial to the GAA.

Speaking at a press briefing in Dublin yesterday when the official inter-county players body endorsed Proposal B to be debated at Special Congress on October 23, the former Mayo midfielder believes more meaningful games will translate to more gate
receipts.

County boards earn more money directly from Allianz League games than the Championship and ahead of the vote there is some trepidation among them that by superimposing that format onto the Sam Maguire Cup that they will lose out on that income.

Under the league as championship proposal, there would be 216 senior inter-county games in a season — 112 in the rounds, nine in the All-Ireland series, 14 in the Tailteann Cup and 81 in the spring provincial leagues. The four provincial conferences of eight teams would involve 199 matches between league and championship whereas the previous system featuring the Super 8 would comprise 182.

With a minimum of 11 season games for every county, seven of them championship, Parsons also argues the season ticket will become more attractive if Proposal B is backed by delegates in Croke Park in 15 days’s time.

“I haven’t ran the numbers in detail. I’m a chartered engineer by trade and when you look at the numbers, unless there’s a riddle, I can’t but see a financial benefit. People want to go to competitive games — this doubles the amount of competitive championship games in the summer.

“In the existing Super 8s, it’s 66 (championship games), in the new proposed structure it’s 135 competitive games in the summer. I’m sure if we run the numbers, it will be financially of benefit. In the whole scheme of things, there’s 15% more games across the year. In the provincial championship, it moves from 27 provincial games to 81 provincial games. So there’s more provincial games as well.

“The big thing for the Mayos and the Dublins is to be able to sell to season ticket holders and we sell those tickets because our supporters know well there’s a high probability that Mayo will get a number of championship games and this is a very valuable ticket. Whereas a Leitrim doesn’t have that
assurance.

“I believe counties knowing that selling to those season ticket holders, giving that
financial security at the start of the year, will help because you know that a minimum you’re going to have seven competitive championship games in the summer. So you can actually plan to sell a product because you know there’s a guarantee of games.”

Other than GAA president Larry McCarthy’s call for the organisation to be “bold” in determining the future of the All-Ireland SFC earlier this year, Croke Park have been silent about the upcoming debate but Parsons hopes they will speak up in the coming weeks.

“Yeah, I would like to see it. We have a number of weeks to Special Congress and again it’s an educational journey for all our GAA administration and leadership, and as I say there is still time to educate and deep dive and listen to debates and listen to players, host focus groups, and go around the country and listen, to formulate your opinion.

“I think it is really important, whatever opinion that is I think people need to express their opinions. Again, there might be one or two players who have an alternative opinion to us, but that’s okay.

“But this is a really important decision and it is warranted to have these conversations to answer these questions, to have this debate, to explore, to issue videos that really explain the proposals. It warrants this conversation. Yeah, I hope that happens. I believe it will happen.”

Hailing it as a recommendation that would “help ignite” Gaelic football, apart from reducing the game to training ratio, Parsons said he is encouraged how the increased number of guaranteed matches would lead to better competitive balance.

Highlighting the difference between Mayo and Leitrim, Parsons explained it would take his former IT Sligo team-mate and Leitrim player Paddy Maguire 35 years to play the same amount of championship matches
Parsons played during his time with the county.

Longford’s Michael Quinn, a member of the GPA’s national executive, explained the most frustrating thing for him and his team-mates were playing the likes of Dublin which was halting their development. “It’s something that has hindered our progress and probably led to more drop-out from our squad.”

Parsons says players are now more discerning about committing to inter-county football. “Young players won’t tolerate entertaining competitions when they don’t have a chance of winning that competition. Players want to compete and challenge. They’re looking at the set-up of their counties, junior, intermediate, senior, there’s an opportunity for growth and change.”