Ladies football chief O'Rourke says GPA protests left sour taste

Ahead of this weekend’s LGFA Congress, Helen O’Rourke has broken her silence on the GPA protests which she claims overshadowed last year’s All-Ireland ladies football championships.

Donegal players, wearing United For Equality t-shirts, before the 2023 TG4 LGFA All-Ireland Senior Championship Quarter-Final match between Donegal and Dublin at MacCumhaill Park in Ballybofey, Donegal. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

Ladies Football chief executive Helen O’Rourke has used her annual report to have a cut off the Gaelic Players Association, writing that last summer’s player protests “left a sour taste in our mouths”.

Ahead of this weekend’s LGFA Congress in Ennistymon, O’Rourke has broken her silence on the GPA protests which she claims overshadowed last year’s All-Ireland ladies football championships.

In her annual report, obtained by the Irish Examiner, O’Rourke was heavily critical of how the GPA conducted themselves during the month-long protest.

She also accused the GPA of ignoring the fact that the LGFA opened up its wallet to give a €10,000 team funding support to each county, separate to the €1.4m Government grant for player expenses.

“We’ve had significant time to digest the happenings of summer 2023 and, with the benefit of hindsight, the manner in which the GPA decided to play the matter out in media channels left a sour taste in our mouths,” said the long-serving LGFA CEO.

In June of last year, female inter-county players announced they would be playing the remainder of the 2023 championship “under protest”. The decision to protest stemmed from the failure of the GAA and LGFA to engage in negotiations on a charter for minimum standards of player welfare.

The LGFA position, at the time, was that a charter formed part of the ongoing integration process and so could not be dealt with in isolation.

Describing themselves as “second-class citizens”, the protest saw players return to the dressing room after the national anthem had been played on matchday, with throw-in delayed as a result. Players also donned t-shirts reading '#UNITED FOR EQUALITY’ during their warm-ups.

The protest was called off a month later after a breakthrough in negotiations. A first ever female players’ charter, costed at around €7.5m per year for three years, is expected to be signed off on in the coming weeks.

“We held our counsel while the protests continued, rather than being dragged into a war of words. We prefer to conduct our business in the boardroom and it was remarkable that the GPA went down the road they did, at a time when we were in active discussions with them on a number of matters,” O’Rourke continued.

The Ladies Football chief executive took significant umbrage with the claim by players that they were being treated like second-class citizens.

“The 2023 TG4 All-Ireland Championship season was overshadowed to a large extent by a series of player protests. As an association, we were extremely surprised and disappointed by these developments.

“We took serious issue with the suggestion that inter-county players are treated like ‘second class’ citizens, when you consider that in 2023, over €1.4m of Government funding was due to be allocated to LGFA inter-county squads to assist with player expense claims. Of this figure, over €900,000 was earmarked directly to player expenses, with almost €500,000 designated for LGFA team funding.

“Early in 2023, our Central Council agreed that the full LGFA allocation of Government funding (€1.4m) should be assigned to player expenses, with the LGFA self-funding the team element for counties but there was little or no recognition from the GPA in relation to this, the opposite in fact, with claims that players received no expenses at all.

“These figures are without the figure invested by county boards to the running and supporting of their county team.

“This wasn’t enough for the GPA, however, who mandated our players to play some of their championship games ‘under protest’, before discussions led to the cessation of these protests.” 

With a new charter on the way, O'Rourke warned that financial constraints cannot be allowed to force any county from competing.

On integration, she wrote that the journey to a one Gaelic games family “will not be straightforward” and that the three associations must be afforded the time and respect to get the structure right so as “to ensure the longstanding success of the new association”.

“There will be challenges along the way before we arrive at a place where everything and everyone feels secure but we remain fully committed to integration and the last 12 months have brought us closer to where we need to be.” 

The LGFA accounts for 2023 show a deficit of €203k, a €1m swing on the previous year’s €888,620 surplus.

Year-on-year expenditure soared from €6m to €7.4m. The two main factors in this increased spend was the €557k bill for the All-Stars trip to Texas last April and the LGFA wage bill jumping from €992,289 to €1,323,896. LGFA staff numbers rising from 18 in 2022 to 25 last year explains the 25% increase in wage spend.

Ladies football delegates will on Saturday afternoon elect a new President to take over from Mícheál Naughton in 12 months’ time. The three nominees are Trina Murray (Westmeath), Con Moynihan (Galway), and Seamus O’Hanlon (Down).