Kerry chairman wants GAA action to curb AFL luring players away
Kerry County Board chairman Patrick O'Sullivan. Picture: Diarmuid Greene/Sportsfile
Kerry chairman Patrick O’Sullivan has urged Croke Park to take action against AFL poaching after revealing that up to nine Kerry talents were contacted by Australian clubs in recent years.
Cillian Burke, who impressed off the bench on the evening of Kerry’s All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Armagh, was the latest Kingdom talent to sign for an AFL club when he put pen to paper with Geelong in October.
Burke’s former Kerry U20 teammate Rob Monahan preceded him in making the move to Australia when signing for Carlton Blues late in the summer of 2023.
At Tuesday evening’s Kerry convention in the Rose Hotel, county board chairman Patrick O’Sullivan said seven other emerging footballers from Kerry had been tapped up by AFL recruiters.
He called on the GAA to form a committee to help retain players identified and approached by Australian clubs, and for a mechanism to be put in place whereby an AFL club signing a Gaelic footballer must contribute to the units that developed him.
“Representatives of the AFL are constantly floating around Kerry minor and U20 teams over the last number of years. They come selling a professional sport to our younger players. It is hard for young players not to look at a professional career in sport,” O’Sullivan began.
“The Association has to take some action regarding the AFL’s constant scrutiny of our younger stars in Ireland. Procedure will have to be put in place where players cannot be taken without contributing to the club and counties who give so much to the development of these players.
“If our younger players keep emigrating to Australia, the outlook for Kerry senior teams going forward will not be a good one. Kerry players are at the heart and soul of our county, and we, as an Association, have to figure out a method to retain and keep our players at home in Ireland.
“We in Kerry aren’t the only county suffering from this issue. There are players from other counties choosing to emigrate as well. We will be calling on the GAA to form a committee to look into this matter.”
While welcoming the new suite of football rules passed at Special Congress last weekend, which he hopes will turn a game “in decline” into a “more enjoyable watch”, O’Sullivan remains dissatisfied with the GAA calendar at the end of the inter-county season.
The two-week lead-in from All-Ireland semi-final to final, he argued, is far too tight where organising logistics and fundraising is concerned. A three-week lead-in was the chairman’s preferred gap.
“The GAA will have to look at the concluding stages of the championship in hurling and football. If a county team reaches an All-Ireland final, the turnaround for a county to try and get accommodation for their teams and organise fundraising to support the teams is too tight.
“The GAA is also losing out on promotional time through TV and media given that the hurling and football final weeks are back-to-back. A county should have a minimum of a three-week run-in to a final.”
Locally, a player burnout committee has been established to look at the timing of the winter-run divisional championships and delivering a rest period for players before they go back in with Kerry ahead of the new season.
This year, a number of Kerry footballers opted not to line out for their club in their respective divisional championship. The executive previously stressed that there had been no directive from Jack O’Connor for players to skip the end-of-year competitions.
Among those on the new burnout committee are Jason McGahan, Kerry GAA's head of athletic performance, and Paul Murphy.
“The players are very keen that they have a certain timeframe to rest and recover after a long championship,” O’Sullivan told delegates.
On the infrastructural front, the Kerry chairman said the development of a terrace at the Horan’s End of Austin Stack Park should commence in January and will increase the capacity of the Tralee venue to 18,000.
Further to the €6m allocated to Fitzgerald Stadium under the Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund, the executive are lobbying for additional monies to develop the stand and the St Finan’s side of the Killarney ground.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
