Gooch can't see AFL ever paying compo for departing starlets

Colm Cooper says Brisbane-bound teenager Ben Murphy a "big loss" to Kerry

Thu, 04 Dec, 2025 - 06:20

Eoghan Cormican

Colm Cooper believes the AFL would fight any move by the GAA to introduce compensation for clubs whose young talent is lured away to Australia.

The Kerry legend doesn’t see compensation happening for GAA units, and is not sure there's any “easy or quick fix” to soften the blow of emerging Gaelic footballers putting pen to paper with AFL clubs.

The Gooch said Brisbane-bound teenager Ben Murphy was the one player who stood out during the recent local championship as being capable of adding to Jack O’Connor’s panel for Kerry’s 2026 Sam Maguire defence. A “big loss” was his verdict on Murphy swapping green and gold for the Gabba.

“I saw Ben in the county final, probably in the flesh for the first time, and I was surprised that a guy of that age, 18, could play midfield in a county senior championship final and be so assertive and imposing, kicking three points, and it just felt like he belonged there and was doing it for years, so that was very impressive.

“Obviously, people are disappointed, not for Ben, but just losing another player to Australia,” Cooper said of the Austin Stacks kid following Mark O’Connor, Rob Monahan, and Cillian Burke into the professional AFL arena.

Cooper made his comments on the same day as Kerry chairman Patrick O’Sullivan told the Kingdom convention that “if the clubs who nurtured these footballers can’t be compensated, these professional outfits should at the very least do right by them in making a donation or providing equipment”.

Compensation, in Gooch’s view, is a non-starter, for a variety of reasons.

“First of all, you have to realise that we're an amateur game, so you play for your club, you play for your county, and lots of pride in that. I hear people saying that there should be compensation for the club, but I don't know how you can do that when it's an amateur sport. I just don't see how that would happen. I think the Australians would fight that based on the club don't own you as such, so what are they buying off you,” asked Cooper.

“I get the frustration that the club invested a huge amount of time, the county may have invested a lot of time, then the player goes and it leaves both in the lurch a little bit, but I'm not sure there's any quick fix or easy fix for them.

“The idea of maybe compensation coming to the club, I just don't see it happening. Are you going down an employment law piece then, and they’re not an employee. How do you even determine the value, so I think there's more questions than answers in that regard.

“Unfortunately, it's easy for the Australians to come and cherry-pick our best players. To the young lads going off to Australia, you can't begrudge them either because it's a wonderful opportunity, but it's just the loss that it leaves for the clubs and for the counties. It's very disappointing, but I don't see it stopping unfortunately.”

Turning his focus to 2026 and Kerry’s bid to complete a first pair of back-to-back All-Irelands since the 2006-07 group that Cooper was part of, the eight-time All-Star believes successfully defending Sam Maguire is an itch Jack O’Connor wants to scratch.

Back-to-back eluded the manager in 2005, ‘10 and ‘23, while he did not remain on for the 2007 season when Pat O’Shea kept Kerry atop the summit.

“For Jack, it's trying to get the hunger back into the group, and Jack hasn't done back-to-back either so maybe there's a motivation there for him as well.

“I don't know is it an itch that he wants to scratch? I imagine it would be, but at the same time it's a motivation for the wider group as well because they haven't done it.

“Teams will figure out the rules a little bit better next year, but I think Kerry still has the talent to go and win it. They adapted to the rules very, very well, and I think there's more to come.

“The age demographic of the team is good. I'm not hearing anything about retirements, so hopefully the future is bright and there's more to come.”