GAA presidential candidate Derek Kent: 'I don't believe in integration coming down from the top'

GAA presidential candidate wants association to give and get more value.

Derek Kent speaking during the Leinster Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs Recognition event. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

GAA presidential candidate Derek Kent insists integration can’t be implemented from the top down.

In an interview with Liam Spratt on South East Radio, Leinster chairman Kent has questioned the practicality of the current process to amalgamate the GAA, Ladies Gaelic Football Association and The Camogie Association by 2027.

Kent said: “If we need integration, first we have to figure out what is integration. Second, we need to look at our clubs. Don’t bring it or push it from the top, grow it from the bottom up and then it will grow into a correct unity of the sports.

“I don’t believe in integration coming down from the top. Look where we are in five years’s time. I hear this nonsense ‘oh, 90% of our members want integration’.

"Well, I ask our members do our members want the All-Ireland minor football and hurling finals before the senior? I can tell you 90% of them will say yes but you have to look at the practicality of it.”

Kent, who will be vying with former Munster chairman Ger Ryan for the office in February, believes the GAA can be getting more value from its partners and giving it too.

“No different to what I’ve done the last 10, 15 year, club, county or province, we need value for our spend. We need to value what a euro is. Take the GPA, do we get value? Our communications, do we get value?

“Change will be difficult, but we have many issues that face us in the association. Amateur status, that needs to be preserved. That is a deal breaker. Demographics, a booklet came out on last week ‘No One Shouted Stop – Until Now’ by chairperson Benny Hurl, an excellent document.

“We could say no one shouted stop until now on a lot of topics. You could say it about the GPA, Government funding, our infrastructure projects, our championship structures and scheduling.

“Hurling – we say we’re going to invest in hurling but surely we should preserve hurling. We’re investing in Leinster counties and we continue to invest but what about the number eight to 15 teams? Are we going to let those fall off the cliff?”

Kent’s decision to cut ticket prices for this year’s opening round of the Leinster senior football championship by €25 to €15 was widely supported. He reported attendances for the championship were up 32% and net income increased 4%.

The semi-finals were also played outside of Croke Park for the first time in 30 years. Kent explained: “It wasn’t about taking Dublin out of Croke Park; it was about sending our games to our provincial grounds that are well maintained, well upgraded.”

Kent is in favour of two weeks between All-Ireland finals for promotional purposes and that structural changes could allow for more two-week gaps.

He is certain addressing inter-county players’s number of contact hours is a means of curbing burn-out and acknowledged some players are “disillusioned because we’re forcing ourselves a semi-professional route rather than shouting ‘stop’.”

Kent fully supports a forthcoming proposal from the national games development committee to ensure coaches employed by counties fully commit themselves to those who pay their wages.

“If our coaches are employed by Wexford GAA to coach our squads, and coach our schools, and coach our clubs, that's their role.

“But unfortunately, not just in Wexford, in my province of Leinster, I have 55 coaches that are employed and coaching in other counties, coaching in other clubs, and coaching in other provinces.

"Where's their focus, if they're not with their county, or their club, or their squad? We need to look at that.”