Andy Watters: GAA county players put their life on hold to entertain us, we can’t expect them to be skint as well
FOR most of us involved in the GAA at club level - whether it’s coaching, playing or in the committees - we fit the GAA around our life. Yes, you’re dealing with occasional issues during the day, or rushing home from work sometimes to play, or train a team, or go to meetings - but life goes on and you’re happy to volunteer a bit of time. It’s not like that for inter-county players.Read more:Increasingly, they fit their life around the GAA.The inter-county game has become all-encompassing for the people who make it all happen – the players.The new rules have made Gaelic Football a better game but it’s even faster now and that means more training, better nutrition, a greater requirement for preparation, rest, etc. Hurling has been transformed in recent years and the same with camogie and ladies’ football. To compete takes hours, days, weeks and months of absolute commitment and as the club season ends, the county season begins and so on and so forth. The season never ends for those at the inter-county level, such is the commitment required to keep up with the standard. PICTURE: Oliver McVeigh You hear stories about the amounts of money that club managers are paid in ‘expenses’. Colossal sums are being forked out but players are expected soldier on no matter what it costs? You could say: ‘Well nobody is forcing them to play? If they don’t like it, if representing their county isn’t enough, they can quit?’ And that’s right, they can. But is that what we want? Our best talents hounded out of the game over a few quid in expenses.I don’t agree that players should be paid to play but they shouldn’t have to be skint because of the remarkable commitment they give to entertain us and carry our hopes and dreams on their shoulders and run the risk of criticism or slander over a missed shot or a dropped ball. I doubt there’s anyone more committed or proud to play for their county than Armagh’s Peter McGrane. He illustrated the above point recently (during an interview unconnected to the GPA proposal) when he explained how inter-county players “have to put their life on hold”. "You have to put your life on hold if you’re really chasing the Sam Maguire " - Armagh's Peter McGrane. PICTURE: Oliver McVeigh “It’s very difficult for everybody,” he said.“The sacrifices everybody has to make… And that’s not one to 42 of the players, it’s management, all the backroom staff, everybody… You have to put your life on hold if you’re really chasing the Sam Maguire and trying to go back-to-back like we were last year.“Just competing at the top table in general, it’s incredible the effort that goes in.”GPA chief executive officer Tom Parsons (Seb Daly / SPORTSFILE/SPORTSFILE) So, given how much the price of food, fuel, clothing, and everything else has increased over the last few years the Gaelic Players’ Association (GPA) decision to seek an increase in the government grant available to inter-county hurlers, camogs and footballers to an average of €2,500 per player is justified unless and until the training regimes are limited which isn’t likely any day soon.A GPA statement says the increase to €2,500 represents a 1.5 per cent annualised increase since 2008, when the grants were originally introduced 17 years ago.Now we’re not talking peanuts here either. The overall investment being sought by the GPA for inter-county players is €10 million which is a lot of lotto tickets but a GPA statement points out that that equates to 1.6 per cent of the €591 million total economic impact generated by inter-county players annually, as per the Indecon Report on the Social and Economic Impact of GPA Players, which was published earlier this year.The GPA claim that players are out of pocket by over €4,600 annually and €1,499 worse off than in 2018, largely due to out-of-pocket expenses for training and competing at the elite level. Opponents to the proposed grant increase could argue that the season is much shorter than in 2018 with less games potentially, but players well tell you that the commitment remains a year-round one.GPA CEO Tom Parsons has been putting the case to politicians and says the meetings have been “constructive and positive”.“The case for an increase in the government grant to €2,500 per player on average could not be clearer,” he said.“We feel strongly that the time to act is now to show the State truly values our inter-county players.”
