Unless action is taken – and no talks are even due between the GAA and the players' body – resolution is unlikely, writes SEAN MORAN

THIS IS supposed to be the time of the year when off-field controversies are restricted to the increasingly risible inability to punish people for indiscipline and its assorted delinquencies. It has therefore been a bit of a surprise the Gaelic Players Association have been such a busy presence in the affairs of the GAA in recent weeks.

The dwindling fortunes of the players’ grants into which they poured such effort was bound to have a demoralising effect, as the GPA try to negotiate the survival of the scheme with a Minister reduced to beachcombing the flotsam of a shipwrecked economy.

There has to be sympathy with the players’ body for the fate of this scheme. It became the central plank in the GPA platform, constructed as it was from the old GPA idea of “compensating” intercounty players with € 127 a week for the career opportunities lost through their dedication to the games, becoming eventually, through a tortuous development, the state grants to senior intercounty footballers and hurlers.

By the time the political fences had been cleared – both inside and outside the GAA – the great torrent of boom-time money that had been sprayed around with such giddy profligacy had flowed down the storm drain and disappeared.

Having undertaken not to demand the GAA make good any shortfall the GPA have been caught in a bind by the (at best) likely reductions in the level of grant funding.

You don’t have to be a mind reader to detect that even in optimistic moments Dessie Farrell and the players know that even if they were to row back on that undertaking, an organisation that is taking a capital grants’ hit of € 30 million per year for the foreseeable future and facing other inevitable recessionary problems such as the uncertainty over rights holder Setanta Ireland is not going to be receptive to such changes of direction.

The other current impasse concerns the long-running saga of recognition for the GPA, by Croke Park as the voice of the players. That is what has led to the threat to disrupt the coverage of the Munster hurling and Leinster football finals by withdrawing the co-operation of players involved in those matches on Sunday week.

Sponsors and broadcasters – in the case of RTÉ, both – have been this way before. None of the above want to antagonise players by getting too stroppy about this sabotage of live broadcast rights but there is a weary resignation about the manner in which the GAA, having sold the TV rights at just the right time, tend to shrug off responsibility for these wildcat strikes.

There was a similar stand-off four years ago when Cork hurlers decided to make a stand on the right to swig one luridly-coloured sports drink on camera in post-match interviews – in return for money from the manufacturers.

The GPA backed the protest but it wasn’t great grounds for revolution because EU law had already pronounced on blatant product placement and most of the ill-feeling sprang from the abuse of on-camera opportunity that became a feature of Brian O’Driscoll’s post-Six Nations interviews earlier that year.

This time around the row isn’t so much about recognition as about the financial arrangements that would follow such a process. As often happens in these processes progress had been made and the matter looked open to resolution before accumulated frustration forced last week’s break.

That would be the GPA side of it anyway and there is merit in their case. In the 10 years of their existence the players’ body has been subject to the recurring cycles of GAA life. Despite the presence of a permanent secretariat in Croke Park relations with the GPA have tended to be governed by presidents.

This partly reflects the sensitivity of the matter and the hostility with which some members view player interests but also a disinclination by the last director general Liam Mulvihill to get too involved. It was as late as May 2002 before Farrell and his colleagues got to meet Mulvihill and that meeting had to be insisted on.

Typical presidential cycles are marked by congresses and annual addresses. Presidents tend to talk out loud about the GPA. In his final address to congress last April former president Nickey Brennan took a few pot shots at the players’ organisation in frustration at their refusal to reach agreement on recognition on grounds that he revealed to be most concerned with funding issues, in essence a demand for five per cent of the GAA’s income.

The outburst wasn’t terribly helpful for those charged with pursuing the process but it illustrated the difficulties of the cycle. Presidents take office with their own ideas on how to deal with players and there’s always a settling in period.

Factor in that the GAA year is geared towards the national league and congress doesn’t start until April, at which stage the championship starts to take over, leaving late September to Christmas as the most fruitful time for tackling player issues – and it’s easy to understand how the GPA have become frustrated, as another president settles in and undertakes to get back to them in a few weeks.

Current incumbent Christy Cooney would feel aggrieved at this depiction. Having waited six weeks to meet the GPA he had reason to believe the meeting with Farrell and Dónal Cusack had gone well and had asked that the players respond to his predecessor’s rejected document, specifying the areas of difficulty.

The letter in reply arrived a couple of days later and was viewed by Croke Park as a strident demand for money and not reflective of the meeting that had taken place.

But funding is viewed as an increasingly urgent issue for the GPA, whose ground-breaking royalty deal with CC’s Club Energise brand has been hit by a decline in the sports drink market – even if relations with Croke Park have thawed to the extent that the “ban” on the brand, brought about by a separate deal between the GAA and CC rival Lucozade as well as official disapproval of the GPA tie-in, was lifted a few months ago.

The departure of both Farrell and director general Páraic Duffy on holidays at different stages of the discussion process hasn’t helped the situation either. Unless action is taken – and so far no talks have even been scheduled – there is no resolution in sight.

The GAA have no right to interfere if amateur players simply decline to take part in media promotions whereas the GPA must know they are not going the best way to get Croke Park to open up the coffers.

Meanwhile sponsors and media partners look on aghast.

Another fine mess.

smoran@irishtimes.com