“What isn’t on it?” was the response of one official to a general inquiry as to the standout items on next weekend’s GAA Central Council clár.
There are so many issues for discussion that the medium-term course of the GAA could well be affected. That, of course, is not always how these things work. No matter how far-reaching a proposal that is debated and even accepted, if the will isn’t there, it will simply atrophy.
A prime and much-referenced example is the decision taken in relation to former director general Páraic Duffy’s 2012 discussion document on payment to managers.
Offered three options: a) to pay formally; b) to persevere with the status quo and do one thing while upholding another; or c) to crack down on breaches of the amateurism rule, a meeting of the counties decided to proceed with c, but in fact to implement b.
READ MORE
In his final address as director general in 2018, Duffy cited this as an abiding disappointment of his tenure, concluding, “… either we do nothing in the certain knowledge that nothing will change and that in five or 10 years we would still be lamenting the damage to our ethos and values – or we decide that it would be irresolute and defeatist not to confront directly a practice that we proclaim to be a blemish on the association.
“The choice is the same one now, and the need to address it even greater.”
One thing he believed to have changed in the time since he drew up the discussion paper was that the problem had spread.
“The most significant development since 2010 [when he started work on the paper], in my view, is that an increasing number of irregular payments are now being made at club level. Such payments strike at the heart of the origins and relevance of the association’s amateur and volunteer ethos.”
This coming weekend, the current Amateur Status Review Committee will present a report of its deliberations.
Lengthy consultations around the country appear to have knocked on the head the more radical proposals to remunerate managers through formal contracts or set stipends, revealing once more the aversion among administrators for being rules-compliant in this particular area.
It is expected, though, that some form of licensing, as floated by GAA president Jarlath Burns on taking office nearly two years ago, will be proposed in an attempt to get counties to conform with certain standards of governance, aimed at reducing the millions (estimated most recently at €44 million) spent every year on preparing county teams for competition.
The idea would be that unless counties meet accepted financial guidelines, they would be subject to central sanction.
“Where we see there is out-of-control spending on anything, whether infrastructure or spending on county teams or other areas where they are spending that money, that will give power to us on central council to address that.”
If a measure of rigour in auditing counties’ accounts can address what has been referred to as “the runaway train” of expenditure on intercounty teams, that would be great. But the problem with this as a solution – as indeed with the under-the-table payments to managers – is that the GAA can only monitor the financial affairs of its own units.
It is believed that there has been profound unhappiness with a suggested tendency to include such disbursements in the annual accounts of counties and a determined effort will be made to clear these off the books.
It would be naive to imagine that getting rid of an explicit acknowledgment, however brazen, would also terminate the practice.
If there are “benefactors” who are willing to fund these activities independent of the GAA and its units, the association is effectively powerless.
Speaking at his first media conference as president in February 2024, Burns countered that this was “a counsel of despair”.
“Is it best practice for us to know that this is happening and we are not doing something about it? The easiest thing for me to do is nothing, but it’s not an option. We have to try this. I can assure you – if I fail, I will certainly fail with my boots on. I will give it my best shot, but I can’t ignore this.”
Governance is occupying a prominent role these days for the association and its units. Counties have been filing four-year accounts – as agreed between Croke Park and the Revenue – detailing payments made to sundry people, accepting tax liability and settling, demonstrating that there are some regulations which cannot be magicked away by wishful thinking.
The other measure likely to be proposed is an overhauled version of Rule 1.8, which governs amateurism. This was found to be so deficient by the GAA’s lawyers more than seven years ago that a “testimonial dinner” was acceptable under its remit and the general advice was damning.
“The notion of an amateur association is so general and so amenable to a multitude of interpretations that I think it highly unlikely that a disciplinary committee or the DRA would be satisfied to rely upon the general nature of the first sentence of Rule 1.10 [as Rule 1.8 then was].”
So, better late than never. There has to be a desire, though, to enforce rules, which, in relation to managers and amateur status, appears at best questionable at the moment.
