Tom Humphries finds the renewed hectoring of the GAA about Rule42 to be at best wildly ill-informed and at worst cynical and self-serving.

Yawn. GAA slammed. Croke Park ayatollahs. Death of democracy. No Entry. What is it about this country and the GAA? There is a curious misapprehension, rooted perhaps in the Association's own occasional bouts of self-aggrandisement, that the GAA is some sort of semi-State body subject in a vague way to the will of the citizenry, however capricious that will may be.

The GAA's premises should be open to all, its rules should be moulded to fit public whim and its debates and arguments should be the stuff of public pantomime. If we, the public, want to see soccer in Croke Park, the GAA it seems has an obligation to sate us. If it is not to do so it should at least provide us with the spectacle of divisive argument.

In recent months the wish just became father to the thought in matters relating to the Croke Park business. People ran away with the happy-clappy notion that Croke Park would "open its gates" and pretty soon Thierry Henry and Damien Duff would be cantering around at the Hill end. No reading of the mood of county boards and those members of the GAA who would be actually mandated to vote supported the notion that Rule 42 was about to be erased.

This week the GAA did the best and most progressive thing it could have done under the circumstances. It deprived the general public of the spectacle of a Congress gunfight. The referee stepped in and stopped the fight. Unsporting? The Motions Committee acted clumsily perhaps but by shifting Rule 42 off the agenda the GAA ensured that there will still be a time to debate Rule 42.

Leaving the Killarney Congress to hack away at the argument with the inevitability of Rule 42 being retained anyway and with things being said which couldn't be taken back later would have killed the issue for quite a time to come. Such a debate would have been damaging also to the presidency of Seán Kelly, who put a lot of his prestige on the line over the Rule 42 business.

The deletion of the motion isn't a freedom-of-speech issue. Congress has long since had very little to do with freedom of speech or internal organisational democracy. Those who were going to vote were doing so under mandate. Insofar as the motions themselves went, it was literally all over bar the shouting.

The GAA's annual Congress is a deeply flawed anachronism - a throwback, an ornament, a social gathering, a showpiece, a vehicle to be steered. Occasionally, and usually accidentally, debate breaks out at Congress. Mostly motions get whisked through in record time, reports get read and everybody flees.

In the current instance, what grassroots took time to debate the issue of Rule 42 did so months ago in smoky rooms and halls. They found their attitudes had hardened since the last time the Rule 42 issue was run up the flagpole.

The removal of Rule 42 this spring was just never going to happen. The well-intentioned sponsors of the motions get the chance to fight again when the atmosphere is better.

In the end the GAA decided to look after its own house and its own interests. There will be the usual catcalls and words of derision but the GAA is well used to that. The job of the custodians is to protect the Association. A doomed, divisive debate would do nothing but fill column inches and radio phone-in slots.

The Government's recent decision to lead the FAI and the IRFU into the jungle of red tape and planning objections that the Lansdowne Road project will entail removes much of the urgency from the debate. If politicians are to be honourable and if the GAA is to be given the respect its achievements merit there will be a better time for discussing Rule 42.

Meanwhile, who is to blame for the current intransigence? Well, there are many in the Association who would like to see Croke Park opened up but who have come in recent years to resent the curious sense of public entitlement about the issue.

That resentment found its lightning rod when John O'Donoghue lectured the GAA recently on what a patriotic gesture might look like.

Indeed when looking for reasons why Rule 42 won't be dragged kicking and screaming onto the floor next month one need do no more than cherchez le pol. The GAA, in common with the FAI and the IRFU, has been taken for a ride by the current Government.

More than any of the three bodies though it resents it. It resents a Fianna Fail government not recognising the special sporting, social and cultural status of Gaelic games. The GAA resents having repeatedly been made look foolish by the current Government.

Over the past few years the association's reward for pushing ahead with Croke Park and providing a modern, prestigious venue not just for the national games but for the Special Olympics has been ill use by a Government yet to turn a sod on its own wretched stadium project.

Let's not forget that the Association was not just bought out of opening its doors a couple of years ago but that the Government subsequently let the GAA take the public-relations shellacking and then went on to renege on 38 million worth of the original bribe.

The same Government had the subsequent gall to turn around this winter and lecture the GAA on patriotism, to drop a modest proposal about tax breaks for amateur sportspeople and to put on an endlessly long finger any meetings with the GAA about the stadium issue.

More than that. There has been resentment about sniffy comments from an FAI official to the effect that Croke Park might be suitable for the international team's needs but, well, probably not.

There has been annoyance about being dragged with the Taoiseach's help into the Euro 2008 debacle and irritation about the notion that an amateur-based organisation should be expected to provide a venue for two of the world's greatest professional sports.

A Rule 42 debate this spring would have given full vent to those issues. There would have been nothing pleasant or happy-clappy about it and there must have been a temptation among elements of the GAA leadership to just let the whole thing unfold in public, to throw a little light on the Association's feelings of discomfort.

In 2001 hardliners from counties like Cork and Waterford and Tipperary found it easy to apply the whip to their delegates. It would have been easier this spring in the current climate. It was the defecting ditherers in places like Meath, Dublin and Kildare who made the difference in 2001. That vote was lost by a whisker.

Minds haven't been changed. The voices this time around were more shrill, attitudes more strident. Familiar faces lined up in the middle but the critical differences were around the fringes. A liberalising motion was hammered in Galway.

Last time out in a free vote at Congress, Galway had six delegates supporting liberalisation and four against. Last time Antrim voted in favour. This year's Antrim convention said no.

A row and vote at Congress would have set back the cause of sporting ecumenism by several years. Besides, the GAA is beginning to feel that the independence of spirit it showed in commencing the Croke Park project is paying dividends.

Last summer Croke Park took in crowds of greater than 45,000 on 16 occasions (not including the opening and closing ceremonies of the Special Olympics). The Cusack Stand executive-level and premium seats will be up for resale in the near future and the stadium is developing as a conference venue and a flagship for the GAA. The money on offer from other sports would be useful but not life-changing.

The GAA stood on its own two feet when it chose to rebuild Croke Park. People have been playing politics with the association ever since. The GAA is still standing on its own two feet this week, waiting for another batch of storm clouds to pass over. It has no need to do anything else.

Minister O'Donoghue and Taoiseach Ahern should be making apologetic phone calls. They have built no stadiums. Now they should be about building bridges with the people whohave.