It's not often that GAA president Joe McDonagh prompts comparisons with the Queen of England - although I've always preferred her version of The West's Awake - but already 1999 has become an annus horibilis for the GAA. And it's still seven months before McDonagh's speech at the All Stars banquet, the equivalent of Her Majesty's Christmas message (interrupting all those drunken arguments around the dinner table so that the speech can be heard).

Last weekend's events are an appalling addition to 1999's dismal litany. Once again, an officiating error exposes the GAA to embarrassment, charges of discriminating against weaker counties and the now routine round of meetings to decide if the match can be played again in a committee room.

Far more seriously, it brought news that one of football's brightest stars, Michael Donnellan, had been involved in a confrontation - at best - with a referee after a scabrous club match which his team had lost. When it is suggested - laughably, given the structure of the GAA season - that we have our own stars to compete with the best of the Premiership, Donnellan's name comes up.

Impossibly talented, young and handsome, he is, in common parlance, `the Michael Owen of the GAA'. Now he's staring down the barrel of a six-month or one-year suspension. Hard to market that. And this just a couple of weeks after Jason Sherlock, perhaps `the Ryan Giggs of the GAA', had been sent off on live television after only a few minutes on the pitch.

There is now a sense of crisis about the affairs of the GAA. It has always been the association's comfort in such times that their travails are a magnet for media coverage. Their punch-ups receive bigger and wider coverage and their administrative bungling provokes more raucous laughter than is the case for other sports.

In many cases this mitigation is justified but there comes a stage where the constant flow of embarrassment becomes a problem of substance rather than one of perception or style. It comes to a head when the authorities who govern the activities of the association become undermined by the serial incompetence of themselves and their appointed officials.

Most significantly, the GAA knows in its heart that the matter is desperately serious. Indiscipline was the unofficial theme of last month's annual Congress. Joe McDonagh called for an end to what he termed `pious aspirations' about dealing with the problem and a major attempt to remedy the situation was made. At the heart of these problems is the essential lawlessness which is rampant within the GAA. Rules apply to people when it suits. When it doesn't, there is a sizeable culture of confrontation and avoidance of responsibility.

Teams lose matches and seize on any human error to try to have the result overturned in the committee room. Players, coaches and administrators connive at avoiding the impact of suspensions and those charged with officiating at matches are the targets for ferocious abuse and having their motives - and by extension their authority - impugned.

Respect for the rules, or the lack of it, is closely linked with ignorance of them. At the recent Leinster Council meeting, it was remarkable to observe delegates who, in the course of agreeing to a complete misreading of Rule 104, appeared not to know the difference between a caution and what is now known as a tick, a signal to a player that one more such offence will earn him a caution - that is a booking or yellow card.

The presence of referees in the communities in which they operate makes their life difficult enough but the ease with which officials can have their arms twisted makes the task of rules-enforcement at times impossible. Already in Galway this week, there have been suggestions that the Donnellan matter would be better forgotten in the interests of the county team. Were it not for the attention of national media, the pressure on the referee would have been enormous.

In the face of such local influences, central administration needs to be strong. Is it? There is a huge strain in running an organisation which aspires to the highest professional standards at one end but has to endure the worst excesses of amateur ineptitude at the other.

A RANGE of areas beyond the imposition of discipline are affected. The redevelopment of Croke Park is a critical project for the GAA. Properly guided to its conclusion, it will take care of accommodation requirements for the next 50 years and should be a substantial source of revenue.

Yet it is only now that the association has realised the need for an efficient level of executive management in headquarters. The New Stand doesn't have a manager to oversee its functions and maximise its commercial potential. The press office is pitifully understaffed for the size of the organisation with one communications executive to handle media relations, internal liaison and promotional activity.

Attention to media in general is absurd. For all the aggressive whingeing about other sports getting properly promoted and making inroads on the GAA's catchment, facilities for journalists are a squalid joke.

`Good enough for them,' would be the most likely response to such a complaint but the media aren't there to see matches for free. They're in attendance because there is a big, interested public out there who want to consume coverage of football and hurling. It's one of the ways in which sports promote themselves.

GAA reporters have become used to surly truculence in all but a handful of venues. In the monstrosity that is Pairc Ui Chaoimh, the Cork County Board have decided to atone for their negligence in facilitating alsatians being let loose on reporters.

For this Sunday's Limerick-Waterford match, the first really big championship fixture of the year, it has been announced that there are no facilities for the media to work after the match. This is despite the media's unfussy forbearance in settling into any room - much like the dingy quarters that were used up until a couple of weeks ago - with a couple of tables and chairs.

Croke Park is again aware of the problem. A state-of-the-art media centre is planned for the new Hogan Stand but the current facilities are over 40 years old. When American football came to Jones's Road it was noticeable that US reporters were fitted up with plush accommodation on the corporate level of the New Stand rather than the chilly confines of the press box which is home to those who cover the GAA's own sports.

It has to be realised at all levels of the association that, contrary to the teachings of Marshal McLuhan, the medium isn't the message. It's more like a mirror and if people don't like what they see, then they should change what's in front of it.

E-mail: smoran@irish-times.ie