Payment for managers - it works, so why fix it?

TIPPING POINT: The GAA has to be seen to be about the glory of the parish and volunteerism – and if that requires a certain …

TIPPING POINT:The GAA has to be seen to be about the glory of the parish and volunteerism – and if that requires a certain flexibility in terms of the reality then so be it

BACK IN the day of Tiger plenty, there ran a radio ad for job recruitment that poured scorn on the old cliché about success coming from who you know and not what you know. It really should be dug up from whatever archive it’s stored in and preserved as a zeitgeist relic of the early noughties. It’s a perfect representation of the time – brash and thrusting with an oh-so-confident Killiiiiiney accent.

And like so much from back then it was bullshit. Because what we briefly chose to forget for the decade when we suddenly had the means to behave like a modern western European society is that this is Ireland.

And no matter what kind of veneer is painted on this country, some things remain true. One truism is that this country really does function on “who you know,” a reality we will have to continue to pay through the nose for in years to come. And another is that while appearances can deceive they are also desperately important, especially in that most Irish of organisations, the GAA.

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There’s been a lot of hoopla recently about payments to intercounty managers. The GAA president Christy Cooney has even managed to rather crassly describe it as a “cancer” within the association. It has all blown up with a gratifying explosion of headlines that only coincidentally happen to fill in that temporary January vacuum when there’s nothing much happening out on the pitch. But with a shortage of actual games, there has been no reluctance to pitch into a diversionary pursuit that will fluctuate and heave before in all likelihood dissolving into nothing.

Páraic Duffy’s outlining of the three options open to the GAA on intercounty manager payments is rather like one of those “a-b-c” quizzes run by radio and TV companies to generate callsave revenue. You know the kind: the Pope lives in (a) Rome, (b) Reykjavik, (c) Reenascreena.

In this case, the GAA Director General wants everyone to either (a) carry on as before, (b) do what they’re supposed to do and enforce their own rules, (c) devise a system whereby payments are regulated. In this case don’t bother calling 18- whatever. You might be technically right, but really wrong, maybe even at the same time; because although everyone knows the real answer it can’t be seen to be the real one. But you know. Everyone knows. The answer after all this heat and light and indignation fades – round about midway through the league I reckon – will be (a). Just don’t let on.

With typical dexterity, what the GAA has done is focus attention on a small part of the payments problem. Even I know there are coaches being brought in to train club teams around the country and getting dropped a few quid for their trouble. It’s endemic. It was endemic throughout Ireland 20 years ago when training consisted of little more than laps of the field followed by cans of Coke and a Mars bar. And it must be even more so in this flagellating age of ice-baths and aerobics.

There are Junior B coaches getting their palms greased. But no, the concentration is on a tiny cabal of intercounty guys.

Because what the GAA is about is the glory of the parish and volunteerism; doing it for love, not money. Above all else, the GAA has to be seen to be about glory of the parish and volunteerism. And if that requires a certain flexibility in terms of the reality then so be it.

That sort of flexibility used to be at the core of those other former pillars of Irish society, Fianna Fáil and the Catholic Church.

But while such ambivalence has ultimately contributed to the fading of the other two, it is central to the GAA’s continuing significance. Its flexibility is one of its greatest strengths because it’s a mostly benign flexibility. After all where’s the glory in lifting the rock and peering at what’s underneath when that rock is a foundation for so much that’s worthwhile?

Take a tiny example: For over a century Gaelic football has thrived despite the fact that it must be the only field game in the world where there is no defined way of removing the ball from an opponent. Instead arbitrary pawing and tussling of a sort that would normally result in the boys in blue taking a break from calculating their overtime to come and take a cheek-swab has been allowed continue because actually doing something about it might cause problems.

Any organisation that can tolerate something so fundamental for so long is never going to feel the need to be restricted by something as prosaic as actually doing what they say on the tin.

Thus the GAA can preach athleticism and moderation and still have Guinness as a sponsor. All-Ireland captains can persist in all that “Tá an-áthas orm” Gael schtick up in the stand despite the “see yez in Coppers” reality. And it doesn’t really matter because only the naïve place any real credence in such surface stuff. But only up to a point, because Gaels really do believe in putting the best side out.

Current attempts to supposedly tidy up the payments issue can be seen in that light. Theoretically confining the possibility of payment to intercounty managers while presuming a voluntary, love-of-the-game, strictly amateur ethos will pertain in the ordinary club stuff is fine on the surface and bears little or no relationship to the reality.

And even that partial attempt to face up to the financial reality of training county teams looks doomed to failure because most GAA enthusiasts are fine with how things are.

Unlike their hierarchy, the members don’t seem overly concerned with presenting a pristine financial façade to everyone. That’s because they live in a real world where money actually does make a difference to most things.

Concerns about two-tier levels of performance in terms of how much money is pumped into teams ignore how level playing fields are usually theoretical propositions in the first place. In fact, far from turning their nose up at financial back-up, most fans simply want even more investment in their side.

And that’s when appearances combine with “who you know”. Trying to put an accountant’s black and white sheen on the tangled financial web spun by supporters clubs and individual benefactors is a thankless task that makes doing PR for the captain of the Costa Concordia seem like a pretty good gig.

Be it county or club, the appearance of a profit and loss sheet will usually bear little or no relation to the reality of what takes place under the table, even if Revenue do start sniffing. That might not be transparent, maybe not even particularly fair. But it’s the GAA way. And no way can you say it doesn’t work. All of which leaves a rather obvious question hanging over the whole issue – If it works, why try to fix it?

Brian O'Connor

Brian O'Connor

Brian O'Connor is the racing correspondent of The Irish Times. He also writes the Tipping Point column