Business of Sport: So you're an intercounty GAA player training three, four or five nights a week, usually after a day's work. You also pump weights in the gym and take food supplements. The hard labour done, you then spend the rest of the evening recovering from the impact of 16 stone bodies constantly crashing into you
Weekends consist of staying in to rest before the match, then travelling to the venue, where you finally get to put your body on the line for 70 minutes.
Maybe you come off the pitch in glory or maybe you leave it battered and bruised hearing the boos of your supporters. And then you start all over again. All purely for the love of the game. Or is it? Are our GAA stars making money from their heroics through substantial bets?
The argument over professionalism in the GAA has been raging long and hard and while the majority would appear to be against it, the demands of modern intercounty competition means that athletes, professional in everything but name, are being bred.
Fitter bodies and better trained players means a better product and an improved spectacle for the GAA to sell. Crowds come through the turnstiles, big business comes rushing to sponsor and billionaire fans give bank drafts of 5 million to county grounds.
And what do the players get? A pat on the back and a cup of tea? Not even. Is it any wonder then that some players will look to make money from their performances and results?
And how better than by betting substantial sums on the outcome of a game they are taking part in? After all who is in a better position to know who is in top form and gauge how the game will go?
Betting by players, clubs and officials is widespread within the GAA and the association has no problem with it "once they're not betting on the opposition to win or themselves to lose" is the official line.
Eyebrows were raised a few weeks back when it was revealed that £20,000 bets on Armagh winning the Ulster title were being taken while famously, last year, the hurlers of Kilnadeema/Leitrim backed themselves at 33 to 1 to reach the quarter-finals of the county championship, winning €50,000 in the process.
The only rules on betting in the GAA relate to the use of grounds for any direct gambling purpose involving horse racing or greyhounds (Rule 42) or to aiding a bookmaker within the precincts of a GAA pitch or property (Rule 46).
So, technically, players and teams can bet on themselves to lose but the association says that's when they would start to get worried and take action.
But, stories abounded of substantial sums being laid on a leading county team to lose against a much weaker side during the league campaign this year. One story had it that someone outside of the squad placed and collected the money for the players.
Bookmakers admit that while the likelihood of county teams throwing matches is nigh impossible in the championship, the league does throw up some strange results.
"The league should come with a Government health warning for bookmakers," says Brian O'Neill, operations director of sportsspread.com. "There are some bizarre results that occur in the league but rather than reaching for the conspiracy book, it is more that punters will have an edge over the bookies by seeing the players in training, knowing if someone is carrying a knock or even knowing the psychology of managers.
"The league and the championship are two completely separate entities and many managers will gladly lose a league game if it means not going any further in the campaign and concentrating on the training.
"If a punter gets wind of that we will get hammered on it but no bookie should be stupid enough to take big money on the league, it's too unpredictable."
But it's getting close to a situation whereby, with the back-door system in the championship, taking the second route and knowing you're likely to meet easier opposition can throw up the possibility of losing a provincial championship game and not have All-Ireland plans too severely dented. But then again, for how much money would they be prepared to risk nationwide opprobrium? €10- 20,000 perhaps? Hardly worth it.
The GAA betting market is still a small one - accounting for two-three per cent of turnover during the league and about 10 per cent during the summer, representing about €3 million for Sportsspread, while Paddy Power could expect to do five times that amount of business.
The multi-million euro betting market that exists in the GAA while generating plenty of conspiracy theories is in reality a small market where the punter prefers the favourite and thinks nothing of taking odds of 1 to 8.
The GAA, the bookmakers, the fans and the counties are happily acquiescing in a system where the attitude is since they're only amateurs they should be allowed make money from gambling. All for the love of the game?
bizofsport@eircom.net
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