GAA - General Discussion 2024

Seán Lowry of Dublin in action against Bryan Masterson and Joseph Hagan, behind, of Longford at Laois Hire O’Moore Park. Photo: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

Pat Spillane

Today at 15:15

The more the weeks go by the more I see my beloved GAA’s values continuing to be eroded. The GAA family, which I am so proud to be part of, is becoming less and less like the Association I first joined.

Here’s a reminder. The GAA’s mission statement reads: “Our purpose is to promote Gaelic games, culture and lifelong participation as a community-based, volunteer-led organisation that enriches lives and communities.”

Let’s drill down further into the mission statement and the laudable values that are mentioned such as amateur status and respect – “we listen to and respect the views of all” and “we are a volunteer-led and democratic organisation.”

Sure, some of the values and statements are true and they are being applied.

But a lot of what’s found in our mission statement is pure pious poppycock which could be filed under the fiction heading.

Recent happenings continue to reinforce my anger about just how much the GAA has strayed from its original values and mission statement as decreed by its founding fathers.

We’re a volunteer-led and democratic organisation? You must be joking! That is no longer applicable. Payments to club and inter-county managers are out of control.

There probably isn’t a club or county board in this country that isn’t guilty of making illegal payment to managers and coaches and it is particularly rife at club level. It is crippling clubs and putting their futures in jeopardy.

The powers that be in the GAA continue to throw out pious platitudes yet are not prepared to do anything about it. Christ, when it comes to the three monkeys’ principle of hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil, we are the best in the world.

The volunteer who has been the cornerstone of the Association is becoming an endangered species, particularly when it comes to training, coaching and managing teams.

There is a simple solution, using common sense.

Cap the numbers at both club and county involved in management teams. It is an out-of-control gravy train.

Seán McGoldrick: Thanks for all the special memories – it’s time to pen my farewells!
Pat Spillane: Kerry can bring back Sam next year – but Jack O’Connor needs to change his plan

But more importantly, how about restricting managers and coaches to people from their own club and their own county? That would put an end to the bucks travelling the length and breadth of counties and the country in search of their next pay day.

Democracy anyone? Another nice piece of fiction in the mission statement. A grassroots organisation where the views of everyone are listened to? Pull the other one.

Here is an example. Try getting a controversial motion from your club on the agenda at the county board convention. Watch all the barriers that are put in your way, the hoops you have to jump through. And as for getting that motion to Congress, you would have a better chance of getting your motion heard at China’s Communist Party Congress than on the Clár of the GAA equivalent.

By the way, here is another example of democracy at play, or should that read democracy not being at play. Eighty-seven per cent of counties wanted a chance to change the All-Ireland SFC structure for next year, and guess what? It has been rejected. Democracy my arse.

We are left with the same old, same old for another year. A championship with declining interest, falling attendances and little jeopardy. Ours is a system where a county can lose three championship matches and still win the All-Ireland. You couldn’t make it up.

And the reason is that ‘the leadership’ – which sounds like a military junta – blame the logistical issues they would face. It is seven months before the championship begins. Even the most inept organisation in the world could reorganise it.

So yet again we are left with the same half-baked, tightly-packed championship schedule, with too many matches squeezed into too short a time-frame.

I note, however, that our soccer brethren have the same problem with the new Champions League format, with extra matches being squeezed in. I am not sure if Pep Guardiola knows anything about the GAA, but his comments about extra matches could be applied to our championship.

And I quote: “More matches does not mean more entertainment. Maybe more money, but the players are already exhausted. Good food needs time to cook, microwaved food is not the same. Everything is so quick it’s all very different, but they don’t think about the players.”

Oh, did I tell you that player welfare is one of the core values in the GAA mission statement? More fiction.

But guess what? They’ve decided to scrap the pre-season January competitions. If this is the best decision Central Council could come up with last weekend, then the bar has been set low. The reality is that counties are still going to play matches.

The provincial councils are going to lose out on approximately €200,000-plus on gate receipts which could have gone into coaching. Surely the obvious solution would be to play the experimental rules which are coming soon during those competitions. That is probably expecting too much common sense.

Finally, of course, what really continues to worry me is that the power in the GAA world is no longer in the hands of the majority but with the unelected few who call the shots.

That brings me to the main plank of the GAA mission statement – to promote Gaelic games and culture.

And that principle has sadly been completely abandoned. I refer in particular to the use – or should that read non-use? – of Croke Park for Gaelic games.

It will be six months – from the end of the championship season to the All-Ireland club finals – before a major GAA match is played in Croke Park again.

It will be 12 months probably before the next full house. And in the meantime we have to prop up the declining finances of the GAA by filling Croke Park with fans of AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay and the Mayo boys next year, Oasis.

Yeah, I get the need to generate money, but it has been done at the cost of missing out on promoting Gaelic games and culture in our national stadium.

For years I have listened to the jibes of the GAA being called the Grab All Association. I have always batted them away. I have disagreed vehemently, but lately I am losing the will.

I am beginning to think they are right. And that’s sad.

Two things that I noticed lately highlighted this for me – and are worrying signals for the GAA.

In 2023, of the 16 most-watched TV programmes in Ireland, 10 of them were rugby matches – occupying second, third and fourth place on the most-watched list. I accept that that included the World Cup year. There were only two GAA games listed – the All-Ireland football final was sixth and the hurling final was eighth.

Just a quick additional note.

My long-time colleague Seán McGoldrick, a very shrewd judge of the GAA and a calm and composed observer, was a journalist for 45 years. He had some parting comments on his retirement last week which I felt made ominous reading.

He said that covering Gaelic football had become hard work and that it was harder for the spectators watching the awful spectacle that the game has become.

And, more importantly, he said the relationship between players and the media is now virtually non-existent and that the Association has become a cold house for journalists.

I think we should all take note. We have lost something important along the way.

Element of panic about Jack O’Connor’s Kerry team

A quick comment on the reformed Kerry management.

My county board sources tell me it was a victory for player power. The players wanted a high-profile coach.

When Jack O’Connor submitted his original management team, he was sent back to the drawing board by the county board. This is the end result.

If Kerry win the All-Ireland, this will be a great move, but I have my concerns. It is a management team that has been assembled in haste with an element of panic about it.

There is a sense of rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic as well. Paddy Tally, who was the main coach, is no longer that. Cian O’Neill now has that role.

Tally was the defence coach but is now recast as the performance coach. Go figure. One is a field-based function, the other is the opposite.

That brings me to the appointment of Cian O’Neill. This is the seventh county he has been involved with since 2006; he would put the wanderings of Mickey Harte and Davy Fitzgerald in the ha’penny place.

He is becoming the Neil Warnock and Sam Allardyce of the GAA world. I am not convinced.

A camel is a horse designed by a committee. You may have heard the saying, and this has all the appearances of that. I am not confident. Hopefully I am wrong.

Bisto · September 16, 2024, 9:04pm

@Little_Lord_Fauntleroy is Pat Spillane ??!

Perez2017 · September 16, 2024, 9:23pm

I see the dodgy box has Down and Tyrone Gaa tv. No harm to screw the Tyrone county board anyway.