It was a week of bits and pieces, starting with the Club Players’ Assocation’s slide down the gangway into the water as the putative voice of the disaffected club player.
That was followed by the online show of shaking heads and eyes rolling back in their sockets in overheated response to the behavioural diktats set down by a Dublin club for its senior footballers, and the withdrawal from action of some top intercounty players ranging from their mid-30s to their early 20s. All separate, distinct issues oined together by the same weary sense of disullusionment.
Then came news of the GAA and GPA’s partnering with the Economic and Social Research Institute to analyse the impact of being an inter-county player on every above-average Joe that seemed to string all those other stories together. On one level it’s a useful exercise to collate the years of stories and mini-surveys into one, independently gathered and properly bound piece of research. Rewind a decade, and a survey like this undertaken by the GPA would also have been seen as a weapon against the GAA.
Now, everyone sees things slightly differently. A couple of significant things occurred last year when the GAA and GPA sat down to strike a deal. In return for 15% of the GAA’s commercial income, the GPA committed to open the books and show the GAA the exact destination for every brown cent of their funding. They will report to Central Council at the end of the year on the outcomes of all their initiatives.
The GPA also brought in a string of inter-county players to relay their daily routines as an elite player. From those conversations came a task force to explore ways of harmonising a better work-life balance for players. The ESRI survey is a natural component.
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The results are due in December and of all the familiar topics floated last week — time sacrificed for training, the impact on personal and professional relationships — what was most striking was the missing part. Although analysing the financial impact on players was ruled out in some reports last week, the actual topics haven’t been finalised. Those will be determined through focus groups set up around the country to distil the key areas of interest. When the GPA undertook a survey of inter-county players in third level education last year, finance was in their top three areas of importance. It seems impossible to avoid the same conclusion again.
That will bring its own challenges. Giving the GPA 15% of its commercial income was translated by plenty as feeding the animal the GAA are trying to keep in check. Greater financial security for a players’ union brought inevitable talk of pay-for-play. Any survey of the inter-county population will show players gaining from their status in many different ways, but a significant portion also losing out financially and otherwise.
That reality goes close to the knuckle for the GAA, but it’s equally possible the findings will point up ways to ensure amateur status benefits a new generation of players. The first generation of GPA management repeatedly endorsed the concept, but players and life in the bubble around them that shapes their views are forever changing.
The sheer breadth of players retiring and taking a break last week reflected a lot for better and worse about the inter-county game right now. Christy Toye, Rory Kavanagh and David Walsh all departed Donegal in their mid-30s with All-Ireland medals earned through years of toil that often seemed hopeless. Odhran MacNiallais also left the Donegal panel after a couple of good seasons and barely 24 years of age. Jack McCaffrey turned out for UCD against Dublin last week with growing concern in pockets of the city that the right conversations hadn’t happened yet. Conor McManus turns 30 this year and is already talking about a hip replacement after he finishes up with Monaghan.
Then, the flipside. Donncha and Alan O’Connor returning for Cork well into their 30s. Ryan McCluskey heading for 36 next summer and returning for Fermanagh. If the CPA can become a bullhorn to get across the message to the GAA’s middle-management about creating a proper place in the calendar for club and inter-county games, the ESRI’s research will almost certainly answer any remaining questions about why it needs doing. This could potentially point a way for a more balanced approach to playing and training for the elite player.
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In an ideal world that’s all that should be needed to affect change in an amateur sporting body, but look upon the graveyard of fine ideas and well-meaning directives issued by the GAA over the years to try and protect players, and weep. Limits on the amount of time and access allowed to inter-county players get ignored. The GAA membership remain unconvinced that the inter-county championships need squeezing down and managers continue to press-gang good young players into service too early after injury and too often in general.
The survey will clarify and confirm plenty of stuff we half-knew. Real progress for everyone still requires dismantling the mindsets and problems we already know for sure.