Cash for Play?

In our 3rd editon at the start of the year ( 2009) we asked two well known GAA men, Mark Conway and Sean Potts, to pen us an article for the arguements for and against pay for play.  Two of the best articles we ever had- read both views below.  Hopefully we will be re visiting this debate in the coming months.  This was an exclusive for Gaelic Star and both parties involved new their articles would be printed side by side. You want hard hitting GAA stories- keep reading

YES

“Ideals, Not Expedience”

By: Mark Conway

The GAA was always different. It was better; special; above and beyond things like greed and selfishness. It was us and we were it. For 123 years it stood up to whatever the fates threw at it – the “Parnell Split”; the Civil War; the northern state; poor times. But the eventual virus some members couldn’t resist was the Celtic Tiger’s disastrous ethos of “it’s-all-about-me-and-sod-the-rest-of-you.”

 As Irish banks collapse around us, we’re given a stark “insight-with-hindsight” explanation: “They ignored the fundamentals”. Our GAA leadership also ignored GAA fundamentals when it capitulated on the poison of pay-for-play. The plain people of Ireland now pay for the financial recklessness of Ireland’s elite: they’ll also pay for the pay-for-play recklessness of the GAA’s elite.

 Unbelievably, our leadership and the GPA intone the delusion: “By taking this money we preserve our amateur status.” What’s next in double-speak? Teetotallers saying that by taking alcohol they copper-fasten their abstinence?

 There are loads of better uses for this money. But let’s sideline the 100 teenage Irish girls who will die of cervical cancer because a government which assigned €10.5m to the grants “can’t afford” their €10m vaccination programme. Ignore the ravages of alcohol and drugs. Be blind to the €6m cut in the GAA’s 2009 budget. And forget those  bulwarks of Irish society, our 2,750+ GAA Clubs which struggle heroically and willingly to fund and deliver gaelic games for all of our players; of all abilities; and at all levels.

 The real disaster here isn’t these opportunity costs. It’s that our leadership and the GPA fractured the core GAA dynamic that energised and sustained us over 123 years. Brilliantly simple, brilliantly powerful, it said: “Here’s what those who went before you left for you. It’s uniquely Irish; it’s the best about; it’s given and taken for free. No one else on earth will make you this offer. If it adds to your quality of life, develops you as a person, then come with us. If not, walk away and leave it, no worse than you found it, for others.” That dynamic prospered. Until December 2007.

 The grants then officially threw money into our playing equation, to inevitably overrun the GAA drivers of place; community; choice; volunteerism; unity; equality; and local pride. Every sport that’s chosen this poisonous road proves it doesn’t work. Club rugby and professional soccer in Ireland teeter on the brink. Sadly, not even their own people care any more.

 Is that the GAA we want? “You-owe-me” as a core value? Fundamentals which sustained us for 123 years cast aside in the face of bullying (a threatened strike, by people who chose to be involved in the first place; benefited greatly from it; and were free to walk away at any time)? If only we’d had an Obama-like President to insist that abandoning ideals for expedience isn’t acceptable.

 Ireland’s economic collapse makes us look at ourselves. What we see isn’t attractive. Greed corrupted entire organisations … and entered the GAA. Our leadership needs to reinstate GAA fundamentals (including addressing the parallel poison of paid managers). The GAA and Ireland will be better as a result. We can’t afford to mimic the financial crisis and realise only when we look at the wreckage, what’s been lost; how; why; and because of who.

 Let’s get rid of pay-for-play before it gets rid of the GAA we’ve been bequeathed and only hold in trust. To coin a phrase: Yes We Must.

NO

By Sean Potts- GPA Communications  Officer 

IT is interesting though hardly surprising that those opposed to Government funding for inter-county GAA players are almost rejoicing in the economic crisis.

  As someone centrally involved in the lengthy and at times fraught debate prior to the acceptance of the scheme, I was always perplexed that the central argument, one of principle, was simply ignored by opponents who preferred mantra over logic, dogma over initiative. Never during the debate was this principle even mentioned by opponents.

 Now those who stated that they would walk away once defeated in the argument see an opportunity in the current difficulties whereby the scheme is being reviewed in the context of swingeing budgetary constraints. Capitalising on this misfortune, and displaying a complete lack of magnanimity, some are suggesting that the argument should somehow be revisited.

  Government funding for inter-county players was introduced to afford parity of esteem to GAA players. Elite Irish amateur athletes from other codes were already in receipt of State funding while professional Irish sports people were entitled to lucrative tax concessions.

  The Gaelic Players Association believed that amateur inter-county players were entitled to be treated like other Irish athletes and, recognising the practical welfare benefit of funding, the GPA lobbied for the introduction of the government scheme.

 The Government agreed, Croke Park agreed and all the GAA’s administrative bodies agreed. The scheme even passed a legal challenge mounted by its opponents, and was introduced and administered seamlessly last year thanks to the excellent work carried out by the National Scheme Committee in Croke Park. 

  Along with everyone else, we now find ourselves faced with serious cutbacks due to the deepening economic crisis. The GPA accepts that funding will be cut and players are prepared to take their medicine along with all the other sporting bodies. However, we will do all that we can in the meantime and over the next few years to uphold and protect the principle of the scheme.

  The argument that funding for players should be re-directed to struggling essential services is a spurious one and an outrageous slur on the leading exponents of Gaelic games. It is mischievous scaremongering of the basest kind.

 A budget has already been allocated to the Dept of Arts, Sport and Tourism for 2009. In turn, the Irish Sports Council, the body charged with distributing government funding to the country’s sporting bodies, has received its allocation. While cutbacks are on-going, monies will not be simply withdrawn from this allocation and thrown into health. Every government department has been charged independently with cutting its costs.

  Regardless of this almost childish rationale, it has already been well documented in the South that on-going problems with the health service run far deeper than mere funding issues. Of course it is convenient to ignore fact when mantra is the favoured tactic.

  Economic problems have actually highlighted the importance of government funding for players, particularly so in view of the number of job losses occurring. While the receipt of additional expenses through the scheme may not alter an individual’s circumstances dramatically, it has been extremely welcomed by players nonetheless. In trying to keep hurlers and footballers from emigrating, every little bit helps – literally.

  In practice and in principle the scheme works and has already proven to pose no threat whatsoever to the GAA’s amateur framework. Unpalatable as those facts may be to some people who fundamentally oppose a players’ representative body, to argue against them is to ignore reality.