By Mark Jones
DUBLIN — The growing demand from leading Gaelic footballers and hurlers for some form of payment from the GAA took a new twist last week when representatives of the Gaelic Players Association met with the taoiseach, Bertie Ahern.
The GPA outlined its concerns to Ahern that the financial needs of players were not being recognized by the GAA, according to a story in the Sunday Independent. The meeting followed the Irish government’s announcement that professional sports people resident in Ireland could benefit from tax breaks on their earnings at the end of their careers. However, footballers and hurlers will gain nothing from the initiative, given that the GAA is a strictly amateur organization.
For some time now, the GPA has been lobbying the GAA to introduce a weekly euro 127 allowance for intercounty players. The GPA commissioned a report last year that revealed that a player whose career runs from the age of 18 to 34 could suffer losses totally euro 145,000.
The GPA estimates that a euro 127 allowance would cost the association just under euro 6.5 million a year, but one of the GAA’s candidates for the presidency, Seamus Aldridge, hit back by insisting that such a program would cost as much as euro 16.5 million per annum.
“It is simply not affordable,” Aldridge said. “If you went down the road, think of the consequences for clubs. All the good players would go to the big clubs with money. Maybe in 20 years time with the help of sponsorship it may be possible, but not now. No one has costed this. The GAA is an amateur organization and will remain so.”
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The Leinster Council chairman, Nickey Brennan, agreed that the GAA couldn’t afford to pay players. “Maybe Bertie is going to give them this euro 127 a week,” he said. “If that’s the case, then let him do it.”
The current GAA president, Sean McCague, said he was unaware of the meeting between Ahern and the GPA. “Dessie Farrell [the GPA chairman] is probably a constituent of his and he’s entitled to meet constituents to discuss any concerns they might have,” McCague added.
Farrell said there was widespread unrest among leading players about the way they were being treated by the GAA. “There’s compelling evidence that players are seriously out of pocket,” he explained. “Previously, this was mere speculation but now we know how unjust and serious the situation is.”
While a weekly allowance is not necessarily a breach of the amateur regulations, both the GPA and the GAA are aware that such payments will lead to semi-professionalism.