GAA on a collision course with players over structural changes

You knew the Club Players’ Association were in for a rough day at Congress a good four hours before the motion to recognise them even made it to the floor.

The debate on Páraic Duffy’s championship proposals had been going for over 40 minutes when Aogán Ó Fearghail asked, almost plaintively, whether in the interest of balance, there was anybody to speak against the motion. There was not.

Instead, delegate Tony Bass (Europe), took to his feet, reached for his six shooter and began unloading every chamber.

“There’s some things that never get mentioned at Congress because we’re all far too polite,” he began. “I’m personally very frustrated, annoyed and fed up with those people who snipe from the sidelines. They harangue and they hassle and they hurl abuse at any ideas that we bring forward for change, whether they’re modest or dramatic . . .

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“If people have ideas, we are a democratic organisation. We don’t need to create more organisations. Any member of this association can go to their club agm, put forward their idea, bring it to Congress, have it discussed, debated and looked at inside-out.

“How many of those people who sit on the sidelines and hurl abuse and have so-called ideas that they won’t reveal to us . . . I hear about wonderful plans – I haven’t seen any plans from these so-called associations. They haven’t been brave enough to put anything forward. This is a modest proposal and as far as I’m concerned, it comes from the one true club players’ association – the Gaelic Athletic Association.”

Zing! There and then, you knew that there was more chance of them turning to face Mecca during Mass that evening than there was of the CPA getting a blessing. And so it proved, as the debate in mid-afternoon saw them get minimal support. Tipperary proposed the motion but declined to speak on its behalf. The only enthusiasm for them came from seconders Wexford. Otherwise, it was a massacre.

Hedgehog mode

“I wonder where would it stop?” asked Séan Óg McAteer (Down).

“Would there be an association for under-18s? Would we be looking at a parents’ association? The late great uachtaráin Paddy McFlynn used to talk about a past presidents’ association, where everyone would get walking sticks. Would we have a referees’ association? Would we have a county secretaries’ association? Where would it stop?”

Most years, Congress passes unnoticed even by most of those who attend. But in the years when there is strife in the wind, there is no group of people better capable of going into full hedgehog mode than a GAA Congress. It doesn’t take a lot for them to roll into a tight ball and face their spikes to the world. Just try them.

Whether they care to admit it or not, the GAA hierarchy has a problem now. Carrying on with major structural change against the wishes of both the CPA and GPA may feel like the right thing to do – it may even prove itself to be the best for all concerned in the long run. But it looks terrible.

Páraic Duffy will argue till dawn and past it that there is no disconnect between the suits in Croke Park and the ordinary members and players on the ground. In his life, he has been a player, a coach, a teacher, an administrator, a selector on a county team and the director general of the whole show. He doesn’t need lectures on grassroots from anyone and it’s obvious any time you bring up the idea of a disconnect that it royally offends him.

But in a way, we’re past that now. The narrative that built up around the Super-8 proposals has made for a classic GAA split. Like it or not, the hierarchy are being seen as dictating to the majority. Like it or not, the majority must accede to a democracy in which their say has held no sway. There are two sides with diametrically opposing arguments over the merits of a move whose outcome neither of them can confidently predict.

Bad press

This is dangerous territory. The longest wars are those that start off being fought about one thing but end up spreading into other areas, picking up combatants and growing ever more tangled as mission creep sets in.

Duffy wanted to have a go at reigniting a football championship that everyone agreed had become stale; somehow that has morphed into a stand-off with his playing population (we’ll keep the misgivings of the hurling fraternity for another column on another day).

Delegates were obviously under no obligation to recognise the CPA on Saturday but they didn't have to take such pronounced glee in shooting them down either. It needed the intervention of past president Nickey Brennan, who was clearly uncomfortable with the tone of proceedings, to step in and suggest the motion be withdrawn in order to engage with the CPA and tease out their issues.

He saved the motion from an inevitable hammering and saved the GAA the bad press the scoreline would have produced. It doesn’t say good things about Congress that right at that moment, Brennan looked like the only grown-up in the room. The only one realising the significance of the problem and thinking strategically about how to approach it.

All sides need to mind how they go here. The lack of formal recognition won’t make any difference to the CPA but they could gain plenty from a dignified silence for a while. The GPA is in a tricky bind which, if everybody isn’t careful, could end up in active service being resumed after years of peace. The GAA can resist suggestions of autocracy all they like but they have a constituency who just doesn’t buy it and they need to answer to them soon and in a meaningful way.

Walk easy, lads.