Phoney conflict over as total war is declared

In the end, it was inevitable that the GPA and the GAA would come to blows. Yesterday, after nearly a year of skirting total confrontation, the bell rang. The media event in Dublin was further evidence of how skilfully the GPA have pursued their agenda since inception and, once again, the GAA authorities were left in a reactive stance.

The issue at stake is not whether players should benefit from endorsements, but whether they should have total control over the income. There are peripheral matters concerning the ability to appoint whichever agent a player wishes and the capacity of Croke Park to run its own affairs, but, at the centre of this dispute, are issues of recognition and money.

Despite a softening of attitude since Sean McCague took office, the GPA has always been a source of scarcely concealed irritation to Croke Park. There is the question as to why an elite group within the association should have greater rights of representation than others, but seeking to deny the major role played by footballers and hurlers is pointless.

There is also the inescapable fact that any representative organisation answerable to Croke Park will struggle to find favour with players. So the battle lines have been drawn.

Yet the GAA's egalitarian impulses are correct. It is a voluntary organisation which, for all the high finance, is not a profit-making concern. All surpluses are reinvested in the association either in the physical development of grounds or the games development of coaching schemes.

There has long been a consensus that elite players must be treated with respect, both for their accomplishments and the vital role they play in generating revenue and promotion for the GAA. But that does not extinguish all obligations to team-mates and the association as a whole.

Arguments are made that, with corporate facilities making large amounts of money, players are entitled to their cut. But there are many volunteers involved in the processes which bring the best players to the biggest occasions and few would entertain the idea that there should be a dividend for them all, from coaches to selectors to unpaid county officials.

There is meant to be an element of the recreational about the games. Certainly the demands on successful county players are staggering for amateur sports, but that is why the most stringent interpretation of amateurism was abandoned at the special congress of November 1997.

It may be that the line has been crossed between what players do as a pastime and what they feel obliged to do out of a sense of duty, but that hasn't been advanced as an argument so far.

Then there is the comparison with soccer players within the same team who earn varying amounts of money. This would be an impeccable argument were Gaelic games professional sports. In that case, a player's right to his livelihood couldn't be tinkered with or controlled to the extent that Croke Park propose.

But they're not. Football and hurling are voluntary pursuits conducted on a largely amateur basis with the qualifications agreed by congress three years ago. There could well be merit in the view that, were the counties rationalised to something like 12 franchises with semi-professional players, competition could continue without much altering of the sports' mass-spectator appeal.

But, again, this is not an argument which has been advanced. In fact, the opposite has been the case with GPA members insisting that they do not want to be paid for playing. Given this apparent acceptance of the GAA's amateur ethos, it is curious that the GPA behave as if oblivious to the claims of ordinary intercounty participants, never mind club players.

Once again, the GPA's timing has been impeccable - inviting confrontation on the favourable terrain of suspending All-Ireland finalists.

For all its PR shortcomings, that is an invitation that the GAA will surely decline. But more vigorous action in the autumn will come as no surprise.