Madam, - Your Editorial of July 16th, "Paying GAA Players", and the related thoughtful contributions from Sean Moran, Tom Humphries and Keith Duggan provided a sensible counterbalance to the recent populist and self-serving clamourings of certain football personalities.
Any proposed change of GAA policy should surely pass two basic tests: Will it help or hinder the long-term survival of our indigenous games? Will it help or hinder the survival of the GAA as a community-based organisation?
Arguments for monetary player compensation - an entirely separate issue from player welfare - fail both tests. Firstly, to simply survive in the face of the media-driven and sponsor-driven saturation promotion of international sports, Gaelic games at club and community "seed-bed" level need every euro the GAA can afford for coaching, promotion and development. GAA revenues really do get redistributed to the grass-roots - no fat cats get a cut.
Secondly and more fundamentally, paying inter-county players would subvert the values and motives that make the GAA work so uniquely at community level. Parish, community and club allegiances are the very heartbeat of the GAA. They would be the first casualties of any monetary compensation regime. Why? Because human nature in any quasi-business regime is very predictable.
Over time, more and more players will change allegiance to follow the best-paying options (probably determined by the deepest sponsor pockets). Pay will need contracts; contracts bring disputes (can a manager easily drop a player when this reduces his income?); disputes bring lawyers; then a transfer market (which will always favour the stronger and wealthier).
As players begin to change their clubs and counties, the irreplaceable community heartbeat of the GAA will weaken progressively, and resuscitation will not be an option.
This is not just a GAA issue - it should concern anyone who thinks about what kind of Ireland we want to pass on to future generations. Imagine an Ireland without hurling, for instance, other than in pockets of rural Kilkenny, Antrim and parts of Munster.
What about the "excessive demands" on players' time? The number of games for top players is not the problem - it's the new-era training regimes. If the GPA and Croke Park make common cause, they can find a way to curtail the vicious circles of excessive training regimes for inter-county players and restoring a better balance between club and county activity. Real player welfare can be ensured by restructuring and regulation but monetary compensation is never a valid alternative, even from a thinking player's perspective.
Former Derry star Joe Brolly has forcefully made the often-overlooked point that "it is the county players who get most out of the games - the status, the excitement, the glory, the spin-offs". They do serve an important "shop-window" purpose for the games but the requirements of its shop-window should always be secondary to the objectives of any organisation.
The compensation lobby should be faced down with the basic question: where lies the greater long-term good - for the games, for the players of the future and for Irish community life? - Yours, etc,
JOE TUOHY, Model Farm Road, Cork.