This weekend 25 years ago the GAA tentatively redefined amateurism

This weekend 25 years ago, the GAA held a special congress in Dublin to consider the reports of two subcommittees. The first was to do with annual congress but the one that burned all of the oxygen related to amateurism within the association.

The subcommittee established to review the GAA’s amateur status was established by then president Jack Boothman. It was quite a high-powered unit, chaired by the president’s predecessor, Peter Quinn and involving three more members, who would go to hold the highest office in the organisation: Seán McCague, Nickey Brennan and Christy Cooney.

Also on the body were a couple of players’ representatives. Dublin footballer Paddy Moran was an All-Ireland medallist from 1995 who had embarked on his career as an accountant and tax adviser and was chosen at least partly for that expertise.

From the club sphere, Mick Leahy, a former Tipperary footballer and also an All-Ireland winner with Kilmacud Crokes, had experience both as a banker and on secondment to the county board to establish structures, which led to Dublin’s network of games development/promotion officers.

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An enabling motion accepting the various recommendations of the subcommittee was enthusiastically accepted, with about five per cent against.

The report’s headline findings depended on who you spoke to. It was channelled back that the director general Liam Mulvihill had regarded with vexed amusement the various headlines about the GAA “relaxing its rules” when, to him, the main outcome of the report had been a firm restatement of amateurism.

“The GAA . . . should continue its policy of not paying its players for playing whether directly or indirectly; this should include not paying any form of reimbursement for wages/salary for time lost as a result of either playing or training.”

For many though, the key recommendation was that players could at last benefit financially from a range of activities: writing columns, authoring books, endorsing goods and making sponsored appearances. Net income from the latter activities was to be divided up:

“Players should be allowed to write articles or books, to appear as guest panellists on radio or television programmes and be paid for the same.

“Player involved, 50 per cent, county panel finance fund 30 per cent, former players 10 per cent and player’s county board 10 per cent.”

There was also urgency to address the widespread grievances of players, who weren’t getting mileage, sports equipment and meals – all items that were leaving them out of pocket.

Included in the recommendations were: rates of “not less than 18p (23 cent) per mile nor more than 30p (38 cent) per mile” as well as “meals after training, supplies of adequate training and playing equipment, including wet-weather gear and track suits”.

There were also recommendations that financial subcommittees draw up reports and liaise with intercounty playing panels to lay out the state of affairs in each county – which according to the report itself, would not be a uniformly cheery revelation.

In the executive summary, it was stated: “Over 40 per cent of county boards in Ireland and most of those abroad, are technically insolvent and more than half in debt to the banks – some very seriously so.”

It has become difficult in retrospect not to regard the foundation of the Gaelic Players Association just two years later as a downstream consequence. The opening of commercial opportunities engaged the interest of players, who in September 1999 founded the GPA in Belfast.

This created friction within Croke Park, which had its own Players Advisory Group. Remember, this was a good decade before the GPA came under the Croke Park umbrella.

Back then, comings and goings between the GPA and the GAA were commonplace as the players tried to secure recognition and then discuss other issues, including the painfully slow implementation of the 1997 proposals.

“It didn’t really get sorted out until the appointment of Páraic Duffy as player welfare manager in my time,” says Nickey Brennan, who having served on the subcommittee, became president eight years later.

“There was messing around with county boards despite Central Council stipulating what players should get. Looking back it seems ridiculous that you had to specify what boots and track suits they were to get but it caused a lot of friction.

“Páraic cleared the ground for that but in the 1990s it was about making sure they wouldn’t get compensated apart from expenses, meals and gear, things like that.”

A key recommendation was that a national sponsorship deal – “all endorsements and sponsorships by equipment manufacturers should be negotiated at national level” – should provide that all counties might benefit and not just those with a viable profile.

This was opposed by a motion from Cork in response to which Peter Quinn made a forceful intervention, pointing out: “We concluded that only six or seven counties were capable of contracting major deals with equipment manufacturers.”

The idea of ‘one big sponsorship’ is still around as an egalitarian measure but it has never happened. Other distributist impulses also came to nothing. The recommendation that a player’s individual earnings be split with the county board and playing panel was eventually scrapped.

“That proved nonsensical,” according to Brennan.

Overall, though the report improved the lot of players but amateurism has remained an issue even if it’s hard to find advocates for semi-professionalism and pay-for-play.

Legal opinion has advised that the current provision, Rule 1.10 in the Official Guide desperately needs updating but so far, 25 years after the last major review, there have been no published proposals on the matter.

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Amateur Status Sub-Committee: Peter Quinn (former president, chair), Liam Mulvihill (director general), Jimmy Treacy (Tyrone), Paddy Moran (Dublin), Fr Dan Gallogly (Cavan), Pat Fitzgerald (Clare), Col Noel Walsh (Clare), Nickey Brennan (Kilkenny), Christy Cooney (Cork), Shay McKeown (Tyrone), Joe McDonagh (president-elect), Mick Leahy (Dublin), Seán McCague (Monaghan), Dermot Power (secretary).