GPA awards scheme set to compete with the All Stars

GAELIC GAMES: A critical few days in the short history of the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) began yesterday with the announcement of a new €3 million awards scheme, which effectively takes on the GAA's All Star awards, and has the potential to surpass them. Ian O'Riordan reports.

Opel have signed a three-year sponsorship deal, providing around €1 million each year, with the centrepiece of several new award initiatives being a GPA team of the year in both football and hurling. Jury's Hotel, directly opposite Croke Park, was the fitting location for the GPA to provide details of the scheme.

Each of the players selected on the teams will receive €2,500, regarded as a fee for the use of image rights and therefore complying with the GAA's amateur status. Like the All Stars, there will also be a footballer and hurler of the year - who will each receive an Opel car - and also monthly award winners, starting in April.

Unlike the All Stars, the players themselves will vote on the GPA awards, with two independent panels first announcing a shortlist. That, says GPA chief executive Dessie Farrell, is what will ultimately set these awards apart.

"For the past four years we've just had our player of the year awards, so it was always a natural progression to move on to this level, and elevate it to a team of the year. I wouldn't say we're necessarily taking on the All Stars.

"They have been a very good scheme, and hopefully ours will too. But yeah, we could well overtake them. I know there's a degree of uncertainly about sponsorship of the All Stars at the moment, but we'll just focus on our own."

Farrell was clearly excited about the scale of the deal, which marks Opel's first sporting sponsorship in several years. More significantly, it leaves the GPA on a firmer footing heading into Saturday's egm, which is being held in Portlaoise and Belfast simultaneously. A live satellite link between the two venues will allow players to address both floors.

The GPA will meet tonight to finalise Saturday's agenda, but the main issue to be debated is what course of action they'll take to speed up the introduction of the new players grant scheme. Both the GAA and the Government have yet to give formal approval for the plan, and that, according to the GPA, is not going down well with the players.

"This is a very big meeting for us," says Farrell, "and I'd like to think it will have a huge impact on the future development of player welfare. We're expecting a big turn-out, even with the big schedule of matches this weekend, because I've visited a lot of counties recently, and players are angry at the ongoing apathy towards this issue.

"I can't predict what will happen, because the top table won't be making any decisions here. It will all be coming from the floor. So we'll just have to wait and see what sort of dynamics erupt from the floor.

"I know some people are saying the deferral of the sports grants at Central Council level was the issue, but that's not really it. The players respect that the Central Council need some time, even if this proposal has been on the table for over a year.

"But what happened subsequently, when no GAA official attended the meeting with ourselves and the Minister for Sport, John O'Donoghue, that in effect was the straw that broke the camel's back. But we have other issues too, like with the insurance scheme, and this continuous ban on Club Energise.

"And, unlike other player associations, we're totally self-financed. Unfortunately, we don't have any such relationship with the governing body of our sport, and I think that's something we need to work on."

Incoming president Nickey Brennan has agreed to sit down with the GPA in May and fully discuss the grant issue, but in the meantime the GPA are determined to let the players voice their opinion. According to GPA chairman Donal O'Neill, those opinions are running strong. "Players have become more confident in asserting their opinions, and I expect we'll see a demonstration of intent in some regard . . . it's possible we'll get a mandate to go for a ballot to take some course of action. It's ultimately up to the floor to decide what will happen."

As the GPA's commercial director, O'Neill also saw the huge benefits of the Opel awards scheme: "We actually had it all planned for a while, and the structure was in place for quite some time. But you need a big company like Opel to take up the challenge, and they've done that now, which is great.

"And from day one I always thought this would be the jewel in the crown of our commercial programme. It's taken a while to get the right company to put the funds behind it, but every other major sporting code has both players and media awards, so there's nothing new in that. And the reality is the All Stars have existed in a void.

"Financially and commercially, we're very solvent now, but the GPA must become much more politically astute as we move forward. There's lots of business to be done with the GAA, and that's what the next four or five years will be all about."