No easy solution to this uniquely Irish problem

Gaelic games are much more than just competitive sport, which is why the issue of pay is so agonisingly difficult to resolve, writes Seán Moran

Comments made within the last week by former Galway hurling manager Cyril Farrell and Mick O'Dwyer, who tomorrow takes Laois into a third successive Leinster final, may have refocused public attention on the question of paying players but the issue has been bobbing around increasingly in recent times.

It has a context. The last 10 years have been the most revolutionary in the GAA's history. Among the landmarks have been the redevelopment of Croke Park, high-profile national sponsorships, the live broadcast of championship matches and, most strikingly, the radical overhaul of those major competitions. Up until the London Congress of 1996, the hurling and football championships were largely unchanged for over a century and were based on pure knockout format.

That trickle of change, which allowed defeated Munster and Leinster hurling finalists re-enter the All-Ireland race, became a steady flow with the introduction of first football and then hurling qualifiers.

These reforms were not primarily intended to be of financial benefit; the idea was that Gaelic games would be better promoted by additional matches, but the financial spin-offs have been substantial.

Ten years ago 286,885 attended the All-Ireland stages of the championships in Croke Park. Then, both semi-finals were being staged on the same day. Next week and the week after there will be two double bills of quarter-finals. Even without taking into account that increase in attendance and comparing with last year's figures, crowds at Croke Park for the All-Ireland series have nearly doubled, to 534,879.

Revenue has more than trebled. The relevant 1995 gate receipts were €5,727,500; last year's amounted to €17,591,558. Over that period the demands of servicing the Croke Park debt have been paramount but since the Government finally paid off the remaining tranche of €40 million that burden has shrunk to little over €30 million.

Mindful of the revenues they generate, players have become more assertive about what they believe they deserve, as indicated by the recent campaign of non-co-operation with RTÉ by some players over the product placement of a sports drink. The GAA for its part has gradually yielded ground on strict amateurism, allowing players to earn money from endorsements, promotional activities and advertising.

The GAA may have relaxed its views on players making money from off-field pursuits in the 1997 Amateur Status Report but there was no ambivalence about the inability of the association to sustain player payments: "Its (the GAA's) players, referees and elected officers all operate on a voluntary basis and there has been an acceptance that as an essentially Irish sport with little access to international markets and the wealth-creating potential they bring, that situation is likely to continue."

Capacity or incapacity to pay is one of the two main planks of amateurism. The other concerns the potential damage to the volunteerism and communitarianism that underpins the association.

Joe Brolly, the former Derry All-Ireland winner and Sunday Game analyst argued in Breaking Ball magazine three years ago that elite players should be treated no differently from other members.

"So, is it fair and reasonable to pay county players? Well, The GAA is fundamentally different from other paid sports. It is not a business, unlike soccer, where the aim is to generate profits for shareholders, etc. Since soccer's purpose is economic, the players are workers, entitled to be paid. The GAA on the other hand is a way of life. It was created as and continues to be the cement of our society, of far greater social importance than even the Church. It is not overstating it to say the GAA is what we are.

"The reasoning seems to be, well, Croke Park makes money out of us, why doesn't it give us some? The problem with this is that Croke Park money is reinvested in the communities and is not used to enrich individuals.

"Moreover, the county players are only a minute proportion of the GAA family. In 1993, Derry had four players from the Dungiven club. In that year Dungiven had 550 playing members, girls and boys. So the county men made up about 0.7 per cent of club players and perhaps 0.1 per cent of the Dungiven GAA community. Why pay me? The fact is that it is the county players who get most out of the games. The status, the excitement, the glory, the spin-offs."

Although the wagons have circled around the pay-for-play issue, plenty of other initiatives have been floated. The Gaelic Players Association commissioned a report that indicated the cumulative career loss suffered by elite inter-county players. In response the GPA proposed an expenses payment of €127 per week of involvement in the championship. That has been adapted into a campaign for tax credits for inter-county players.

Whether you call it pay-for-play or not, the move for monetary compensation for elite players is ongoing and based on the intrusion into their private lives of training and lifestyle demands.

"It's going to happen whether they like it or not," is the view of former Meath All-Ireland winner and St Brigid's coach Gerry McEntee.

"There's major conflict. Many coaches are getting paid but players are getting nothing but grief, mental and physical. They're up in the morning and out to work, back in the evening for a quick bite because they don't have time for a big meal - and anyway they'd leave it on the pitch. There's an hour and a half's training with maybe a meal after and then home to bed before getting up stuck to the pillow and starting all over again.

"Seán Kelly's saying we must compensate players for loss of earnings but the GAA have been saying that for about four years. It will come to the stage where a team refuses to go out onto Croke Park. "

Although he sees the payment of players as inevitable McEntee is uncertain about its general impact on the association. "I don't know whether that's going to be good or bad because it means there'll be movement between counties and a sort of a transfer market. It's going to make it very hard for a crowd at a Dublin-Meath match to identify with players who were playing for the other side a year before."

The GAA is protected from the international pressures that blew the lid off amateurism in rugby but the expanded competitions calendar is creating its own pressures. Maybe they can be resisted but the momentum of the association and its established direction is intensifying rather relaxing them.