O'Keeffe facing a new challenge

GAA/News Round-up: Seán Moran talks to Tony O'Keeffe, the recently appointed head of the GAC

Tony O'Keeffe's appointment as head of the GAA's most important committee, the GAC, was widely anticipated a year ago after he had managed fellow Kerryman Sean Kelly's stunningly successful election campaign.

But a few months later when promoted in his career to principal of Tralee CBS, O'Keeffe stepped down as county secretary and the likelihood of his taking over a national committee appeared to recede. He says that such indications were misleading.

"Getting out of the county secretary's position when I did, it was time for me. You get tired and maybe if I'd got out a few years earlier it would have been better. I was 18 years doing it. You think of someone like John Dowling (the late former GAA president) who was county secretary in Offaly for 23 years and think it was a lifetime. But 18 years is nearly as long."

He doesn't feel that the logistics of the responsibility will prove insurmountable. Although he is now in a very demanding job (by coincidence his highly regarded predecessor Paraic Duffy is also a headmaster) and about as far from Dublin as he practically could be, O'Keeffe is undaunted.

"It will be demanding - like being county secretary but in a different way. There are two flights in the afternoon and evening.

Soon the evening one will go forward from 6.30 to 6.00, which will get me to Croke Park for 7.30. Then there's a return at 10.20 that night, which should be fine. But I believe that Saturdays have to become an issue - not just for me but for other committee members and players up before GAC, who don't have access to airports."

At last weekend's congress in Belfast Sean Kelly announced that he wanted to split the functions of the GAC into fixtures and discipline because of the increasing workload involved. But it is also partly based on legal reservations about GAC's conflicting duties as both prosecutor and judge of disciplinary hearings, particularly those based on video evidence.

O'Keeffe believes that the GAC should relinquish the power to hear such cases and concentrate on regulating fixtures and games and enforcing rules.

"I think we should make match regulations and be responsible for the presentation of the games. When it arises we will take action against anyone guilty of indiscipline. But another committee should reach on a verdict on it." Any such move will require a change in rule and so can't take effect for at least another year.

Fixtures are undoubtedly his primary focus. "County boards depend on their championships to raise funds and the extra inter-county matches have impacted on that.

"But when we have 60-80,000 spectators in Croke Park we might also have about eight million watching on television. Which is more important? The crowds are a huge participating factor but the promotional value of television and the revenue from it is massive.

"We will have to work out a way for club players to have regular matches even though the number of inter-county fixtures has grown dramatically." Coming from as powerful a county as Kerry, O'Keeffe has acknowledged that he might have to step aside occasionally.

"The president indicated at the weekend that the GAC would elect a vice-chair from among the members to take over if a Kerry case comes before us. I have no problem with that. Perception is very important."

Which raises an awkward point for someone who will effectively be the GAA's discipline commissar. Last summer the Kerry county executive was widely criticised after it absolved county captain Darragh Ó Sé of suspension for an immediate red card he picked up in a club match. Despite pressure from then president Sean McCague, Kerry stood by the decision. The net result was that the rules were changed last weekend to prevent a re-occurrence.

O'Keeffe was winding down on the executive at the time but isn't making excuses.

"I was still secretary and part of what the board did. The pros and cons have been well debated and I'd prefer if it was put to bed. But I had no difficulty with what was decided afterwards.

"In fact in the late 1980s I was part of a Kerry delegation that proposed the separation of club and county suspensions. It's something we have advocated for a long time."