Quick to grasp nature of the brief

Annual Congress: Seán Morantalks to GAA president Nickey Brennan, who insists any dealings with the GPA would have to be in the context of not impacting on amateur status.

There's an unmarked door off one of corridors at ground level in the Hogan Stand. It leads to what has been for the past few years an office for the GAA president. The position is so high-profile and visible - a constant whirl of functions, chains of office and speeches delivered to respectful silence - that it's almost a surprise to find a modest control room where the president sits behind a desk and deals with administrative issues.

This afternoon at the GAA's annual congress in his home county of Kilkenny, Nickey Brennan will mark the end of his first year as head of the country's biggest and most influential sporting organisation. His speech will scan the big events of the past 12 months and identify what he sees as the likely dominant themes of his remaining two years in office.

So far nothing has unduly fazed him.

"There's a lot of coming and going involved," he says, "and maybe I didn't read that as well as the other parts of the brief. The travelling can be unproductive. If I could get from A to B faster I'd get a bit more done. It's also fair to say as you move through your presidency issues will emerge that are relevant to the association but may not have been originally on your agenda. Often these are not of your own making, but you have to deal with them."

He emerges from behind the presidential desk in a functional suite of rooms, which admit no natural light. Filing cabinets, a computer and a desk he says will be clean by the time he finishes are the only fixtures. A flat-screen television hangs on the wall and in the outer space sits a decent-sized table, suitable for quite large meetings and, shuttered off from view, a sink and kettle.

Brennan comes from the business world - he is on leave and will return to Glanbia - and it shows in the style of his presidency.

If his predecessor, Seán Kelly, was something of a free spirit, happy in the spotlight and while engaging with the public, you sense Brennan is drawn toward the minutiae of administration. Already he has spearheaded a reorganisation of the association's financial section, staffing it up to reflect the rapidly changing challenges of growing and diversified revenue streams.

One of the big issues on his desk on taking office was the nature of the GAA's relationship with the Gaelic Players Association, the eight-year-old body established to represent intercounty footballers and hurlers. In his inaugural speech last year Brennan was quite hardline about the GPA, accusing them of having a "pay-per-play agenda" and stating, "I am of the view that this remains the ultimate aim of the GPA in some form or other." He also distanced himself from the campaign for player grants, saying any official support would have to be discussed by the association as a whole.

But in the same speech the incoming president also listed detailed proposals on player welfare, including the appointment of a player-welfare manager - a post that went to one of the association's most highly regarded administrators, Páraic Duffy.

Consequently it is notable that less than a year after the caution of these comments an agreement was reached between the GAA and GPA on methods of distributing the proposed Government funding of €5 million. The only question now is whether the public purse is actually going to be opened but at least the matter is off Brennan's desk for the time being.

"In fairness to the association," he says, "there was always an understanding that player welfare was important. I wouldn't like anyone to think that I was a messiah who came out of nowhere to dream up that this was important. What has been done is that we now have a senior manager dealing with the matter on an ongoing basis."

He denies dealing with the GPA is a tightrope walk because of the hostility toward the players among some sections of the membership and has rowed back on his accusations of last year: "Players, particularly intercounty players, are a key part of our association. They deliver big games. There would be a level of concern that the GPA has an agenda that includes pay-for-play. They have assured us that is not their agenda and I take their word."

Nonetheless, the bottom line on this greater engagement with the GPA is that the GAA's amateur status must not be compromised in further discussions about recognition of the players' body and commercial possibilities.

"Any dealings we have with them have to be in the context of not impacting on amateur status and the whole area of volunteerism and not entertaining the concept of pay-for-play. They are fundamental and I won't even discuss them."

This weekend the GAA will be having another tilt at the whole question of discipline on the playing field. A report on improvements to the current code will be debated but already there is dismay among many that a proposal as simple as fixing sanctions for the accumulation of yellow cards is not part of the package.

Not surprisingly, the president disagrees with downbeat assessments of the problem and tends to a more optimistic view.

"I think there's a level of frustration out there that we've brought in so many changes in so many different areas that we're in danger of confusing people. I would say that there's less violence out there than in the past. That doesn't mean we don't have unacceptable incidents from time to time but the intercounty scene generally has improved a good bit."

Probably the biggest flash-fire of the presidency was the furore over last autumn's second International Rules Test at Croke Park, which led to the suspension of this year's series and involved him in some very public hard talking. The mood within the top ranks of the association is still pessimistic about the chances of reviving the international project and Brennan says there is still a lot of hard thinking to be done.

"There will be a more thorough analysis of what we need going forward. Only when we get a response to that from the AFL will we be able to go forward. It's a bit like politics - we'll be looking at talks about talks."

As an administrator from county to provincial and national level, Brennan was possibly best known for his work on the Hurling Development Committee and a famous speech he made at the 1994 congress in Cavan when he declared the game - at which he is an All-Ireland medallist - was in crisis. Nowadays the enduring crisis talk and widely shared pessimism about the lack of competitiveness in the game irritates him slightly. At a recent lunch in Croke Park he semi-jokingly exhorted journalists to "lay off hurling for a while".

"People are looking at this in the wrong context," he says. "Why I feel people have to give up talking pessimistically is that what we're seeing is the traditional dominance of Cork and Tipperary that's always been there.

"I've always said that it's a matter of how you want to measure hurling. Our structures are recognising the strength of counties at various levels. We have also appointed a national hurling development officer and we have facts to prove that more people than ever now are playing hurling.

"I've picked up information recently on new hurling clubs being set up. I know they'll probably never set the world on fire outside of their own county. But it is ironic that places like Mayo and Fermanagh have new clubs. I was at a function in Armagh recently and 600 attended. It was for the Cúchulainns hurling club, who are trying to buy a new pitch. I think there's a much happier audience of hurling counties out there."

But he also accepts there is work to be done if the competition structures are to be optimised and as diplomatically as possible, he hints at the need for change.

"Bear in mind that in answering that question - and I say this not in a negative way - you have one arm tied behind your back because you're starting with the provincial structure. If you had a green-field situation where you were able to use the 32 counties and come up with a set of competitions and also bear in mind the needs of clubs I'm not sure this would be it.

"Hurling and football don't need to have the same competition structures and I would suspect down the road they are not likely to have them. When that will happen I'm not sure but I've said it before - were it not for the competitive nature of the Munster hurling championship you probably would be into a different structure for hurling."

Undoubtedly the biggest event in terms of public impact over the past year has been the opening up of Croke Park to rugby and soccer internationals. It's an issue with which Brennan is closely associated. The motion to relax Rule 42 was passed on the same afternoon he was elected and it was known he would be the president to oversee the implementation.

"My concern was we as an association would run the event well. Our responsibility was to handle the logistics and health-and-safety issues. We decided from an early stage the protocols around the event were none of our business. While we had a whole lot of experience running events I'd say we learned a bit from doing it as well.

"Our association is better-known internationally. I generally felt from talking to international media that they were surprised at the nature of our amateur organisation and how we organise our games and our capacity to build stadia. Croke Park also got a lot of kudos."

Within the organisation the biggest issue has been the reconciling of club and county fixture lists. A special congress last October passed a number of measures aimed at addressing the anger of clubs at intercounty intrusion into their affairs.

"You'll never have everybody happy," says Brennan, "but the situation has to be balanced and the club has to get a better look in. I'm not naive enough to think this is a simple process. There will be a document out within two months of congress that's going to challenge the way we're doing things and will start a huge debate among members and get a huge pick-up in the media."

In the meantime the president will conduct business at his first congress in the chair. Last year he rounded off his speech with a few words of the American football coach - and quotation machine - Vince Lombardi: "Leaders are made, and contrary to the opinion of many, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price we must all pay for success".

So far it's impossible to fault the presidency on that basis.