In what can often be an open season on managers, it was impossible not to feel sorry for Eamonn Coleman as he took his leave of inter-county football in Clones. Whereas his parting shots at the authorities who had - correctly - suspended him for publicly criticising a referee appointed to take charge of Derry's then upcoming championship match were unnecessarily rancorous, Coleman is someone who has given a lot to the game.

When originally appointed to manage the county, he gave up his construction job in England to return home. Work wasn't easily available in the early 1990s and he was at a loss. Having revived Derry's fortunes to the stage where they won the county's first All-Ireland, Coleman was rewarded with a shafting after the county's first title defence ended in defeat - albeit against the eventual champions Down in what came to be regarded as the match of the decade.

His return two years ago was an attempt to re-visit old glories and, if it didn't work out, neither was it a total failure. As life goes on, he won't be able to recover all the time and effort put into football teams, although he will have the memories of all he helped them achieve.

Amongst the hissing propaganda which accompanied his sacking in 1994 was the innuendo that Coleman was too pushy about expenses. Now GAA expenses are not what you'd call seed capital and, anyway, the whispering campaign blithely overlooked that the county manager had surrendered his income to take on the position.

In recent times, managers have found themselves increasingly in the dock as attempts have been made to grapple with the anomalies of amateur status in the association. Money paid to managers - whether expenses or other emoluments - has been targeted as a potential breach of GAA rules and a festering source of resentment for players around the country.

The Amateur Status Committee chairman and former GAA president Peter Quinn said at the 1997 special congress that his committee's report "unequivocally says that the association will continue to be an amateur body".

He explained that it was intended "to reconcile the amateur ethos with changing social circumstances and changes in the sporting world", "to give players what they can reasonably expect" and "to increase the clarity and reduce the ambiguity" of the rules governing amateurism. "Doing nothing," he said, "is not an option".

All of which was fine for players, but buried in the coverage of that congress was a Leitrim motion seeking recognition of the difference between managers and players. This was withdrawn after a debate during which Quinn drew applause by affirming that he regarded players as more important than managers, but it was agreed that all reasonable expenses incurred by managers should be met.

Yet, Des Quinn, the Leitrim chairman who proposed the motion, had made a compelling case for remunerating managers. He pointed out that good managers - particularly in smaller counties - performed a vital service in, not alone maximising the prospects of a limited playing resource, but also through their efforts publicising and promoting the game amongst children and the wider population.

It reminded me of a conversation with Tomas Quinn, the former Leitrim goalkeeper, after his club Aughawillan had been eliminated from the Connacht championship by Clann na nGael. Would he and his clubmates now re-join the county panel?

He said that they would if they thought the county team was being seriously run. They had heard that PJ Carroll from Cavan might take the job and that the players would be happy if that happened. In other words, it suits players if a decent manager is appointed.

Finding the right manager for a county team is frequently the trigger for an upsurge in interest and recruitment for the local GAA. PJ Carroll brought an All-Ireland B title to the county and set the stage for John O'Mahony to plot the historic breakthrough for a Connacht title in 1994.

All the other breakthroughs at provincial level - Clare under John Maughan, Kildare and Mick O'Dwyer, Cavan and Martin McHugh, Offaly and Tommy Lyons - were engineered by outside managers.

It's not suggested that any of the above received any more than the "reasonable expenses" approved by the GAA, but if any manager was to be paid for the delivery of historic and ground-breaking achievements, it's hard to state a convincing argument against such payments.

It can be argued that All-Ireland winning managers tend to be natives, but this ignores that it is often a greater challenge for a county to win its province than for another to win an All-Ireland. Richie Connor once said that winning Leinster with Offaly in 1980 was more important to the side than the All-Ireland because it took a bigger step to win the provincial title than to go on from there and win the All-Ireland.

More and more, it is accepted that GAA administration requires full-time officials to run its affairs properly. Development officers and coaches have also been appointed around the country for the promotion of the games.

Managers frequently do as much for this promotion as full-time administrators. Few teams win anything with talented players and an unimpressive manager. Whereas good players regularly go unrewarded on the playing field, good managers achieve results. And, ultimately, managers take responsibility for what goes wrong by forfeiting their positions in a way that rarely applies to players.

They are often treated shamefully - in a personally humiliating manner which doesn't largely apply to players - from being traduced by jackasses on public access radio or openly insulted as Joachim Kelly was at the Wexford county board meeting last week.

Big, traditionally successful counties may have the luxury of experienced, committed individuals who are willing to manage and coach for no return other than a sense of pride in their county and a shot at further fame, but other counties do not and by forcing them to recruit managers locally - the logical extension of cracking down on payments - the GAA unbalances the scales to an even greater extent than the system does already.