GAA reluctant to grasp nettle of 'amateurism'

ON GAELIC GAMES:GETTING THERE is such a sporting drama. It's like those epic runs the length of a rugby pitch. Tommy Bowe was stopped just short of the line in Ireland's World Cup match against Australia – it didn't matter because the match was won anyway.

In Cardiff in 1989, Noel Mannion did get there after a dexterous dispossession followed by a 65-metre run and Ireland also won. Less happily, there were those who didn’t get there like British distance runner Jim Peters, who entered the stadium at the 1954 Vancouver Empire Games 17 minutes ahead of the field.

Exhausted by his exploits in the heat, Peters couldn’t complete the final 400 metres of the race. As recalled by Frank Keating in the Guardian: “Instinct and a misbegotten willpower under the merciless sun had Peters keeling over onto the cinder track again and again like a drunken vaudeville tumbler; each time he hauled himself up once more to stagger on in a groggy, futile nobility.

“When some from the grandstands, unable to bear it, began to shout for a stop, the stadium announcer crassly called for order and ‘a respect for sportsmanship’.” He was unable to finish the race and never ran again.

More recently a friend told me of a collision some years ago between his family’s wall in Clones and the car of an inebriated supporter. The driver, sensing that this situation mightn’t be resolved in his favour, set off on an ambitious stagger – reversing the then traditional flight path of delinquents by trying to get north of the Border before being apprehended.

Whether for dramatic effect or otherwise, the narrative ends with a couple of gardaí catching the fugitive just as he stretched across the Border for freedom. In other words he didn’t get there.

All of which is relevant because it appeared impossible that GAA president Christy Cooney could actually get to the end of his term of office in April 2012 without the emergence of the discussion document on amateurism – or more specifically payment to coaches – prepared by association director general Páraic Duffy for a management committee meeting just over a year ago.

Yet here we are at the end of 2011 and still the document remains a mystery. This represents an achievement within the GAA, whose history has tended to illustrate the impossibility of keeping things under wraps for any significant length of time let alone 12 and a half months.

The assumption has been and remains that the prospect of sanctioning payment to managers or coaches forms some part of the document but no one is sure because the text has assumed the status accorded to the Third Secret of Fatima during most of the 20th century.

Unlike the secret, the discussion paper doesn’t have its origins in divine revelation – even if Duffy’s expressed desire to make practice consistent with stated rules is in many ways just as unusual – but in the director general’s address to Congress in 2010, just four months shy of two years ago.

“What, then, should be done?” he asked about amateurism. “The least acceptable option is to continue to proclaim a value and, at the same time, ignore it. And expressing a determination to address the issue (genuine as the intention may be) is meaningless unless followed by effective action.”

The action taken by the director general was to prepare a discussion document. It wasn’t impetuously produced or rushed, taking over six months before its submission to management committee in November 2010 following which the silence set in.

Two months later the president explained the delay in progressing the matter.

“As you’re all aware it’s a most challenging area and whatever we decide to do at the end of the day we’ve got to make sure it’s right and in the best interests of the association not just at county level but at club level.”

There’s no reason to doubt the truth of that statement but Cooney’s policy since seeing the discussion document appears to have been to postpone its general consideration pending an extensive survey of opinions amongst officialdom – a point he made strongly at the time.

Equally there’s no doubt the president views the issue as one of vital importance, as he outlined at this year’s Annual Congress in Mullingar when addressing the subject of payment to managers and the importance of amateurism, which he described as of integral importance.

“There are a number of key values that epitomise Cumann Lúthchleas Gael. Personally, I am strong on these core values and attempt to remain loyal to them at all times. Collectively as an organisation I believe we have to work hard to uphold and crucially protect these same values if we are to continue to represent the beliefs that underpin the GAA.

“With this in mind I propose to call together the chairpersons, secretaries, treasurers and Central Council delegates to a discussion forum within the next two months to gather their views on this topic.”

That forum has yet to take place. Last month in Australia Cooney admitted that the timetable had proved overly ambitious, as it ran into the summer schedules.

“We have done some more work. We have decided not to do anything with it during the championship season. We will do it now in the off-season. It is an easier time to get people to sit down and discuss it in a realistic fashion.”

Adding that he expected “over the next period you will see some discussion on it”, he said it would be important to ensure that any new regulations on the subject would be enforceable. “We’ve got to see if we put something in place if it will be deliverable. There is not much point putting something in place if it can’t be delivered and won’t be delivered.”

The president’s statements on the issue have been so strong that it’s impossible to imagine that he intends to allow his term of office run out before addressing the discussion document. But with it not appearing on the agenda for next Saturday’s Central Council meeting and given that the Christmas break will continue until the latter half of January by which stage the current presidency will be in its last three months, this is going to be more of a struggle for the tape than it needed to be.