Tipperary ruling points up flawed thinking

ON GAELIC GAMES: There is growing evidence the GAA's hybrid approach to the role of money is no longer sustainable

THE GAA’S provisions on amateurism (rule 1.10 in the Official Guide) make a certain amount of ad hoc sense. They reflect an accommodation within the ranks between modern realities and traditional aspiration. They are neither a statement of principle nor particularly permissive.

As such they have served the association reasonably well, gliding through the increasingly commercial nature of Gaelic games and adapting nimbly to the evolving opportunities for players within that context – yet all the while proclaiming an amateur ethos.

Until now.

There is growing evidence that this hybrid approach to the role of money is no longer sustainable, reminding us that holding two conflicting opinions simultaneously can indeed be uncomfortable. Current controversies hold the issue up to the light.

Firstly and more directly – although technically it’s about employment policy rather than amateurism – there is the instruction from Croke Park to the Tipperary County Board that their appointment of senior football manager John Evans as the county’s full-time “director of football” is not consistent with a decision of the GAA management committee before Christmas.

That meeting decided to tighten up on the circumstances in which employees of the association could manage and coach teams. The outcome was a restatement of the position – governed by GAA employment policy rather than the Official Guide – as follows: “It was agreed that the employee should not be eligible to coach, train, manage, select or have any other related involvement with intercounty teams or any club teams other than his or her own club. It was further agreed that this should not prevent full-time coaches with having an involvement with county development squads or schools of excellence.”

The highest-profile example of someone in a similar situation was former Kerry manager Pat O’Shea, who worked full-time for the Munster Council as director of games while coaching his own county including to All-Ireland success in 2007.

Whereas O’Shea’s bona fides weren’t in doubt and his status as both a leading player (All-Ireland club medallist with Dr Crokes in 1992) and innovative and published coach equipped him to perform both tasks there was a certain amount of unease about potential conflicts of interest were this to become a widespread phenomenon.

Similarly Evans’s good faith isn’t in question. His work as a coach also encompasses a club All-Ireland (in his case with Laune Rangers in 1996) and more recently successive promotions for Tipperary from Division Four of the NFL to this season’s Division Two. The new appointment was intended to integrate development work with his ongoing commitment to the county team and made sense from that point of view.

There is also a parallel consideration. In the modern game it is widely accepted money is a factor in the appointment of many coaches. On the one hand the demands on a top county manager are enormous and the impact of his work when successful is significantly to enhance the status of the GAA in a given county. On the other hand this practice is completely contrary to rule.

By combining the roles of manager and director of football, Tipperary have implicitly recognised the importance of one in the well-being of the other and by making the latter post a full-time position have recognised openly and without deception that the task of managing the game in the county is worth making an investment.

The county is also setting a good example by making that investment in its weaker game at a time when it is also widely regarded as being the number-one challenger for Kilkenny’s hurling crown.

Whereas fears of a conflict between the roles of county manager and provincial director of games have a theoretical justification there is no such application in this case where all of the effort is directed at improving football in the county.

The most pressing reason for the employment policy in this specific area is anxiety that Tipperary’s initiative could set a precedent and appointing directors of football would be seen as a Trojan horse for the payment of managers.

But is there a coherent reason why county managers shouldn’t be paid for the effort they invest?

Successful teams are the best marketing vehicle at a county board’s disposal and that is why payment happens to the extent it does. The market sets the value.

Concerns that someone might be giving too much time to managing the county and not enough to the full-time duties are effectively recognition that the former role is realistically too demanding.

There are valid apprehensions about the possibility of charlatans siphoning off hard-raised finance and leaving nothing worthwhile behind them but these days county administrators have to make plenty of judgment calls on the wisdom of expenditure and this would be no different.

Throughout its history and evolution the GAA has incrementally professionalised more and more of its activities, as circumstances have demanded. The employment of full-time coaches, development officers, promotion officers and administrators is evidence that the reach of the associations’ volunteerism isn’t sufficient for its needs in the competitive environment in which Gaelic games must survive and thrive.

There are apprehensions that what is perceived as the effective sanctioning of paid county coaches is a step too far – that it will disadvantage poorer counties and incur the displeasure of players.

Yet it is the bigger and traditionally more successful counties which tend not to pay managers and the smaller, less prominent ones that do. In relation to players, alleged payment isn’t the most common cause of complaints about managers. According to one source the matter wasn’t even raised at the recognition talks between Croke Park and the Gaelic Players Association.

Ultimately, and in keeping with the experience of Rule 42 when the rules on soccer and rugby in Croke Park were relaxed, the view of the membership on this matter should be recognised. That view is deeply ambiguous.

There is uproar when intercounty players secure a small grant, which has all but evaporated in the recession and yet all around the country clubs and counties recruit coaches and find ways of paying them in complete defiance of Rule 1.10.

Ironically a county that has tried to address this in an open and transparent way finds itself running foul of a rule helping to protect amateur status while the actual provision itself is routinely dishonoured.

smoran@irishtimes.com