THE composition of the GAA sub committee to review existing rules on amateurism will be announced in a few days. It will work together with other subcommittees on amateurism and present its recommendations to the President of the GAA, Jack Boothman, who will bring them to Central Council. If they are positively received, they will he put before the annual Congress of the association.

The composition of the subcommittee will be "mixed", according to Boothman, "and it will be one of a number working on the matter - like the Audit subcommittee which investigates how accounts are spent at county level.

"We will be trying to update the various strands and arrive at a realistic policy. It can only make recommendations and Congress will be the eventual decision making body. I have contacted a few people and will be having discussions with Liam (Mulvihill, GAA Director General) over the weekend. There should be an announcement early next week."

Boothman would not comment on the likely direction of the subcommittee or the forthcoming event widely presumed to have triggered the GAA's action - next Wednesday's press conference by the marketing company ProActive Sports Management which is scheduled to feature four GAA personalities, Kilkenny hurler DJ Carey, Tipperary's Nicky English, Jason Sherlock of Dublin and Cork's Mark O'Connor.

The GAA statement announcing the sub committee also cautioned players to "resist any approaches from agents or companies that might endanger their amateur status".

Amateur status is fairly rigidly defined in Rule 2 of the Official Guide as forbidding not only payment for playing but also association "with any commercial enterprise in connection with membership of the association". Patently, this provision is often flouted at the moment.

Dublin footballer Sherlock got away with an advertising campaign for a department store because he was on a sports scholarship and technically the modelling could he seen as an extension of his livelihood - i.e. as a sports scholar.

The question of players `ghosting' newspaper columns, as is now common, is one which vexes the Croke Park authorities, but one about which they choose to do nothing. Other more widespread areas of concern include the paying of players to appear in North America and under the table payments to coaches at both club and county level.

Of immediate relevance to the GAA is, however, the matter of commercial endorsement. Whereas Croke Park refuses to comment on the matter it is understood that the two main areas of concern are the introduction of agents to the games and the necessity to safeguard team and panel rights within the context of individuals benefiting financially.

Trepidation concerning the role of agents centres on "thin end of the wedge" theory, that agents, or companies such as ProActive, would he outside of the GAA's control, that their scale of priorities is profit for themselves and their clients with the GAA's wellbeing a distant consideration and that "pay for play" would eventually come on to the agenda.

From this it can be seen that thy matter of actual endorsement of products - and its consequent breach of Rule 12 is apparently to be no longer a sticking point. Nonetheless, the means by which the player is rewarded will probably come under scrutiny. Large cash payments may present a difficulty, but promotional activities which help support and maintain a players' pool will probably he agreed.

The comparison is frequently made with rugby which jettisoned its long held amateurism virtually overnight and is finding the transition chaotic. This is, for the moment, flawed reasoning on two fronts: rugby is a global game with well established international competition, whereas the GAA's games are indigenous; rugby has attracted the interest of satellite television and its concomitant millions whereas the GAA must deal with a terrestrial monopoly, at least for the moment.

Although Croke Park is making noises about wanting to deal "inclusively" with players in the whole business of reviewing the amateurism regulations, one major obstruction to footballers and hurlers taking on the same sort of promotional work as other sportspeople is the structure of the main competition, the championship.

One season's Player of the Year mightn't last beyond the end of May the following year, so the type of sustained exposure that makes sportspeople attractive marketing devices isn't applicable.