Club v County dilemma: Seán Moran on a fundamental problem which the GAA are still struggling to overcome

In the last two years the GAA has generated around €30,000,000 from its shop-window inter-county activities: the senior football and hurling championships. This combination of gate receipts, media rights and sponsorship makes up virtually all of Central Council's income in the revenue accounts for 2004 and '05.

That's just the hard cash - and doesn't even take into account the revenue generated by the provincial councils. Exposure in the broadcast and print media reaches a height during the championship season and provides Gaelic games with their biggest promotional hit of the year.

But there is a rumbling from within the association that the emphasis on elite activity has gone too far and that the vast bulk of the GAA's activities are being dangerously neglected.

Back in 1999 the report of the Club Fixtures Work Group recommended a modest target of 20 matches a season for club players. The work group found just one county reaching this figure. Half of the counties were providing 12 matches or fewer and 27 per cent of club players were getting fewer than 10 matches.

GAA Director General Liam Mulvihill described the provision of fixtures for clubs as "shameful".

Revisiting the issue two years ago, Mulvihill said that there was "no evidence that the provision of regular games for the average club player has been improved in the 75 per cent of the counties in which this was rated a serious problem".

Páraic Duffy, who will next year take up the role of the GAA's first Player Welfare Officer, chaired the recent Football Competitions Review Task Force that along with the Hurling Development Committee came up with the proposed new structures for the inter-county year, which go before next month's special congress.

One of the main aims of his task force was to find additional weekends during the season that could be freed from inter-county fixtures and given back to the clubs.

"Clubs are rebellious at this stage," says Duffy. "We've given the inter-county game a status it shouldn't have in the overall scheme of things. The inter-county competitions are vital to the promotion of the games, but there has to be a balance."

Earlier this year in Killarney the GAA held a congress dedicated to club-related issues. It was organised by former Cork chair Jim Forbes, who says that the club-versus-county issue was a prominent grievance.

"The feeling was that too much time is taken up with inter-county activity to the detriment of the club. No one knows when games are going to be played and the dissatisfaction was loud and clear. "

The problems derive from the GAA's unique playing structure. Most elite athletes in team sports have a regular team and maybe a representative team, but that's the extent of their commitments. Gaelic games are different. Whereas the county might approximate to a representative team, it is the primary focus of county players for most of the year.

Yet, players are expected - and for the most part want - to play for their clubs as well. But that's not all.

Some counties have divisional teams and championships; most have dual clubs fielding hurling and football sides. Then there are under-age competitions, most relevantly minor and under-21, which can involve a big 18-year old in a small dual club playing for six teams.

If he's at college, that's another two teams and if he's good there's the county. This sort of multiple commitment would be a private concern for the overburdened individual were it not for the fact that all his teams need to be accommodated within the competitive structures. In other words players can't miss important matches for their clubs because they're involved with a county team.

And as Duffy explains: "Part of the problem is that clubs want to play as few matches as possible without their county players."

Jim Forbes sees at first-hand the consequences in Cork, one of the counties that is accepted as running a fairly efficient club programme and resisting the trend towards parking its activities schedule to suit the county teams.

"Our division, Carrigdhoun, is still in the senior football championship," he says. "We had four players involved with the Cork seniors and the net result is that we're still involved in the county football championship. Because of that we can't finish our divisional championship, which means that four of the football team have divisional hurling championship matches two days before the county quarter-final.

"Now we're delighted to be involved, but the knock-on effects are hard to manage. It's very, very hard to find a solution. Starting competitions in April means nothing. Some players haven't kicked a ball since April."

Since the advent of the All-Ireland qualifiers the problem has intensified. Counties don't know whether their summer involvement will be in the championship or the qualifiers. This ambiguity makes fixture planning for clubs extremely difficult and players often don't even know when they will be able to take holidays.

Dara Ó Cinnéide also sat on the Football Competitions Review Task Force. In the year since his retirement from inter-county football, the three times Kerry All-Ireland winner has seen the dilemma from an unaccustomed perspective and has drawn public attention to the difficulties of being a club player in the present environment.

"It's a change of mindset for me," says Ó Cinnéide. I went three or four weeks when Jack O'Connor wasn't talking to me after I gave an interview to a local paper criticising the situation and it gave the impression that I was having a go at Jack - which I wasn't because he's one of the better managers to release players to clubs.

"We're playing Mid Kerry (divisional team only coming together for championship fixtures) in the county championship and they're unhappy that they haven't played for 17 weeks, whereas we've at least had some league matches even if we had to play our games without the county players. We have to loosen the grip of the county team. It's difficult because inter-county is your shop window but try telling that to the fella who's selling lotto tickets, mowing the grass or taking out the under-12s."

In Kerry it's all very well this year but there are 31 other counties that didn't win the All-Ireland.

"Of course, I'm a hypocrite on this. Two years ago when I captained Kerry, I went to see Seán Walsh (county chair) and put him under a lot of pressure to call off a programme of club matches due to be played three weeks before the All-Ireland final. . . He eventually agreed and got into a lot of trouble with the clubs. People will see me and say, 'oh, he has his club cap on now'."

The encroachment of inter-county activity into the club scene can be a lot more serious that the 13 days' grace given to county teams in Cork. Increasingly county managers look to have club activity frozen for the duration of a team's involvement in the provincial or All-Ireland championships. The trend has been exacerbated by the rising popularity of managers from outside the county, who don't have to engage on a regular basis with club officials.

Páraic Duffy says that managerial influence is one of the main reasons why there are such problems.

"Take Dublin, which I have some knowledge of because my son was playing with UCD. They played the first two rounds of the county championship in April and May.

"Their next game was played last Saturday (September 23rd). They played no championship matches between May and September because Dublin were still in the All-Ireland.

"And that's typical. . . In Monaghan we didn't even get the championship started. In Derry there was a big stand-off between Paddy Crozier and the county board over club fixtures and he briefly stood down. This is a desperately hard situation. . . The fact that inter-county panels have become much bigger hasn't helped either."

Potential solutions are thin on the ground. If the recommendations of Duffy's task force and the HDC are accepted at next month's special congress, there will be extra weekends freed from inter-county activity. But few could be confident this opportunity will actually translate into more structured club fixture programmes rather than increased time for county teams to prepare.

Duffy believes it is up to the GAA authorities to adopt a more interventionist approach to ensure that club players are protected.

"Croke Park is also to blame because this problem has been visited several times but most of the ideas have ended up as pious platitudes. Penalties have been laid down but never implemented. It has also been envisaged that provincial councils should monitor the situation but they've shown very little enthusiasm for taking on the counties."

Forbes is pessimistic about finding a solution. " It would be possible to restrict the under-21 grade to under-21 players (ie not allow minors play on under-21 teams) but there'd be no chance of getting that through a convention. Another answer is to provide more floodlit, all-weather pitches and get games played midweek, especially at this time of the year when people are trying to finish competitions. Extra time should also be mandatory in all championships where you have a back door."

Ó Cinnéide's experience this summer has been that clubs must push ahead with fixtures even if it means fielding without county players and a consequent diminution of the county leagues. "One solution would be to downgrade the league a little and play on even if you don't have all of your players. So what if you get relegated? It's more important to play matches."

Ó Cinnéide's retirement from county duty hasn't brought the hoped for spin-offs either. "This year I thought I'd have a great social life. . You're not drinking because every week you think there might be a match around the corner. It doesn't happen, but you're always looking after yourself in case it does."

Waiting around in case something happens. Club life summed up.