UNEMPLOYMENT:THE CURRENT emigration figure of the Gaelic Players Association 2,200 membership could rise sharply before the end of 2011.

Sixteen players have emigrated in the past 12 months, including the high profile departures to Australia of Clare hurling captain Brian O’Connell, Cork hurler Aisake Ó hAilpín and a trio of Louth footballers (Mick Fanning, John O’Brien, Brian White), while Dublin footballer Niall Corkery took up a job in London.

This is not yet considered a major problem but the GPA are targeting potential “black spot” areas in the coming months to try and stem the exodus of leading footballers and hurlers abroad.

“Emigration of inter-county players is a real issue,” said GPA spokesman Seán Potts. “It is not yet at a crisis point but unemployment is. Our challenge over the next few months is to continue rolling out our programmes to combat this as efficiently as possible.”

The GPA are also keenly aware the departure of players abroad occurs once their championship campaign is over, or in several cases once the provincial leg ends, as there are clubs constantly looking to recruit them in North America.

This, in many cases, leads to emigration simply because players have settled and elected not to return due to the lack of employment opportunities at home.

“It is an amateur game so quite often players head off without knowing when they are coming back. There may be a growing element of that this year and some may not come back. It will be hard for us to measure the extent of this until after the summer,” said Potts.

“It is a big issue, particularly in rural areas. Sixteen have emigrated in the last 10 to 12 months but not all of these are high profile inter-county players. Employment and educational programmes is a way to address this but the networking between GAA clubs is another way to combat this.

“By encouraging this we can spread the opportunities to areas where employment is not readily available.”

The most pressing challenge facing the players’ bodies at present, however, is not emigration but the related issue of employment.

The effectiveness of initiatives introduced by the GPA career service coach Mairéad Griffin has seen a drop in unemployment of GPA members from 15 to 12 per cent recently but Potts is aware this figure is liable to fluctuate and will certainly spike when graduates come out of third level education in the coming months. The figure is in line with the current national unemployment figure of 14.7 percent or 442,000.

“In a recent two-month period the work of Mairéad Griffin and others on the ground has seen 100 inter-county players moving off the live register and into gainful employment,” Potts continued. “But we know it is an ongoing issue. There are roughly 250 players currently out of work.”

Employment in sales is a viable alternative for inter-county players who have developed a profile through their sporting exploits only to be made redundant by the decrease in construction work around the country which also reduced the demand for tradesmen. “For those without skills it is about getting them back into education, so as to up-skill them for future opportunities.”

There is also a geographical element to all of this as there is an obvious need to keep players within their own county or when that is not possible to make the commute home for training and matches to be manageable.

However, there is a long history of inter-county players commuting from urban centres like Dublin and Cork.