On Gaelic GamesSometimes it's mad around here. After an historically quiet autumn - no International Rules, no National League fixtures like in the old days - Croke Park is hurtling through some very important terrain as the year draws to a close.

Unprecedentedly ambitious sponsorship deals, a new and crucial broadcast rights agreement, the most serious threat ever of an intercounty players' strike and the epochal matter of choosing a successor to Liam Mulvihill, who is only the fourth director general in 106 years - a remarkable statistic especially since the association managed to have 13 holders of the office in its first 17 years of existence.

GAA president Nickey Brennan is like a cardinal in time of Papal conclave - having a rare opportunity to influence posterity as well as the usual functions and responsibilities. That appointment, vitally important as it is, is in a sense the least urgent matter on the president's desk. The selection process is well under way, Mulvihill is still there and Croke Park will continue to run itself.

In the meantime the most pressing matter is the ongoing attempt to reach a resolution of the players' grants issue with the Gaelic Players Association and the Government and so avert the threatened strike, formal notice of which is expected to be announced later this week.

This has become a more delicate balancing act than simply keeping the players and Government onside.

There have been rumbles of discontent from the membership at large to the general effect that the proposed grants are a dangerous threat to the association's amateur status and that the players' strike is something to be encouraged, as it could lead to breaking the influence of the GPA.

It's an awkward situation for Croke Park. Although the GAA has been peripheral to the grant scheme in that it was dreamed up and pursued by the GPA and green lighted by the Government, the association has found itself the target of player discontent when the details of the scheme became an obstacle to its implementation and also blamed by elements of the rank-and-file for allowing the grants go ahead in the first place.

It's hard to know why the GPA stirs such bitter resentment amongst some members of the GAA. As the GPA's chief executive Dessie Farrell pointed out in his address to last week's annual players' awards function: "The exceptional role of the intercounty player within the GAA has always been accepted. It is the GAA itself that created the elite intercounty structure and it is the players who have lived up to that standard."

This is true. As has also been pointed out the intercounty season is the platform from which enhanced sponsorship and broadcasting rights can be pursued. The demands on elite players are considerable. Intercounty training and lifestyle are rigorous and time consuming and underpin the activity that bankrolls the association.

There are also intrusions into personal lives that wouldn't happen to other members of the association.

Only last week an intercounty player was splashed in certain media because of an alleged drugs offence.

Breaking the law isn't anyone's private business but had he been an anonymous 20-something, would the matter have featured on front pages? In other words the concept of the intercounty player as someone answerable to higher standards isn't the invention of a particularly greedy generation of players with an eye to the main chance.

Can't they just go home and stop moaning if they don't like it? Even were there some validity in the familiar and pat put-down how realistic is it? Remember the furore nearly 10 years ago when DJ Carey decided he'd had enough of the county scene and its attendant tribulations and then consider how free a star player is to walk away from it all.

Look at the reactions to elite young players heading over to Australia in the hope of a professional career. Even the president suggested at one stage that the clubs of such players might be entitled to compensation, presumably on the basis that a top footballer is an asset developed by a club and capable of calculation in monetary terms.

Ten years ago last week the report of the amateur status sub-committee was accepted by a special congress. It marked the first steps away from unambiguous amateurism by allowing players to benefit from product endorsement and media work.

Addressing the congress, sub-committee member and now GAA president Nickey Brennan said: "The profile of the games raises the profile of the players and they shouldn't be asked to lose out on these opportunities." It's fair to ask what is the essential difference between the relaxation of rules a decade ago and the current grants scheme. After all, the GPA have emphasised they're not seeking pay for play and have undertaken not to campaign for Croke Park to make up the shortfall should public funding be terminated for whatever reason, such as an ailing economy.

The threat of a strike is undoubtedly provocative towards those who fundamentally disagree with the GPA anyway, and in the context of tri-partite talks that are more than likely to resolve the issue.

But having campaigned so long for this type of recognition, the GPA unsurprisingly wants to make sure it gets the credit - hence the recent emphasis on the strike threat being the major impetus behind the current talks even if it is at least equally plausible to interpret the breakthrough as arising from the new Minister, Séamus Brennan's first serious engagement with the issue.

It is to be hoped that the talks will be a success and as a result the likely vote in favour of a strike won't be activated.

Then maybe everyone can go back to respecting intercounty players and recognising their role in maintaining the success of the GAA.