GAELIC GAMES:NEXT MONTH will see the circulation of a discussion document on payments to managers drawn up by GAA director general Páraic Duffy. As it's not yet concluded, there is no indication of what parameters Duffy will set for the consideration of the association's Management Committee and Central Council.

It is, however, certain that shining a light on this secretive subject will be discomfiting for the GAA. It is a widely shared conviction that the rules on amateur status are being flouted on a regular basis.

Last May 12 months, Duffy himself went unwittingly public in an extempore response to a lecture, ‘The GAA at 125: The Challenges of Change’, from NUI Galway professor Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh.

Asked by Des Cahill on television the following weekend to elaborate on his unscripted comments, Duffy emphasised the context of Ó Tuathaigh’s address: “He specifically mentioned the issue of professionalism and pointed to the fact he felt unregulated payments could erode the idealism of the association so while we’re all well aware of the work that managers, particularly at inter-county level, put in, I do think amateurism is very much a core value and we have to protect that because that’s what drives our volunteerism and is very much at the heart of the GAA, so I have concerns about going down the road of saying managers are different and we’ll pay managers.”

It remains to be seen to what extent the director general will still hold those views having conducted extensive research into the various views within the association.

The issue received further airing this week with the unexpected news that Tipperary’s All-Ireland winning management team was to step down after three years in charge, citing the pressures of combining career work with their commitment to team affairs.

Manager Liam Sheedy’s promotion to a senior position within the Bank of Ireland meant he could no longer give hurling the time necessary. Coach Eamon O’Shea, who is an academic in NUI Galway, has extensive overseas commitments in the coming 12 months and was in a similar position.

Selector Michael Ryan mightn’t have been faced with such a stark ultimatum but as he has been holding down a job as well as developing his farm, he’s unlikely to be at a loose end and clearly just as much as the others needed to give more time to other aspects of his life.

One well connected observer of the Tipperary scene remarked, as news of the management withdrawal emerged: “It’s increasingly hard for anyone to get involved in inter-county management unless they’re not doing anything else or are teachers. We’ve now lost two All-Ireland winning managers (including Nicky English eight years ago) because their jobs just don’t allow them to stay involved.”

Ironically and obviously, the vast majority of those who have the greatest organisational and leadership acumen are the very ones whose careers are likely to be most demanding.

In these cases the issue of payments, under-the-counter or otherwise, is irrelevant because successful managers with serious work commitments are not generally in a position to take sabbaticals even if remuneration were available. Secondly, in many cases the level of payment wouldn’t be sufficient to compensate them for the loss of their customary income.

In their statement on Thursday Sheedy and his team said they had at times been putting in 16-hour days between work and hurling.

It’s increasingly difficult to understand why that level of input should be on a purely voluntary basis when GAA presidents now receive reimbursement for lost salary for the duration of their terms of office.

When the impact of good management teams, with their attention to micro-detail and all logistical aspects of team preparation, is measured it can be difficult to argue convincingly against allowing payment.

A successful county team is the most effective marketing tool the GAA can have in any part of the country.

In light of the above and if irregular payments can’t be eradicated should they simply be allowed? Responding to this, former GAA president Peter Quinn who chaired the amateur status sub-committee, which reported in 1997, was in two minds.

“The view was advanced and considered,” he said in a 2000 interview, “but we felt it was very difficult to sustain the case in a situation where players weren’t being paid and most county officials weren’t being paid. Then you’d be saying that managers were in a category of their own.”

Yet he also had reservations about prohibiting managers from operating outside their own county, a restriction that would do much to address the payment problem.

“I would accept that totally,” he said of the argument that weaker counties can benefit from outside expertise.

“There is a need for a level of experience that just isn’t there in certain counties. Weaker counties don’t have it.

“In my own playing days, a team manager arrived from an outside county with a successful track record. He brought a bit of know-how and we won five championships. Our players were no better in 1969 than in ’68.”

The debate to be initiated by Duffy’s discussion document will have a critical role in evaluating the future of amateurism in the GAA.