On Gaelic Games:There are simply no mechanisms or precedents for the GAA's national administration to intervene in its counties and enforce resolution of problems, writes Sean Moran

IS THERE life beyond Cork? With the events of recent days – even before last night’s county board meeting – speeding the crisis in the county full steam ahead to catastrophe, the rest of the GAA gets on with the slow re-emergence of the competitive intercounty season and occasionally wonders where it will all end.

Within the past week Offaly football went through its own (brief) convulsion, and Richie Connor, who captained the county to its most recent All-Ireland, found himself in no-man’s land and did the only thing he could in the circumstances by stepping down only a few weeks after taking over.

Relationships between players and managers are like marriages: no one can force the parties to stay together no matter how much one wishes the relationship to endure. Most county boards bow to that central reality.

At present there appears to be a flight from that reality in Cork, and only time will tell how long the suspension of disbelief can last.

In the meantime, the damage is spreading. On Sunday the county’s equivalent of child soldiers lost the only match in Division One of the hurling league that they might have entertained any hope of winning.

Ironically, just as the GAA has got around to restoring an elite league structure after 12 years, circumstances have contrived to produce probably the weakest side ever to contest Division One. So the National League has a competitive hole at the very top.

This weekend all of the effort put into staging a gala night in Thurles to unveil Semple Stadium’s floodlights will be ruined by the participation of a team with no chance of beating the league holders Tipperary.

League attendances partly fund a scheme that sees some redistribution of funds throughout the counties, and the reduced drawing power of Cork will affect that.

Next summer’s championship is around the corner – in just over three months, or closer to the present than the fateful decision to reappoint Gerald McCarthy – and the opening Munster fixture at the end of May again sees Cork due to visit Thurles for the definitive hurling clash in the province. Last year 42,823 (effectively capacity) turned out at Páirc Uí­ Chaoimh to see Tipp win a first championship match at the venue since the 1920s.

The capacity in Thurles is greater, and three years ago 53,076 were present for the most recent meeting of the counties in Semple Stadium. At €30 for the stands and €20 for the terraces (minus the few concessions) the likely shortfall in numbers will represent a loss for the Munster Council at a time when recession is likely to hit attendances anyway.

Whereas there have been dismissive attitudes towards the sizeable crowd of 10,000 to 12,000 on grounds that they don’t represent club membership opinion within the county, that is to ignore the extent to which the GAA relies on those non-members with an interest in the games to pass through its turnstiles in large numbers over the summer – the revenue they generate being indistinguishable from that of members.

The impossibility of the team achieving anything in the qualifiers will damage Central Council finances. So the stand-off between players, officials and management comes at a price to the association at large.

That price is not just financial, although any material cost would be at a bad time. The inability of Croke Park nationally to hold any sway in the matter is a reflection of administrative flaws in the association.

The brief engagement of headquarters with the difficulties in Cork indicated what everyone already knew: nothing could be done about the level of entrenchment and the complete absence of room for manoeuvre. This isn’t a commentary on the efforts of those involved, merely a statement of what structures the GAA has chosen to maintain.

Whereas there was some unhappiness in Cork at the failure of the GAA nationally to side with the county board, it is presumably as nothing to the unhappiness of the Croke Park administration at yet a further outbreak of turmoil down south.

There are simply no mechanisms or precedents for the association’s national administration to intervene in its counties and enforce resolution of problems no matter how widespread the implications.

Seven years ago the Strategic Review Committee report recommended at 16.33: “Counties should not be allowed to operate with total autonomy and there are obvious areas where the intervention of an outside body would be desirable; it is recommended that the provincial council should have the power to intervene, where that is necessary.”

No action was taken to implement the recommendation, so despite the obvious infringement on the interest of the Munster Council there is no power of intervention.

In a way, the aspiration, however sensible and practical, is at odds with the administrative culture of the GAA, which bridles at top-down intervention. Put another way, whatever the chances of Croke Park telling the Cork County Board they were dead right to have behaved as they did and of ordering the players back, there would have been no prospect of such a command having any effect. The rules don’t provide for it – beyond the daft and unenforced provision of suspension for players refusing to play for their county, which the DRA would blow apart without having to take off their coats.

Conversely, how does Croke Park tell a county board to reverse a decision already taken on a margin of 88-6? As has always been the case, the Cork problem will be resolved as soon (or otherwise) as Gerald McCarthy steps down or is removed as manager.

In the meantime, the task force, chaired by Liam O’Neill, drawing up proposals to enhance club-county and county-player relationships is attempting to produce a template that it is hoped will help prevent these type of imbroglios developing.

Improved communications would be a start and involving the stakeholders in intercounty managerial appointments makes perfect sense. But there is also the need for good faith and trust between the parties. In a way, the Cork and Offaly situations, although separate and unrelated, by their comparative rarity demonstrate how satisfactorily most counties conduct their affairs.

The best the GAA at large can hope for is that the Cork situation is resolved as quickly as possible and that provision is implemented to ensure it never happens again.

smoran@irishtimes.com