THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN the GAA’s administrators and its players cooled significantly following the reforms passed at Saturday’s Congress.
A clear divide now exists in the association after the decision to introduce the Super 8 format by Congress, despite the staunch opposition of both the club and county players’ representative bodies – the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) and the Club Players Association (CPA).
Congress’s historic decision to back the Super 8 proposal was met with a furious reaction from current and past players on social media, with Wicklow boss Johnny Magee even calling for a countrywide strike.
“I could go onto Twitter this evening and get any number of those (remarks),” said the GAA’s director general Páraic Duffy in response.
“We’re not going to run the GAA by Twitter. If you keep asking me those kind of questions, I’m going to look as if I’m annoyed, which I probably am. If that’s what I’m going to get down to answering — Johnny Magee’s call — that’s his right. It’s a free country so he’s entitled to do that. As are all these other people.
“This has been debated for six months and it passed on a 74-26 (per cent) vote today. That’s democracy. The GPA took their decision and that’s their right.
Duffy continued: “But as Jarlath Burns said here today, ‘We’re all members of GAA clubs.’ Anyone can send a motion forward for discussion. Players are all members of clubs and have the same right as I or Aogán (Ó Fearghail) or anyone else to bring motions to their own clubs.
“I think the process we saw today was extremely democratic.”
GPA chief executive Dermot Earley described the introduction of the Super 8 as “a slap in the face,” while the CPA’s bid for recognition stalled when the motion was withdrawn by Tipperary and Wexford after an impassioned appeal from former GAA president Nickey Brennan.
“I’m disappointed on behalf of the players,” said Earley. “The big issue is that they felt they weren’t consulted. Páraic would have felt that a lot of consultation took place but there’s still a disconnect between going down and talking to players and going and speaking to clubs.
“We actually surveyed our players, got down to each and every county panel and they came back quite unanimously that they were against this (change of format). They (Croke Park) might have said they consulted with everyone but they didn’t consult with the players, which is what we did.”
But Duffy insisted any divide existing between the administrators and playing body “is being driven” by the CPA.
“It’s not being driven by us,” said Duffy. “You saw at Congress – the GAA aren’t looking for a row here.
“I met with the CPA four times and the first two meetings were extremely positive meetings. We didn’t change the narrative – I have never said one negative thing about the CPA. The strongest thing I said was that I was disappointed they rejected the proposals out of hand. I think the people that are writing those things need to look at themselves.
“I didn’t like some of the discourse around it. I thought a lot of the debate was angry. That’s unfortunate.”
Earley promised a strong response from the GPA in the coming months.
“We will take the decision of our players as to our next step forward,” he said. “Even though this decision is in for three years, we can go away and work on something that is better, that has the backing of the players, that has the backing of all the stakeholders.”
“Everybody has to have an input. Whether we lock ourselves in a room in Croke Park or somewhere in the country for a weekend where we look for consensus because at the moment I don’t think we have consensus.
“We’ll survey the whole inter-county playing body and see what they say. Let them make their decision and then we will act on their behalf. It’s disappointing that the players’ opinions were ignored and I think you’ll see reaction over the next week,” Earley concluded.
Páraic Duffy also addressed a few key issues following Saturday’s Congress. Here’s Duffy on:
The view that hurling will be dwarfed with the addition of 8 extra games in the football championship…
“We are very open to looking at the hurling structure, very open. We looked at football because the demand was there. There was a loud cry we do something with the football championship. If the hurling counties would like us to look at hurling then we will. We’ll make sure that hurling is not dwarfed.”
The GAA moving towards the club season taking place in a calendar year…
“We’re going to take this process first. We’re going to work with the National CCC (competitions control committee), the Central Fixtures Analysis Committee, the provincial councils and some great people in counties. We’re going to produce the best possible fixtures template we can between now and September before next year’s championship draws take place.”
“There may be a slight increase in the number of (televised) games but it’ll be limited. We signed the agreements based on the current (structures) but we were aware when we were negotiating with them that it was a possibility there could be change.”They’ll have no issue around that, it doesn’t make a difference. It might have an impact on the number of games but it doesn’t affect the finance.”
The GAA’s plan to address the issue of Galway’s underage teams competing in Leinster…
“We’ve said we will address that issue has soon as we possibly can. There is a lot of goodwill around today over how Galway and Leinster handled that. We’ve said all along that it’s a Central Council problem to deal with and we intend to do that.”
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