“MONEY,” WROTE MARTIN Amis, in his novel called Money, “doesn’t mind if we say it’s evil, it goes from strength to strength. It’s a fiction, an addiction, and a tacit conspiracy.” 

The GAA conversation about payments to managers, payments to backroom members, the spectre of one day paying players – it waxes and wanes, flares and fades, but, like the cash itself, never goes away. The money is there in ever-growing quantities, indifferent to our qualms and moralising. 

Davy Fitzgerald is the latest to have a say, calling for a debate on the formal payments to managers. 

“Do I have the answers to it? I don’t,” Davy said, humbly aligning himself with GAA administrators, club and county bookkeepers, Revenue investigators, media commentators, overtrained players, and anybody who has ever considered the role of money in an organisation which prides itself on being run largely by volunteers for the benefit of amateur players. 

The matter has been brought into renewed focus by responses to the GPA’s most recent survey where three out of every four county players support the idea that managers at that level should be paid over and above expenses. 

There is less desire among players for what we might interpret as higher payments to managers. Some 41% believe they should get a fixed stipend payment, while 34% believe they should be contracted with a full annual salary.

Is the players’ aversion to management being a full-time job realistic, though? 

Consider first the hours involved in preparing a senior county team. Shane Kingston has said you’d need to put in 50-70 hours a week, having watched his father Kieran manage Cork’s hurlers. To have people to do this on top of a regular job is unsustainable. 

Also, the Revenue are not keen on arrangements as they have largely been to date, where some payments to some managers are made in a way which is not taxable. And, to be fair, the tax-paying masses might not be delighted with this either, seeing as they work hard and don’t benefit from light-touch regulation.  

Amounts paid now vary from straight expenses to approaching six figures a year. The view here is that county jobs, especially Division 1 and some Division 2 in football and hurling, are hugely demanding and warrant serious remuneration. It’s tough for the tens of thousands of us who volunteer at local level to sympathise with county managers getting paid big money, but imagine being in that role for a moment. 

Croke Park on All-Ireland final day. Laszlo Geczo / INPHO Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO

You have 30-plus players under your care, all with lives of their own; jobs, studies, real world problems. You have to be available to them when they need you. On the sporting side, they dream of playing on the team you run, and they always have done. You have to shatter the dreams of more players than you please. 

You’ll have a large and expanding backroom team of intelligent, qualified people who need to be managed in a humane and competent way. 

Then there’s managing up. The county board has had to find all this money for you and the burgeoning ticket, plus the attendant preparation expenses of the team. Now they want results. They need the thrill of victory, or at least enough supporters coming through the stiles and sponsors happy to pay into the cause to keep the lights on. 

The supporters are an unforgiving bunch. There are a couple of thousand in most counties who are committed, who go to lots of games a year, home and away. Their mood for the first half of a week and beyond can pivot on your team’s performance. Disappoint them and you will know about it. 

Then you have the media, journalists and former players analysing your tactics and identifying shortcomings. Their organisations’ survival depends on their ability to get this criticism disseminated as far and quickly as possible. 

It’s unsurprising most managerial stints don’t go beyond the typical two-year term. In the implausible event that I was ever offered one of these jobs, I’d not want it. Not even for double whatever the best-paid manager now gets. 

If top-level county management is not a six-figure-salary job, then I’m not sure what is. There are CEO roles with less stress and public accountability. There are any number of people in offices all over our bigger cities on six figures for way less hassle. Perhaps they do jobs that generate a level of money that makes such payment justifiable, but that’s not always the case.

Regardless of what players say, albeit in a multi-choice survey that most probably filled out quickly, managers will likely be paid on the books soon. Once Revenue, who have had their fill of the way things have gone until now, begin to exert their will, then the GAA world will have to fall into line.

The great consequence of formalised payments to managers will be an awakening of something in players. How long will they be content to keep going as unpaid, beyond the government grant? There is a word for the combination of paid management and free labour in most walks of life, and it is not volunteerism. 

Nor can players continue to be deemed hobbyists when their boss is paid and there is a commercial edifice around their activities. Hurling and football may well be hobbies, but at the top level, they are far more than that.

To compare, is anyone going to chase you up if you don’t play golf for a couple of months? Is anybody shelling out €25 to watch you play five-a-side? Would they travel and pay to watch you strum the guitar? Likely no, but if yes, then you’d probably want a bit of that money. 

At this stage, you could well be asking is this here column going anywhere? The answer, I’m afraid, is no. I don’t have a workable solution. If someone does then I’ve yet to see it. So we muddle along as we are now; persevere with the situation where we know there are any number of anomalies to it all, but we continue to suspend our disbelief and maintain the Irish solution to the Irish problem. 

Should county GAA go semi-professional, then you’re into employment law and people can work wherever they please. It could evolve into something like the League of Ireland, which I love, but is not in keeping with GAA culture as we understand it to be, with a handful of bigger teams and the talent gravitating there. 

Those with the most supporters or richest benefactors would recruit the best players, leaving others behind. How enthusiastic would supporters of smaller counties be of teams made of imports, while their brightest prospects become exports? The game is rigged against them now, and that could accelerate further. 

That said, perhaps some players would like to play at a level their talent warrants, and some smaller counties could recruit wisely and make more progress than they ever could now in a system where their demographics hold them down. Ultimately, this is speculation. The unintended consequences are usually less predictable and more profound. 

So there’s probably no great appetite to change things among those in the wider GAA world. But if a generation were to come along and say they weren’t happy with being unpaid players in an increasingly commercialised game, then it would be tough to argue with them. 

Some 58% of Sam Maguire footballers are content with amateur status, according to the GPA. So there’s getting on towards half who are not entirely pleased with things as they stand today. And when you consider also that the taxman cometh for manager payments you get the feeling we’re moving beyond tipping point.