GAA PRESIDENT LIAM O’Neill has hit back at pundit Joe Brolly, after he compared modern players to “indentured slaves” and suggested the sport was in need of considerable reform.
While praising Brolly as “articulate,” O’Neill believes his recent comments were “over the top”.
“I’ve said before that most of us like Joe Brolly. He’s a very engaging character, I think the man’s worth was proven by his generosity in organ donation. He’s a special sort of a character. He’s articulate — I’d love to be able to articulate the message he’s sending, he’s just a brilliant articulator.
“Of course, if you speak as much as Joe speaks you’re bound to make a mistake. Dare I say it, I’ve done it myself. The more you speak, the more chance you’re going to get in bother, that’s for sure, and Joe probably has gotten into bother. I don’t want to get into an argument but, yes, he was over the top with what he said.”
However, while emphasising that Brolly’s comments were excessive, the GAA President conceded that the remarks were not entirely without merit.
“Somewhere in every controversy like that, we have to look at it and say there’s no smoke without fire. There are things that need to be tweaked but you can’t do them all immediately.
“Saying it is one thing but doing it is another. I’ve always said that there are three stages in problem solving: problem identification, anyone can identify a problem; it takes a good person to identify a solution; it takes a great person to implement a solution, and Joe is stuck at stage one. We think we have addressed a lot of the concerns raised.”
O’Neill also promised that the GAA were working hard to implement the necessary changes, but stressed that only so much could be achieved in a limited amount of time.
“The interesting thing is that in the radio programmes where the criticism has been levelled at us at no stage have we been invited to give the response that I have just given to you today. Because we have done a significant amount of work and it does take time. The Hurling 2020 report took a lot of time, the minor review took a full 12 months and there was a consultation process halfway through and there were initial recommendations that centred on changing minor to U17 and the organisation just wasn’t ready for it.
“A decision was made to modify those proposals. That’s the way you deal with it. Change is implemented sometimes and sometimes you can only be an agent for change. People like me who are in a job for three years have to accept that you won’t deal with everything in a three-year period.
“I think we’ve addressed a fair amount of it and if something that we have recommended in any three of those reports needs to be modified or strengthened that’s what the next three years under Aogán is for. I think he’d be more than happy to do that.”
