THE AMATEUR FILLING an 82,000-capacity stadium before returning to the day job on Monday morning has long been a source of pride among GAA people.
But how long will players be content to train as professionals and generate tens of millions in gate receipts and commercial revenue and go unpaid – while all around them are earning money?
This was the question address by Gavin Cooney and Sinead O’Carroll on this week’s 42FM podcast.
Limerick hurler Tom Morrissey wrote in the Irish Times at the weekend that everybody on All-Ireland final days, he says, from management teams to media to food vendors and security staff are professional. But the main actors are doing it for nothing but the honour of representing their county and a modest grant payment.
Morrissey cites a recent GPA-commissioned report which claims intercounty players generate €591 million annually for the economy and support more than 4,000 jobs but are out-of-pocket by an average of €4,500 each year.
The players union says this issue must be addressed urgently – which effectively means that the taxpayer has to make up the shortfall through grants and tax breaks.
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Is this fair to the exchequer, or should the GAA use their revenue to compensate players? But if that happens are we in a world of open professionalism, as opposed to the more covert kind which has existed for decades?
Cooney and O’Carroll get into the details of the matter and try to work out the best Irish solution for this most Irish of problems.
Cooney wonders if the GPA has gone full Flann O’Brien in their request for more money to preserve their amateur status.
“I’m sympathetic to them,” he says. “If everyone is being paid here, these are the guys that are actually serving the show here. There’s no point being pious about this any more. Like, the amateur status thing is already dead, it’s really an aspiration now. It’s not an actual fact.”
He adds: “But then when I read their complaints that we shouldn’t be worse off every year for doing this . . . it’s meant to be a hobby and everyone is worse off because of their hobby. A lot of people would say, ‘I go to work so I can afford to pay for my hobby’ so even the way in which they are framing it is, ‘we’re protecting the amateur status but we shouldn’t be out of pocket for this amateur activity’, I even think that’s a bit disingenuous to be honest.”
Sinéad fears a Pandora’s Box if payments to players are regularised and argues that all-powerful county managers making unsustainable demands on amateur players need to be brought into line.
Also, in the name of economic impact reports – of the which the GPA is the latest purveyor – Gav calculates the considerable value to the Irish economy of this podcast.
This week’s episode of The 42FM is brought to you by An Post Money.
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‘There’s no point being pious about this any more. Amateur status is already dead’
THE AMATEUR FILLING an 82,000-capacity stadium before returning to the day job on Monday morning has long been a source of pride among GAA people.
But how long will players be content to train as professionals and generate tens of millions in gate receipts and commercial revenue and go unpaid – while all around them are earning money?
This was the question address by Gavin Cooney and Sinead O’Carroll on this week’s 42FM podcast.
Limerick hurler Tom Morrissey wrote in the Irish Times at the weekend that everybody on All-Ireland final days, he says, from management teams to media to food vendors and security staff are professional. But the main actors are doing it for nothing but the honour of representing their county and a modest grant payment.
Morrissey cites a recent GPA-commissioned report which claims intercounty players generate €591 million annually for the economy and support more than 4,000 jobs but are out-of-pocket by an average of €4,500 each year.
The players union says this issue must be addressed urgently – which effectively means that the taxpayer has to make up the shortfall through grants and tax breaks.
Is this fair to the exchequer, or should the GAA use their revenue to compensate players? But if that happens are we in a world of open professionalism, as opposed to the more covert kind which has existed for decades?
Cooney and O’Carroll get into the details of the matter and try to work out the best Irish solution for this most Irish of problems.
Cooney wonders if the GPA has gone full Flann O’Brien in their request for more money to preserve their amateur status.
“I’m sympathetic to them,” he says. “If everyone is being paid here, these are the guys that are actually serving the show here. There’s no point being pious about this any more. Like, the amateur status thing is already dead, it’s really an aspiration now. It’s not an actual fact.”
He adds: “But then when I read their complaints that we shouldn’t be worse off every year for doing this . . . it’s meant to be a hobby and everyone is worse off because of their hobby. A lot of people would say, ‘I go to work so I can afford to pay for my hobby’ so even the way in which they are framing it is, ‘we’re protecting the amateur status but we shouldn’t be out of pocket for this amateur activity’, I even think that’s a bit disingenuous to be honest.”
Sinéad fears a Pandora’s Box if payments to players are regularised and argues that all-powerful county managers making unsustainable demands on amateur players need to be brought into line.
Also, in the name of economic impact reports – of the which the GPA is the latest purveyor – Gav calculates the considerable value to the Irish economy of this podcast.
This week’s episode of The 42FM is brought to you by An Post Money.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Podcast sponsored by an post money