When is enough, enough ?

Hello all im returning for the new season, hopefully it should be a good one!

This week there has been a discussion on the amount of training inter county teams are undertaking, during the week the Independent ran an article interviewing a sports psychologist, he stated ‘’GAA players will walk away if training becomes too intense’’.

So with some of our best players getting on in years, family commitments will start to kick in. Can 4 -5 per week training sessions really continue. Some of the biggest names in hurling have called it quits since the end of the 2010 championship, including : PJ Ryan, Ollie Canning, Ken McGrath, Cha Fitzpatrick, Martin Comerford, Eoin Kelly, Eddie Brennan, Dan Shanahan and Lar Corbett. Although some of these players were getting near quitting time already, how many left because of growing pressure and commitments with county teams.

What started off as an amateur sport, has turned into a serious training regime, and a drive for success, where players will do anything to increase their chances of winning an all-Ireland medal.

Has GAA gone too far for an amateur sport or is all ok ?

Ah Dan, start the season with an easier one!!

Players are proud of the amateur ethos and equally proud of how much they put in. They'd be more likely to walk away if less demands were placed on them.

Throw in John Tennyson of Kilkenny for taking time out this year at the age of 26.

Read those articles in the times and independent. In fairness, the authors are only tippping around the edge. Take Lar Corbett and others in his situation. It seems that he is managing a pub now full-time and has to attend three gym session every week in the evenings. Surely, these sessions could have been conducted in the daytime, giving him 3 evenings free and more time to rest and run his business. It's bad man management and it's not like he has to prove himself.

RebelBhoy wrote:Ah Dan, start the season with an easier one!!

Players are proud of the amateur ethos and equally proud of how much they put in. They'd be more likely to walk away if less demands were placed on them.

There was a Donegal footballer on Seo Spoirt during the week who said that he left the house at 8.30 a.m. and didn't return home until 12.30 a.m. This guy is a teacher, thus having shorter working hours than most and yet he was expected to put in those hours. He was also married with kids. He is now retired. I don't agree Rebel, and unless something gives, in another decade, players will be retiring at 25.

http://www.sportpulse.net/content/full-time-amateur-life-gaa-player-2847

I'm intewrested to hear all thoughts and feedback on the article either here or on sportpulse. (you don't have to register to comment)

So anyone any thoughts, or anything?

Sorry Thomond, I've the attention span of a bug.

Anyway, any organization that makes €68 million profit can afford to play the inter-county players. Before anyone say that this money is put back into grassroots, it isn't. It goes to the CBs to be dispersed as they seem fit. In can be invested like Galway in property and then proceed to lose 2 1/2 million, with no accountability.

Any organization that can pay its president a couple of hundred grand a year, and all the others it employs, accepts sponsorship money, builds a stadium with corporate boxes for leasing, loses all rights to claim its organisation as a voluntary one.

As for the GPA, once it accepted €10 from the GAA it neutered itself and is in no position to represent the best interests of the players. How quiet has it been over the last couple of years. Fat lot of use it was in the Fermanagh dispute.

So, it's back to the players to represent themselves. A year without championship hurling and football would be a good starting point. It's time for players to take some of the power back from the faceless suits and look after their own interest.

The GAA made €68 without putting in too much of an effort. Imagine what kind of money properly funded professional leagues could generate. Some of the profits could then be filtered back to the clubs. It won't solve the unemployment problems of the club players but it will solve the employment problems of the inter-county players.

I think we would end up changing the format of hurling before this happened. Perhaps the football format could be changed too.

Perhaps the big counties Dublin and Cork could self finance their own county teams but it is unlikely the others could. The semi knock out nature of the current championship format is what draws the crowds during the summer months and usually only to the prestige games. Although a Champions league format maybe could be worth consideration only if the local deby element was maintained in the early rounds.
Ground improvements I believe have been significantly funded by Government funds both North and South .
It appears that the long established of Jobs being found for star county players can no longer be sustained in the current climate.

Agree with you Dan,
It's now a game for fellas aged 19-25 primarily........................

The jobs that used to mop up unemployed players are now closed to them, ie, banking and civil/public service. Our unemployment rate is going to remain very high for the next decade or so. The GAA believes itself to be invincible, in the sense that we have had recessions before, players have immigrated, but there was always new ones to come through and carry the games on. These were the days when players trained twice a week with their county and once a week with their club and never went anywhere near a gym. Current standards aren't going to drop so I'm not so sure the next generation of players can afford to be so generous with their time to get nothing in return. Afterall, only a handful of teams are capable of winning an All-Ireland in either code, so for most, the ultimate reward will be beyond them.

At the end of the day, if professional rugby can fund itself with only a handful of international games each year and relies on tv rights and on the 2 club competions, the GAA is in a much better position as it has far more support across the country. It could have dozens of packed stadiums each year, throw in tv rights and sponsorship and away they go. I'm not taking about paying players 100s of thousands per year. What's wrong with earning something like 40/50/60 thousand + per year to start with. It's an indigenous sport, there will no English/French clubs knocking on their doors and its a hell of a lot more that a teacher, soldier or garda will earn in their 20s and a hell of a lot more that those formely employed in construction. This is about pooling money, not every county looking after itself. Stop thinking about the way professional soccer/rugby is managed (or not managed), the GAA needs a completely different format that is inclusive of all counties. We need Cavan/Fermanagh as much as we need Kerry/Dublin or Tipp/Kilkenny.

It could be done, if professionalism wasn't such a dirty word.

Spot on Blue, the GAA has such an aversion to professionalism that the mere thought of it, sends them into a tizzy.

Thom, there seems to be two threads going at the moment. Could you merge them? Enough is Enough is the other similar one.

On the basis that we treat all Gods children the same in the perfect world of professionalism the sums don't add up. Based on the following assumptions
1. Every county player on a county team is paid (based on a twenty four man panel)
2. Every county team pays the same rate (assumed only £20k pa)
3. Both Hurling and football teams (assume 32x2=64 teams)
Cash required comes to £30.7 million per year.
Obviously if Blue minimum wage is in then the cost is doubled.

I am no great follower of professional rugby in Ireland but aren't only the provinces full time professional.

It seems to me that the GAA needs to change with the times, and with the way things are going, the top teams and their players will have to go pro. It's increasingly difficult for players to maintain a decent paying job, stay within their county and maintain their playing career all at the same time. Something has to give somewhere. If the GAA wants to continue, and retain its best players then it needs to look at going professional. Perhaps they have this fear that going professional will be as bad as English soccer where playing for your team seems to mean naff all and it's all about the business side of it rather than traditions of the sport? Going professional in sport doesn't have to go to that extreme. What the GAA could do for instance, is restrict movement of players so that they can't be bought/sold by wealthy clubs, but they still get paid for playing?

Liam Rushe of Duiblin was on TG4 during the week. This lad is in college studying full-time. He gets up some mornings at 4.45 a.m. (seriously) to go training. He actually said that he has a very light breakfast because of the possibility of throwing up on the training field. That's just crazy. Seems like the players aren't even gettiing enough sleep anymore.

I agree with Cari here, it's about finding the right balance between tradition and payment.

Cari wrote:It seems to me that the GAA needs to change with the times, and with the way things are going, the top teams and their players will have to go pro. It's increasingly difficult for players to maintain a decent paying job, stay within their county and maintain their playing career all at the same time. Something has to give somewhere. If the GAA wants to continue, and retain its best players then it needs to look at going professional. Perhaps they have this fear that going professional will be as bad as English soccer where playing for your team seems to mean naff all and it's all about the business side of it rather than traditions of the sport? Going professional in sport doesn't have to go to that extreme. What the GAA could do for instance, is restrict movement of players so that they can't be bought/sold by wealthy clubs, but they still get paid for playing?

I'm pretty sure that the above would be illegal if players were allowed go professional. Although the could possibly prevent contracts being bought and sold they could not stop any players moving from one county to another for financial gain - or any other reason.
Players should be reimbursed for the time they put in - indeed pay for play might work but full blown professionalism will struggle.