A former Donegal great insists the time has come for the GAA to consider paying its players.
All-Ireland 1992 winner Manus Boyle made the call as Donegal prepare to make the long trip to Killarney to play Kerry in their rearranged Allianz Football League match and slammed the condensed season saying it was putting an impossible strain on amateur players.
“How many people did not decide to go and speak to former players on what it meant to be a county player, a club player, having a job and most of all having a life?” Boyle asked.
“No player is getting paid, and it is a past-time but one that has become a full-time past time.”
“You can’t have amateur footballers playing at the level they are being asked to play and holding down jobs and a life.
“Nobody gets a pension out of this, nobody gets a lucrative number out of this and yet we are asking them to do twice as much in three or four months less time.
“That is just crazy.”
Boyle added: “I think it is coming to the stage where somebody is going to say: ‘We are going to have to pay these lads.’
“It has to happen and is that the road the GAA can afford to go down and is our tradition and values and culture going?
“Those are the questions I would be asking those in authority if was in such a position.
“I have no problem with players being paid and I think the same amount of expenses should be paid to the players as is paid to all others who are involved with county teams.
Boyle believes that an increase in the amount of games but a reduction in the amount of time given to complete them has led to these increased workload and questioned what these all means for player welfare.
“Our competitions used to take ten months to play,” he said.
“We started in November and finished in September.
“But now we have more games, we have doubled the amount, of games in the Championship.
“Now we are asking players to play in a confinement of seven months from the end of January to the end of July.
“We have taken three competitions, NFL, provincial championship and All-Ireland championship with less games over ten to eleven months and now we have sandwiched them into seven months.”
Boyle asked: “Can anybody tell me how that makes sense and tell me that is player welfare, and these players are expected to come back after a gruelling seven months, and they are expected to go into their club championship straight away?
“I would like to know what logic or science did those who made that decision use.?
“What were the main points of that decision that this was a good idea.
“As a former player and someone who coaches young players, all I see is an array of injuries and an array of young men walking away from the game.”
Many Donegal supporters and manager Jim McGuinness himself will have been interested onlookers when Kerry travelled to Derry last Sunday and defeated Paddy Tally’s side in Celtic Park with three late goals and Boyle feels they will fancy adding another north-west scalp in Fitzgerald Stadium.
“Donegal and Kerry have some good two-point kickers so it could be a high scoring game,” he said.
“They got past Derry without the Cliffords and Paul Geaney made a great impression when he was introduced from the bench.
“It depends what Kerry team Jack O’Connor puts out and what team Jim McGuinness decides to put out.
“Both teams have two points and a few wins at home would see them safe and I don’t think either of them will want to be in a League final.
“Jim McGuinness will want to take a look at Patrick McBrearty and Michael Murphy will make an appearance, but it may be well sooner rather than later. and he has a big squad, and he will want to keep them onside.
“But they will want to get some game time into Murphy’s legs so that he is ready for the Championship.”