LONG-serving Dublin camog Ali Twomey hopes the recent merger of the GPA and the WGPA will bring results in terms of levelling the playing field.
Revealing that she is regularly out around €100 a month to pay toll charges going to and from training alone, the Lucan Sarsfields player says that “girls are starting to put their foot down” over issues of equality.
While the effects of the merger between the player representative bodies are unlikely to be felt quite yet, Twomey hopes that they will bring an improvement in the situation for women’s sport.
“I can’t say it’s great, to be honest. Still we don’t get any expenses for going to training. We don’t always get food after training.
“We got gear last year but before that, but the year before I don’t think we got much.
“What you see the lads getting and what we get, there is still a huge difference.
“Girls are starting to put their foot down. In terms of expenses, I’ve been paying €90 - €100 a month in tolls just to go training, before Covid.
“That’s without petrol or buying food for meal prep or all the other expenses that go with it. It is a very expensive hobby, and when you compare it to the lads, it is very disheartening.
“I think there’s a lot that needs to be done in terms of levelling things in that respect. Hopefully things will pick up in the coming years.”
While male GAA players are given individual expenses, the camogie grants – which are considerably smaller – are given to the teams to then be passed on to players.
That is one issue Twomey hopes the new players’ body can rectify, and admits that looking over the fence at their male counterparts can have a demoralising effect.
“To be honest, as time goes on, it is tough to stay motivated. Obviously you do get times where you’re low on motivation, or you get years where you say, ‘Oh, I can’t go back, it’s too much commitment.’
“But, at the end of the day, you just love the sport; you want to play; and that’s what always brings me back, that I just absolutely love playing and it’s all I want to do.
“It is hard to keep motivated, to keep really upbeat about the situation when you do see what the lads are getting compared to what we’re getting. But that’s kind of out of our hands, as such.
“It’s something that … higher up something needs to be done, there needs to be more respect for what we do as players and as people. I think that’s something that is up to higher up to sort out – it’s not really in our hands.
“Hopefully that the merged WGPA and GPA would [pursue the issue over grants being paid to teams rather than individuals] … as you can imagine that is a kick in the teeth for us as players, just knowing that the lads are getting grants for themselves.
“Yeah, it’s 2021, I just don’t think there’s really time for any kind of gender imbalance anymore. That’s something that really needs to be sorted.”
