LAST week a group of journalists were invited to a zoom meeting to listen to the Gaelic Players Association’s annual report.
Sitting in virtual rooms on-screen we all got time to ask questions about the GPA’s annual report and why the players body has an image problem.
Among the GPA’s high-ranking staff were Paul Flynn, Seamus Hickey, Tom Parsons and Ciaran Barr.
They are four impressive individuals.
Up until last Wednesday, I’d read more press releases attributed to Paul Flynn than actual interviews.
So it was good to get the chance to ask the former Dublin footballer why the GPA continues to struggle to get their message across.
It’s probably more of a failing on my part that I didn’t know Paul Flynn was a plumber who worked on building sites around the capital.
“One of the key reasons why I took on this role is because I’m very, very proud to be an inter-county player, I’m very, very proud to be a member of the GPA and understood deeply how it assisted me to find that balance,” Flynn explained.
“To give you a bit of background, when I started off inter-county I was working on sites plumbing and trying to find a way in life and the GPA was there for me right from the start of my career on the pitch and it took me to places where I never believed I could go.
“Players understand that and that’s why we get phenomenal responses and phenomenal engagement in programmes. Unfortunately, that isn’t fully understood by everybody. I still don’t believe that people understand what our three pillars are: player representation, player welfare and player development.
“That’s why we’re taking you all through our annual report; that’s why we’re keen for you all to understand what exactly it is the GPA is here to do.”
Flynn spoke with passion and you can understand why he is an evangelical supporter of the GPA. The players body has helped give him a better life.
On the zoom call Tom Parsons, the big Mayo midfielder and GPA secretary, bemoaned the fact that the media don’t shine enough light on the good work the players body does.
Parsons has a point. There aren’t enough “good news stories” but the GPA must also acknowledge that its PR strategy is partly to blame for this.
In fairness, the GPA will probably be fighting a losing battle for a long time because of the vast sums of money they receive.
Through all their good work, the education, career and counselling services and rookie camps, it’s drowned out by the 15 per cent commercial revenue they receive from the GAA and €742,367 that goes to GPA staff wages, as well as the fundraising numbers they pull in from America.
Let’s be clear: the GPA is an essential cog in the Association’s wheel.
The GAA’s previous in-house attempts at managing player welfare were probably always destined to be handed over to the players themselves. A players union is absolutely essential - just like other trade unions.
No matter how much they improve their messaging, the GPA can’t get away from the fact that they are over-funded.
The GPA had a turnover of €7.5m in 2019.
Eighty-one percent of the GPA’s income was ploughed into player development and player welfare programmes.
But when you juxtapose, say, the ‘Gaelfast’ project – or, indeed, other ambitious coaching initiatives in other parts of the country – and their struggle to secure more modest funding [pre-pandemic], it shines an unforgiving light on the GPA funding.
For instance, are the GPA ‘rookie’ or indeed ‘transition’ camps really worth the money?
If the GAA can afford giving 15 per cent of its commercial revenue to the GPA, then fine. But it can’t.
Even before Covid19 hit these shores, it was becoming abundantly clear that the Association could not sustain the financial arrangement it had brokered.
The €6.9m three-year deal, signed in 2016 and now up for renewal, was having a draining effect, especially with capital projects stalling at either end of the country and rural counties crying out for investment.
Everyone has their hand out in the GAA. Some hands are more worthy than others.
Given the financial contractions and, in some cases, complete loss of revenue streams brought about by the pandemic, everyone is on the back foot.
Naturally, the GPA is on the back foot.
It is unlikely the players body will be able to command anything like the funding they have commanded in the past as full-time coaches and other admin staff around the country lose their jobs.
Flynn acknowledged that the GPA’s funding would be affected in the “short-term” but was more optimistic about the longer term.
In their annual report, the GPA made the right noises and passed motions on addressing the amount of time inter-county players spend on their sport and will lobby for a closed season.
But the pandemic is likely to tend to these things better than the GAA or the GPA ever could. Spending will become more fiscal and streamlined while the pandemic is also telling us about the value of having two distinct club and county seasons.
There is absolutely no need for an inter-county season to be crudely stretching from January through to August or September.
And if the inter-county season can be significantly shortened, as it should be, there is a good chance that a lot of the services the GPA currently provides will not be needed as there is more chance that inter-county players will have more balance in their sporting and professional lives.
