National GAA ethos needs to reflect the essence of grassroots

OPINION

by Kevin Egan

In a year that has seen plenty of sporting highlights from an Offaly perspective, perhaps one of the most memorable and heartwarming of them for this reporter came about in a club U-7 soccer training session where I was, well, coaching is too grand a word, but just helping out as part of a collective effort to manage the joyful chaos.

Anyone who has ever been involved with teams of that age will know what that means. It’s hugely rewarding any day, but never more than for this shooting drill, where one boy with his own special challenges lined up to take a shot on another very talented player who was in goal for the exercise.

The shooter made the best contact he could manage, but the six-year-old in goal could still have put his hand out and pushed the ball away with ease if he wanted to. Instead he made a big theatrical dive over the ball, allowing it to roll between the posts, then congratulated the delighted goalscorer.

It was all the more beautiful because this was in just the second training session of the year, and it had never been said to any of the players that they might need to make certain allowances for their colleague. As it happened, it wasn’t necessary.

This anecdote served as the perfect intro to this week’s column because it was the perfect illustration that there is some aspects of human behaviour in sport that just come naturally – they don’t need to be said out loud, or at least, they don’t need to be said at the basic level of games where the vast majority of girls, boys, women and men operate.

Yet when it comes to the bigger picture, it feels like the things that are crystal clear to ordinary people get lost and the waters get muddied. A lot of the hotter topics for discussion in the GAA world in recent weeks have proven this, to the point that it feels like the basic parameters around which it is built and administrated have been forgotten.

“The primary purpose of the GAA is the organisation of native pastimes and the promotion of athletic fitness as a means to create a disciplined, self-reliant, national-minded manhood”.

At the very start of the GAA’s official guide, this section unequivocally states what we are all trying to do every time someone pulls on a jersey, picks up a whistle, sells a lotto ticket, lays out a cone, whitewashes a 20m line, or any of the thousand other things that volunteers in the association do every day of the week.

It seems very clear. The objective is to have a solid games structure and as close to universal participation as possible.

But can anyone honestly say that the current push to extend the intercounty season, or to have more and more games on TV, serves that aim? Absolutely, there is value to having regular games broadcast, but are there any family homes in Ireland that don’t already send their children down to their local pitch, who would be swayed by there being five games on TV over a weekend instead of four?

In contrast, how much additional value would be created by having more activity in our local clubs and greater presence for local stars?

In the same vein, some element of revenue generation is essential, but when revenue generation crosses over into squeezing the pips of hard-pressed families who try to go to games all year – and that’s certainly a legitimate accusation as we create more and more intercounty “championship” games while simultaneously raising the price – then are we really doing the right thing by these aims?

Amateur ethos – what does it mean?

This column has frequently touched on the issue of the eroding of amateurism in the GAA and the danger that poses, and it would be both naïve and unfair to suggest that tackling this monster head on would be simple, or even that there is an obvious starting point.

Where do we draw the line between getting paid for playing, and deriving an income from the status and influence that comes with being a star player? When it comes to gargantuan backroom teams, where is the line between, for example, medical professionals, who clearly should be paid for their time, and old-fashioned selectors, who should be no different to players? Identifying the two ends of the scale is easy, but where does a sports psychologist, or dietician fit in? What about a specialist sprint coach with an athletics background?

Moreover, what is realistic when it comes to policing these matters? The GAA is obviously not going to go down the road of demanding access to personal bank accounts, but a more transparent register of who is doing what for each team, allied to a public declaration on whether the work is completely voluntary, subject to expense/per diem payments, or paid, might be a positive step, particularly if it was accessible to tax officials and there were heavy sanctions for individuals and the county involved for making false declarations.

You can’t beat being there

As a tagline, it’s catchy, and it makes sense. But it’s getting harder to believe that the GAA lives up to this ethos. Without wishing to be repetitive, if there are wall-to-wall games broadcast on free-to-air TV over a weekend, where does that leave county board hoping to drum up crowds at club games, when there’s always the option of staying on the couch?

Without wishing to be repetitive (see what I did there!), why is every empty seat at a national league game, or any game really, not looked at through the lens of how someone could have been there, if they weren’t precluded by cost factors?

Are we doing all we can to ensure that those on reduced incomes can still be part of our association? At club level, the local registrar or treasurer is usually clued in enough to know who are the one or two players who should be exempt from the idea of no play until membership is paid, but at higher levels, it doesn’t always work that way. For example, there are some games and season tickets where over 65s get cheaper rates – but some over 65s are on excellent defined benefit pensions, the likes of which younger generations will never see, and some need to count every euro carefully.

Imagine a system where there is a senior citizen season ticket, but it’s on an honours system – pay as much as you feel you can afford, from €10 for the year up to full price. One it’s printed, no-one knows the difference. For every chancer, there will no doubt be 10 or 20 older people who will suddenly have a new social outlet.

This is a big weekend for the eight senior football quarter-finalists, not to mention the minor hurlers of Kilkenny and Tipperary, and it’s a pretty big one for a host of Féile footballers from Tullamore, St Rynagh’s and Gracefield too. But here in Offaly, it’s a brief respite before championship kicks off in earnest shortly. It’s as good a time as any to reflect on the type of people we are when working within our own clubs, and how that somehow isn’t quite making its way right up the food chain.