Farrell believes deal in sight

The long-running effort to secure Government funding for intercounty players is coming close to fruition, according to the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) chief executive Dessie Farrell.

The GPA last night met the GAA in their latest attempt to close a deal, although it's still not clear when or how any such funding will trickle down to the players.

Progress, however, has been significant in recent weeks. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, speaking at the GPA awards earlier this month, suggested that extra funding could be made available to the GAA, thus allowing other revenue to be diverted towards improving player welfare. And over the weekend, Minister for Sport John O'Donoghue confirmed the idea of the extra funding, reported to be in the region of €5 million, provided it went through the GAA.

"This is definitely the light at the end of the tunnel, in that I think we are finally coming close to fruition on this," said Farrell. "It's been a long and arduous campaign, going on four years now, but we just have to inch our way to the end of it now."

Farrell and GPA commercial manager Donal O'Neill met in Croke Park last night with GAA president Nickey Brennan, and director general Liam Mulvihill - but it wasn't "make or break", said Farrell, but rather an important update on where both the GPA and the GAA are.

"Both sides have sought clarification on exactly where we are at the moment," said Farrell. "There was a flurry of activity over the past couple of weeks, and it was important we got together to find out where it's all at.

"But essentially, what the Taoiseach said himself last Friday week was that the Government didn't want to be seen to be fudging on this, and that the money would be made available for players, on the basis that it frees up internal funding."

Farrell is also satisfied that the Government's proposition doesn't present a heavy compromise, given the GPA were initially looking for individual player's grants, set to average less than €2,000 per player per year, involving around 2,000 players, and therefore with an annual cost of around €3.6 million to the Exchequer.

"The bottom line in all of this was to get some sort of Government recognition for input and effort of the players, and this still achieves that. And I'd be very optimistic that it will work, and I have been very encouraged by the progress of recent weeks, even if it's come about now in a slightly convoluted way. And I'd be hopeful that the GAA can see that."

The question of how the extra funding would get to benefit the players is something Farrell is happy to address further down the line: "Well that's still all up for grabs, and obviously will involve further input once it gets approval from the GAA. The priority at the moment is getting the GAA to accept it, and then we can decide if the funds are distributed collectively or individually."

So far any agreement on a player grants scheme has run into obstacles, including the prospect of the funds needing to be distributed through the Irish Sports Council's high performance unit, who suggested at the time the GPA were over-simplifying the idea of such a grant, and that none of the necessary groundwork for their administration had even been considered.

There was also the problem of other amateur sporting bodies looking for similar grant support.

The GPA's original blueprint for the scheme appeared straight-forward, and involved three levels of grants (€2,500, €1,750 and €1,000), depending on the team's progress in the championship, or in hurling, the tier of championship in which the team is competing - but that idea looks set to be abandoned in favour of the more general player-funding scheme.

Farrell said several "other issues" were up for discussion last night, stemming from the GPA's egm in April, including the hostility of the GAA towards C&C's Club Energise brand, one of the GPA's main sponsors. "We feel that Pauric Duffy's appointment (as the GAA's player welfare officer) will look after a lot of those issues," said Farrell. "

Meanwhile, the GAA president will tomorrow announce the Vodafone GAA All Star football selection for 2006. The hurling selection will be announced "live" during Friday's television broadcast of the awards banquet.