The impending formation of a Gaelic Players Association (GPA), announced in Belfast on Wednesday night last, may well represent a watershed in the affairs of the GAA.

On first observation it will not, however, represent much of a change in the basic structure of the GAA. The GPA seems, already, to have accepted that fact. There will be no radical demands on the GAA, the spokesman for the nascent GPA, Donal O'Neill, told the very pleasant gathering in the Wellington Park Hotel in Belfast on Wednesday night.

It is, however, a first step on a very tortuous road. Much more thought has to be put into the development if any significant change is to be made to the future shape of the world of Gaelic games.

The very basic concerns of the new association seem to be based in matters involved with money. Insurance is certainly on the top of the agenda and that is, surely, a legitimate concern.

So also is the question of travel and meal allowances. There are many instances of players at the highest level who work considerable distances from their clubs and counties who are getting a pittance to compensate them for their devotion to club and county.

Last Wednesday night's press conference generated more questions than were answered. Some focus now needs to be applied if the GPA is to be accepted as an influential part of the GAA.

There was, sadly, no suggestion at all of a demand for a seat on the Central Council of the GAA or a demand for the GPA to be heard at annual Congress. If the association is ever going to gain any clout within the body politic of the GAA these matters will need to be on top of their agenda. By their very nature press conferences tend to conceal rather than reveal. Those who ask the questions know that the really important issues will only be teased out in direct contact with the people handling the press conference and that the people who have the answers will always fudge the issue as much as they can.

Getting a real insight into what is going on takes a lot of time and patience. That was the situation in Belfast last Wednesday night.

It was an important night for the GAA. This writer has been an observer for more years than he cares to remember but while he noted some cynicism, the atmosphere was generally positive and this was impressive.

Questions still to be answered include those about the focus of the organisation, at present set firmly in Ulster, with some peripheral interest the other provinces. One can only speculate as to how some 130 players from the Ulster counties brought the matter thus far, without, as far as can be gleaned, any attempt to spread the Ulster Gospel on a wider plain.

The decision to announce the launch of the GPA in Belfast at a time when Cork hurlers and footballers are otherwise occupied seems, not to put too fine a point on it, rather odd.

Little information, even in informal discussion after the press conference itself, was available as to when and where the GPA will be officially promulgated and what format will be used. It will be interesting to know what attitude the new body will take to Rule 21, which forbids membership of the GAA to members of the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabularly, and whatever succeeds it.

Another matter which should, and must, be addressed, by the new body is the question of tickets and how they are distributed.

The GPA, when it becomes fully operative, has a potential to revolutionise the GAA as we know it. Nevertheless caution must be the guide of both the GAA and the GPA.

Reference was made at the press conference about the conservatism of the GAA. This column has been beating that drum for some considerable time, but one should not be deafened to the fact that progress has been made and that new and fresh voices have been heard in recent years.

What is needed now is for a "hands on" relationship to be established between the GAA and the GPA. It behoves both bodies to be co-operative and helpful to each other. What is not needed is an aggressive attitude by either side. The GAA is charged with the overall organisation and health of the games as a whole from the ground up. The GPA appears to be confined to a limited agenda which has the interests of the prominent players only at heart. There need not be any real conflict between the two.

What must be insisted upon is that both sides understand that they have many issues in common. The players' association must accept that the GAA must take a much wider view of the situation.

The bases of the GAA are the parish and the club; whatever is needed to protect those bases must be provided before any minority group can usurp that sacred trust.

We live in changing times and the GAA has made tremendous strides in recent years. It is vitally important that all elements are aware of the dragons out there who lurk under the cloak of the belief that paying players to play is the solution to the problems, whatever they be.

A clear indication from the GAA itself and from the new Gaelic Players Association that any form of payment for playing the games must be ruled out as soon as possible and that players at all levels are entitled to proper protection insofar as injury and loss of income is addressed in a fair and equitable way.

If not we are going down a dark and dangerous road.