Back in the 1980s when the Labour Party – topically or not – used to agonise over participating in government, yet another meeting was scheduled.
When told that Michael D Higgins, now President of Ireland but then a TD, could not attend because he was attending an international conference (as befits likely apocrypha, the subject of the conference varies), the late Frank Cluskey TD, growled: “Typical. Faced with either saving the Labour Party or saving the world, he takes the easy option.”
The GAA is now well down the road of potentially sorting out football. Hardly an easy option and maybe opinions will differ in a year’s time if the rule changes don’t work but at the moment there is mounting optimism that the game can be pulled out of its aesthetic tailspin.
Not that this is purely a matter of aesthetics. The precipitous drop in attendances, primarily but not exclusively in Leinster, and the difficulty even All-Ireland semi-finals now have in filling Croke Park illustrates one of the feedback points gathered by the Football Review Committee: non-partisan interest in most of the football championship is vanishing.
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Yet it will occur to the interested bystander that other, and potentially just as intractable, problems remain on the table.
In the last week or so, there have been disclosures about another issue, the tax status and compliance of county boards. Tuesday’s meeting with county officers to discuss the matter is a reflection of the anxieties caused by the Revenue’s examination of various counties’ books and the scope of its trawl through expenses and expenditure.
GAA director general Tom Ryan’s comments on Monday that there are “a small number of counties” about which the Inspector of Taxes had raised concerns, sounded optimistic if only because the move looks like a paradigm shift by the authorities that will ask similar questions on a more widespread basis.
His further statement that Croke Park will be dealing with Revenue as well ascounties in need of advice is important, as there needs to be certainty in the future as to what is expected of GAA units. Already, a detailed instruction has gone out from Croke Park, laying down practices and protocols that will be expected in all records and accounts.
Better late than never.
From what has emerged of Revenue’s dealings with county boards, the issue goes beyond players’ expenses and into all kinds of casual tasks for which payment may have changed hands.
It has been speculated that the kite GAA president Jarlath Burns recently flew on the possibility of formalising contractually the role of intercounty managers, may have been partly pitched at tax compliance – whatever about the association’s Rule 1.8: “A player, team, official or member shall not accept payment in cash or in kind in conjunction with the playing of Gaelic Games”.
On the same day in February that he appointed Jim Gavin to chair the FRC, the incoming president also announced that Derry academic David Hassan would chair the latest Amateur Status committee.
If rescuing football was a daunting task, the periodic re-examination of amateurism is every bit as penitential. Guidelines have changed down the years with creeping permissiveness towards individual endorsements and commercial engagement by players, originally greenlighted by the current committee’s 1997 predecessor.
This year’s attempt to update thinking on the principle appeared to have been partly inspired by anxieties about the sustainability of the amounts being spent on intercounty teams, a trend that shows no sign of abating.
In his comments after February’s congress Burns embraced a couple of possibilities. One was borrowed from soccer and the licensing system, effectively punishing counties for overspending.
“I think one of the things we have to do in terms of governance, audit and risk [is that] we should have a certain amount of governance principles which you adhere to within your county in terms of your accounting and modus operandi before you can get a licence to compete.”
In response to the old conundrum of tracing cash and undocumented contributions, he refused to accept that the battle was lost, describing that attitude as “a counsel of despair” before elaborating.
“I am not going to adhere to the ‘we couldn’t even find the table’ [1997 committee chair Peter Quinn’s famous comment on under-the table payments]. The table is a lot easier to find now, the world has changed significantly ... we are now cashless in most of our county grounds and most of our ticketing.”
Back in 2001 when then president Seán McCague appointed a subcommittee to look into unauthorised payments to managers, I asked the Revenue Commissioners, who – unlike the GAA – had the power to investigate bank accounts, had they any concerns about this issue. They hadn’t.
“There wouldn’t be a particular interest in the work of this committee,” was Revenue’s reaction. “There is general interest in everyone declaring earnings and paying their correct taxes, but as yet this area is not being targeted.”
That laissez-faire attitude appears to be over.
Even so, within the Association there is probably consensus that the biggest challenge on the horizon is integration. If ever a project required attention to logistical detail and deadline-driven implementation, it is the task of delivering a functioning Association for men and women by 2027, the last year of Burns’s presidency.
The steering group on integration is chaired by former president Mary McAleese and is working towards a set of proposals but the practical detail is quite overwhelming and few are confident that the process will be complete in what is little more than two years’ time.
The current rate of change within the GAA is unparalleled since the turn of the 20th century. The old Bette Davis quip is appropriate: “Fasten your seat belts; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
