OF ONE Belief, the group opposed to the Government awards for intercounty players, has lost its case against the scheme at the Disputes Resolution Authority.

The GAA's independent arbitration body delivered its long-awaited decision last night and it clears the way for the Central Council motion to Saturday's annual Congress, declaring the scheme is in keeping with Rule 11 of the Official Guide, governing amateur status, to be debated.

In the light of the DRA decision, the motion will require only a simple majority.

The DRA vindicated the rights of the claimants to bring their case to arbitration but refused both remedies sought: firstly, that Central Council rescind its decision of 15th March to approve the final draft of the awards scheme and, secondly, that the motion for congress be ruled out of order.

The view was taken that Central Council is entitled to get the views of congress on a matter of this nature and that its intention isn't to enshrine the scheme in the rule book but simply to accept it as being compatible with Rule 11.

Laying some emphasis on Central Council's framing of the scheme as the reimbursement of vouched expenses the DRA considered Of One Belief's argument the scheme wasn't based on expenses as properly understood because it placed requirements on players.

That was rejected in the following terms: "To attach conditions to an expenses scheme might represent a change from the position currently obtaining, but it is difficult to say that it is a change in the direction of playing for reward, in breach of Rule 11."

In relation to the argument that the scheme, which provides higher payments for players whose counties attain different levels of success, is discriminatory, the arbitration panel found there was nothing in the Official Guide to prevent this: ". . . it would seem that equality of treatment, while an important part of the ethos of the Association, is more of a policy than a rule".

On the matter of EU law, which had been advanced as holding the awards scheme would turn the playing of Gaelic games into an economic activity, the tribunal had this to say about the case of Deliège v Ligue Francophone de Judo ASBL, in the European Court of Justice: ". . . ultimately, the Court did not deal with the question whether Ms Deliège was engaged in economic activity, preferring to leave it to the national court in Belgium to decide. We cannot see that there is anything in the judgment to suggest that payments received by an athlete pursuant to a tightly controlled scheme based on vouched expenses as is under consideration here would give rise to a finding that economic activity was proposed.

"Moreover, insofar as a test of economic activity was pronounced, it was clearly influenced by an external factor - the policy of the European Union in favour of enforcing the freedoms of its Treaties - which does not apply here. On the evidence and authorities examined, we do not think that 'economic activity' as defined in European Union law is an appropriate measure of what is or is not amateur within the meaning of Rule 11."

In summary the decision concluded: "The schemes may be a very good idea, and they may be a very bad one. That is not the question that is appropriate for any tribunal of the DRA to answer, and it is not before us in this arbitration. We are solely concerned with one question: whether the implementation of the scheme in this form of itself generates a breach of Rule 11. Our answer to that is that it does not." Costs have yet to be awarded.

The DRC, which heard the case, comprised former GAA president Mick Loftus, Damien Maguire and chairman Micheál O'Connell.