The football review committee led by Jim Gavin and the amateur status committee, under the guidance of Professor David Hassan, share similar concerns regarding payment to managers. This perspective is shared by Tim Healy, a member of the previous FRC, chaired by the late Eugene McGee and an author with a distinguished academic background in football management. Healy, who holds an MBA from UCD’s Smurfit Business School and collaborates with the university’s football team, suggests a shift in how the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) addresses this issue.
Healy believes that the focus should not be only on the intercounty game, stating that it costs the GAA between one and two million euros in management and team expenses. These outlayings provide no return to the GAA. As for the club level, Healy thinks the spending is closer to ten million euros, a figure he regards as severely understated.
He argues that this is not just about the wasting of resources but the outside influence on the game’s play style due to the manager’s priorities. Managers, with hefty pay packets, try to ensure the team is difficult to beat for job security. As a result, there’s a push to make club level football less appealing.
Healy alerts to the comfort witnessed with this level of resource leakage, a scenario he believes would be unacceptable in any other institution.
A unique concern poses external managers prioritising their own positions. There’s a real example of a club that invested almost €30,000 annually on an external manager for two years, with the only visible alteration being a reduction of nearly 60 grand.
For a long time, the perspective of outside managerial appointments as a breach into amateurism is not a novel concept. The former GAA president, Peter Quinn, led two committees; the amateur status committee in 1997 and the strategic review committee five years later. He stated that they were close to prohibiting outside managers but refrained, as it seemed unjust to less triumphant units that didn’t have access to such expertise.
While Healy concurs with this reasoning, eliminating outside appointments isn’t his aim. He suggests, rather than banning them, applying a charge of about €20,000 per intercounty appointment and applicable charges at club level. This would prompt administrators to reconsider such appointments carefully. The collected funds would be allocated for managers’ educational programmes, partnered with tertiary institutions.
A striking observation is that the GAA traditionally never invested in training its managers. The good ones usually rise to the challenge by luck. Enforcing rules on income compliance for incoming managers is a possible way forward. However, exemptions for less dominant counties or clubs may be necessary, who could significantly profit from these management training programmes.
Healy notes a rising trend in professional football that might offer some help. In the Premier League, instead of hiring an entire management team, managers are being hired as ‘head coaches’ to work with the existing frameworks. He envisions these individuals being appointed in the GAA system too, replacing the need for an extensive team.
Healy succinctly encapsulates the central paradox the two committees are equipped to handle.
The GAA, a community-rooted, non-professional association, is willing to accommodate this sector whilst taking the initiative to form a committee aimed at boosting the appeal of football. Yet it turns a blind eye to key contributors that have turned the sport less appealing.