'Of One Belief' calls for GAA U-turn on paid status of presidents
Tuesday November 24 2009
The founding member of 'Of One Belief', the predominantly Ulster-based lobby group formed to oppose the payment of grants to the GAA's inter-county players two years ago, has called on the Association to revert to having voluntary GAA presidents.
Mark Conway, who hit out at the formal recognition by the GAA of the Gaelic Players Association over the weekend, has also called on the pay of the director general to be made public in the interests of "good corporate governance".
Conway issued a 1400-word statement on behalf of 'Of One Belief' yesterday criticising the deal that offers the GPA some €1.6m of GAA money towards player welfare initiatives until the end of 2010.
The deal brings closure to an often acrimonious 10-year relationship between the players' body and Croke Park.
Negotiations
But Conway, who claims his "grassroots" organisation has 1100 signatories as a result of their mobilisation two years ago, said yesterday that the GAA had caved in and that the GPA had won "hands down". He made his call for future presidents to revert to voluntary status after criticising the need for a senior counsel to oversee the negotiations.
Since the presidency of Sean McCague, which commenced in 2000, the GAA has undertaken to pay the salary that the office holder leaves behind to take on the role. It was revealed earlier this year that the current president, Christy Cooney, will be paid up to €450,000 for the three years that he will be in office as part of that arrangement.
Conway revealed that his own club, Kildress in Tyrone, would be submitting a motion to County Convention calling for the salary and pension entitlements of the director general to be made known in the audited accounts presented to Congress.
"I make this call in the interests of good corporate governance. I know what my local council officials are paid and my local health officials, why not the best-paid executives in my sports organisation?" Conway asked yesterday.
"We badly need volunteer leadership again," he wrote in his latest 'Of One Belief' missive.
"And we need to start publishing openly the salaries we pay our top people. Because the growing suspicion on the ground is that we're not getting value for them."
On the appointment of a barrister, Turlough O'Donnell SC, to oversee the process, Conway was equally critical.
"The GAA has a full-time paid president and a full-time paid director general. Why then was the role of 'facilitating' this secret process handed over to an outside barrister?
"We had the same disastrous abdication of leadership responsibilities in the first Cork coup d'etat (that coup of course has since been followed by six more in the following 18 months). Is this now the accepted way of doing business at the highest levels of the GAA? And, if it is, just what is it that we pay our leaders to do? It seems leadership is the last thing we can expect."
Conway claims the GPA has "won its war hands down. And it's won it without conceding anything".
- Colm Keys
Irish Independent
