Martin Breheny: Ban outside managements to protect GAA’s amateur ethos

Director General Tom Ryan puts under-the-counter payments back on agenda

GAA Director General Tom Ryan didn’t shy away from the thorny issue of payments to county and club managers. Photo: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

Martin Breheny

It hasn’t gone away you know. Paying managers, which is in direct contravention to the GAA’s fundamental principles of amateur status, has been around for so long now that it’s almost taken for granted.

Shoulder-shrugging and a resigned admission that “sure there’s damn all we can do about it” have come to be accepted as the norm. In fairness to the Croke Park leadership, they have found themselves largely helpless in tackling the problem because it’s being perpetuated by their own.