The worst kept secret in the GAA is that a lot of managers at both club and county are on a payroll, and it is a sliding scale.
Depending on the size of the club or the county, some of the payments are rather substantial, and it creates an imbalance as smaller clubs or counties can't match those prices, and are therefore being left behind.
Former Monaghan boss Séamus McEnaney believes that the payment of inter-county managers should be regulated, something which the GAA president Jarlath Burns suggested last week.
Although this goes against the principal of the GAA being an amateur sport, it McEnaney thinks it will stop the imbalance, as he explained on RTE’s Up Front With Katie Hannon.
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The GAA centralised the paying of coaching staff in every county in Ireland. We’e talking about two more staff. The majority of coaching staff in the counties are getting somewhere between €35,000 and €60,000 and I’m saying this is a 40-hour a week job, 40-60 hour a week job.
“The minimum wage is €14. Pay them 20 quid an hour. A thousand euro a week. Another employee of the county board and it brings it official. It brings it under the umbrella because this discussion needs to be had.
“It needs to be sorted because it’s getting out of control. Plus, we can have a scenario, we could have a sliding scale from Division Four to Division One but all centralised and paid from Croke Park."
The Monaghan native who managed his county and club Clonduff, says that he never took any money for those roles, and only accepted travel expenses during his stints with Meath and Wexford.
McEnaney went on to argue that it is the managers who takes the most flak, and it doesn't just affect them, but their families too.
“An intercounty manager or a club manager is very close to a full-time job”
Former #GAA manager @McenaneySeamus on the realities of the role and why GAA Managers should be paid #RTÉUpfront pic.twitter.com/VHiu79Mxcj
— Upfront with Katie Hannon (@RTEUpfront) October 21, 2024
“I’m saying make it official. Let’s take the All-Ireland final, 80,000 people, €10-12m being turned over on the day and the two men that’s under the most pressure out there are the two men that’s not supposed to be paid.
“Inter-county management affects your family, we now have social media, you’re getting abused on social media, everyone’s having a cheap shot at you.”
“If this becomes formal and accepted within the Association, it changes the dynamic and we have volunteers in the audience here and watching at home tonight, that they’re going to get browned off very quickly if they’re seeing more people enumerated in the Association.
“If we’re going to have the Association moving into the area where more and more people are getting paid to provide the services that was once provided by volunteers, we do need a certain cohort of professional people in the GAA who need to get paid, of that there is no question about it.
"I’m very much in favour of that but we need to be very careful we don’t go over the edge here because if we go over the edge there may be no comeback.”
There is no doubt that this debate will rumble on, and in a time where Gaelic football is going through significant change due the split season, new championship formats and proposed rules being brought in, this could be the next thing added to the to-do list.
