THE GAA has to accept a share of the blame for breaches of Covid training regulations because of the “win at all costs” mentality within the Association, according to Armagh All-Ireland winner John McEntee.
GAA president Larry McCarthy claimed work would be needed to repair the "reputational damage" arising out of recent collective training breaches, which saw Dublin boss Dessie Farrell and Monaghan’s Seamus McEnaney slapped with 12-week suspensions by their own counties.
On Thursday Monaghan became the latest county to hit the headlines after video footage and photographic evidence appearing to show panel members engaged in a training session in Corduff was sent to the GAA and the Irish government’s Department of Justice.
That came a week after pictures emerged of members of the Dublin panel involved in drills, following on from two other high-profile breaches of guidelines earlier this year involving Cork and Down.
Yet while McCarthy warned of the potential repercussions ahead of a scheduled return to inter-county training on April 19, McEntee believes senior GAA figures need to consider closely why these breaches occurred.
“We’re all very conscious of Covid,” said McEntee, who manages 2019 Monaghan senior champions Clontibret.
“There’s a responsibility on everybody to try and follow the rules as best we can so we can protect the most vulnerable. I don’t think there’s anybody, including ‘Banty’ or Dessie Farrell, who would disagree with that
“The thing I find a bit rich coming from GAA HQ is the GAA has gone down a road of win at all costs - not quite professional but edging closer and closer to a level of professionalism that is pay for play.
“You can’t place that much pressure on people without expecting them to bend the rules in some respect.”
And while some questioned why the all-conquering Dubs would need to steal a march on opponents ahead of their challenge for an seventh All-Ireland title in-a-row, McEntee feels it all hangs on the knowledge that their remarkable run of success “won’t last forever”.
“From the players’ perspective and the managers’ perspective, they want to gain an edge.
“We’ve got to a place now where we have Dublin, the best team in Ireland by a country mile, wanting to retain that status. There are young fellas coming through that Dublin squad who want to do whatever they can to get on that Dublin team and win All-Ireland medals.
“They’re not going to be the best team forever, they’ll be beaten some day - sooner than people maybe think because the level of commitment and attention to detail have been phenomenal to date. But it’s not possible to keep that going indefinitely.
“Then you have other teams trying to catch up, managers who come in, maybe in their first year, wanting to make an impression. The only measurement of success, really, is winning and when you’re not winning you’re deemed a failure.
“When that is a part of our game, it’s only natural that people are going to try and take whatever advantage they can, by means fair or foul. It’s not unexpected.”
Dublin and Monaghan slapped those 12-week suspensions on Farrell and McEnaney respectively after admitting breaches had occurred. However, the GAA’s management committee is expected to declare those bans ‘null and void’ on the basis both counties acted outside their legal power, meaning any penalties will ultimately be decided by them.
McEntee, though, does not agree with the current sanctioning policy - and insists the breaches are “not the end of the world”, despite the level of focus on them.
“We have much bigger problems in the GAA than these breaches,” he said.
“There’s no doubt it’s a PR disaster, there’s no doubt when it’s looked at in the context of the sacrifice businesses have made, that families have made not getting to see their loved ones, it’s a bad look.
“But anybody who looks at that and thinks ‘oh God that’s terrible, it shouldn’t be happening’, they maybe need to take a deeper look into the thing. Again, the GAA need to look at themselves and the way they’ve pushed the game, because they’re part of the problem here.
“Personally I wouldn’t suspend managers - I’d treat them the same way as other members of society have been treated. There’s been politicians, civil servants, people from all walks of life who have breached regulations and while they may have been told off, none of them have been penalised in the same way.
“I don’t think the GAA is in a position to take the moral high ground here. It’s all window-dressing really.”
