Kevin McCloy has criticised the GAA for refusing him payment from its players' injury scheme after he almost died after collapsing during a club match last summer.

The former Derry captain and All Star full back spent three days in a coma after his heart stopped suddenly just minutes into the senior championship encounter between Lavey and Magherafelt at Owenbeg last August. But he claims his biggest battle has been with the GAA whose players' injury scheme refused to pay out because his medical condition did not result from an accidental bodily injury.

"I had fought for my life for the last three months and the last people that I thought I would have to try and fight would be the GAA," he tells today's Irish News.

"It just went against the whole ethos of what I thought the GAA was about.

"I always found that the GAA was about family and if anybody was in trouble we all looked after each other. But I soon found out that whenever it came down to it, they threw me up a letter like everybody else and said 'good luck."

The 36-year-old civil engineer recalled how he and his family had struggled financially until they eventually received a "goodwill" payment from the Association.

A GAA spokeman said: "Kevin's injury is not covered as a pre-existing underlying condition. But the GAA made a payment to Kevin that would have matched the amount had his condition been covered by the player injury scheme."

McCloy said the experience had left him "totally dejected".

"If truth be told for a few weeks and months there, I didn't even see myself sending the two children to a GAA pitch. If anything at all I would take them to rugby," he added.

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