Cooney reiterates illegal payment stance
April 27, 2011
GAA president Christy Cooney insists that referees having nothing to fear from assessors.
GAA president Christy Cooney has clarified the Association's opposition to payments for managers.
Cooney attracted criticism from certain quarters when he labelled such payments "a cancer" last week, but he stated at an official appearance in Waterford on Tuesday:
"In general, in life and in society, people break rules. That's not to say it's right and all I was re-stating was Association policy and trying to say to people 'Look, are we true to what we believe is right? It we're not, what are we going to do about it?'
"I was posing the question and challenging ourselves and that's the bottom line. Either we are or we are not, and if we're not we need to bring a motion to annual Congress to change that.
"We need to have self-sufficient clubs. Bringing somebody in from outside and paying them serious money is an absolute joke when you have quality people inside your club already capable of doing it.
"I have seen an improvement at club level, in that clubs don't have the money any more. There has been a change in policy in some, who have paid managers in the past and they're not doing it any more."
