Pat Spillane has called on the GAA hierarchy to take Gaelic football out of the hands of coaches and give it back to the players and supporters.

Writing in his Sunday World column, the Kerry legend blamed coaches for the sharp rise in short kickouts and handpassing which, in his opinion, are a blight on the sport.

“It is the coaches of Gaelic football who have hijacked the game and turned it into this bastardised version of basketball, all within the rules,” he claims.

“In 2012, Eugene McGee’s football review committee expressed serious concern at the surge in hand-passing. But it opted against recommending corrective measures, believing it to be a passing trend. It has gone up by 68 per cent since then. At the moment, there seems to be a lot of standing around, scratching of heads amongst the stakeholders, wondering what to do.

“There is an element of Nero fiddling while Rome burns. And to quote the famous book by John Healy about the death of an Irish town, No One Shouted Stop, no one is shouting stop in the GAA.”

Spillane added: “We need to hand the game back to the players and supporters. We need to take it away from the coaches. Who is responsible? The GAA are the custodians of the game. It is they who must shout stop. It is they who must take radical action.”

Tweet

Most Read Stories