Bureaucracy and verbal abuse two of sport’s biggest rivals
The general secretary of the North East Football League, Gerry Gorman, believes "government bureaucracy" is one of the main reasons why more people are not coming forward to fill administrative roles in sporting organisations.
Last year the local soccer league - now called the North East Football League - celebrated it's 40th anniversary but seldom has it's general secretary seen a time when there were so many people leaving administrative roles - all at the same time - and with fewer people willing to step forward this has the potential to create a real problem for organisations such as the NEFL.
As reported last week in the Meath Chronicle several people involved in running the NEFL have indicated they will be moving on in the coming weeks. Gorman described the situation as "the greatest challenge in the history of the league." He subsequently said he's "optimistic" people will be ready to step into the vacant positions. The situation regarding the officials is, he suggests, an indication of a broader reluctance by people to get involved in the game.
Like many organisations the NEFL is not inundated with those looking to fill admin and coaching positions at any level. Gorman feels there are good reasons for that.
"I would see the imposition of government bureaucracy in terms of everyone trying to tick boxes as a real problem," he said.
"Don't get me wrong an issue like child welfare is obviously extremely important to get right, but sometimes there is an overkill in the bureaucracy involved. If a club in our league for instance is taking on an underage coach they have to go through Garda vetting which is fair enough, but if they have been already vetted, at say GAA level, it doesn't count for anything. They have to go through the same process from scratch again and that puts many of them off.
"If someone has gone through the vetting process at say GAA level or for some other sporting body, they should be acceptable to our game and vice versa but that's not the case. They have to go through the whole process again and it's frustrating a lot of people because they are saying 'ah I'm not going through all that bloody rigmarole again.' It's a real problem in preventing people from coming forward.
"Government agencies are well intentioned but they need to be more practical as well and certainly one of the issues that need to be tackled is the recognition that what qualifies as acceptable for one organisation should be acceptable for another. There mightn't be a huge amount of over-lapping from one sport to another but I've seen numerous examples of people saying it's not worth the hassle. They say 'I've gone through all that before, I'm not going through it again.' It's a real problem for sports bodies."
There are other issues, Gorman says, that are turning those with administrative skills away including what he describes as "self righteous people" who, when they see something they don't like, are not slow in venting their anger. It is seen also in the way referees are the subjects of verbal abuse by players and spectators.
"At the first sign of any misdemeanor at all they are voicing their unsubstantiated, self-righteous opinion, often on social media, but they don't realise the damage they doing to those organisations.
“People can be very quick to criticise and in a lot of cases they go overboard and get personal with the abuse. They are only basically masking their own misgivings in my opinion."
Describing it as "a moronic approach" Gorman says such people are very much in the minority - but they are still very vociferous and short-sighted. They need to take a broader, more balanced view.
"That critical attitude has always been there but it's more to the fore in recent times - but if you combine all these factors it's not hard to see why people just don't want to get involved anymore," concluded Gorman.