Fergal Lynch: Where is the regard for player welfare?

COLUMN: We'll Leave It There

The annual protests surrounding player welfare in English soccer ramped up to 100 prior to Christmas with Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp leading the charge that the crowded fixture schedule is having a negative impact on the game over the water.

Of course Klopp had a perfectly valid point. Players are being flogged to provide entertainment and simple sports science will tell you that the load they are putting on their bodies in such a short period of time is totally counter-productive when you consider they strive to provide the 'best league in the world'.

Arguments that they are well paid to do the job doesn't negate the fact that such a heavy athletic workload does have a negative impact on a player's body.

Just because you earn £300k a week doesn't mean your body is more capable of taking punishment of three games in seven days or 10 games in a month.

In simple science more money doesn't automatically make you a stronger person.

Granted, they are professional athletes and have instant access and opportunity to avail of the most hi-tech recovery sessions possible.

Compression chambers, co-ordinated focused swim sessions, ice baths, specialised diets, massage - everything they need to have them in the finest physical shape properly is at their feet, but that still doesn't make it right.

Now imagine if Jurgen Klopp was a GAA manager - imagine his frustrations at trying to deal with player welfare and fixture congestion then!

There are countless examples of how players are expected to defy the laws of physics and perform to their peak day-in day-out within the GAA - sometimes twice on the same day.

The week before Christmas Dunshaughlin played Ballinabrackey/Clonard in the u-20 FC final. The Dunganny decider was the third game both sides played in 14 days. Nothing unusual about that, it has almost become the norm in the GAA.

However just because it has become acceptable doesn't make it right. What that particular example doesn't take into consideration is that some of those players were also playing u-21 hurling in between those three games in 14 days and for the Drumree hurlers on the Dunshaughlin team they also reached a final (and won).

It gets worse.

On the evening Dunshaughlin played Ballinabrackey/Clonard one of their best players, Ruairi Kinsella, played for his college side Maynooth in a Third Level final.

The talented attacker had to choose one over the other and while neither side will say they exerted pressure on the young man, you can be assured he didn't want to let anyone down.

So after playing his part in guiding Maynooth to victory he hot-footed it to Dunganny where he came on 12 minutes into the second-half of the game against Ballinabrackey/Clonard and helped Dunshaughlin to victory - with little or no regard for his own physical wellbeing.

There are so many examples of a disregard for player welfare. Also last weekend a number of players lined out for Trim in the u-21 HC final less than 24 hours after playing for the club in the Leinster IFC semi-final victory over Crossabeg-Ballymurn.

Those players wanted to play and they didn't want to let their team mates down. Trim provided them with every recovery option available - essentially for those 24 hours they were treated like professional athletes (minus the £300k a week).

Earlier this year Megan Thynne fell foul of a fixture headbutting contest between the Camogie Association and the LGFA when she played the first-half of Meath's NFL Div 2 semi-final against Cavan in Breffni Park before bombing it to Inniskeen to play the second-half of Meath's National Camogie League semi-final against Antrim - irresponsible planning on behalf of both organisations.

The local associations aren't absolved of blame either. Late last year Meath's All-Ireland winning heroes Niamh O'Sullivan and Niamh Gallogly played in an Intermediate Camogie final for Drumree on the same day as they played a senior football semi-final for Dunshaughlin Royal Gaels.

How is that fair to player or club?

Is it any wonder young people are turning away from sport in such huge numbers. Yes, the numbers of young people playing Go Games, underage soccer and rugby are growing, but as those under-6s, under-8s and under-12s grow older they are falling away because the demands are fast becoming unbearable.

Something has to change before the whole thing breaks.

- Read Fergal's column first in the print edition of the Meath Chronicle out every Tuesday