The proposed ‘Inter-County Certification Programme’ would, potentially, have two phases – a ‘Pre-Season’ phase and an ‘In-Season’ phase.
In the ‘Pre-Season’ phase, counties would have to meet certain basic requirements before the start of the season, such as having senior inter-county team managers in place who have completed a GAA inter-county manager induction course and have appointed backroom teams with qualifications appropriate to their roles.
County teams would have to be compliant with player welfare initiatives such as the provision of GPS data and an agreed Annual Maximum Expenditure Limit (AMEL) in the previous 12 months.
Failure to meet these basic requirements could result in the county not being certified to participate in that season’s League or Championship until these issues are addressed.
The ‘In-Season’ phase would require ongoing compliance in several areas, such as payment to backroom personnel remaining consistent with amateur status rules, and adherence to agreed backroom team numbers, panel registration provisions, return to training or closed season stipulations, and injury data protocols.
Breaches of the minimum requirements during the season could carry sanctions on a suggested “penalty point model” basis, with a set number of points for each breach that would accumulate towards a maximum limit that, if exceeded, would ultimately lead to a sanction being proposed.
“Currently, there’s an absence of any form of regulatory engagement for admission to inter-county competitions, which means that essentially there are no minimum standards required for counties to meet to participate,” says Hassan.
“Through the consultation process, there was broad support for the introduction of a form of regulatory framework that would govern things like panel sizes, backroom team sizes, expenditure, and so on.
“There’s also support for things like improved data and evidence around the physiological demands placed upon players.
“If we have a better understanding of the demands placed on players and when those players are being injured and the length of time it takes them to return to play, that would enable us to be better informed about what an optimum training load for an amateur GAA athlete should look like – at present we simply do not know the demands being exercised upon players, at least in any complete sense.
“So the focus isn’t just solely on expenditure, it’s also about the demands on amateur athletes, and how they can best sustain their engagement in competition, particularly inter-county competition, for a longer period of time.
“This process isn’t about imposition; this is about initiating and enabling agreement about what those new, modern standards should look like. And, of course, the other major benefit of this is that you then, over time, increase the competitive balance factor of the competitions.
“You would make it more possible for a greater number of counties, both in hurling and in football, to be competitive. And that’s a good thing for any championship or any league, irrespective of what sport we are considering.”