LISTEN: GPA Chief Executive Seamus Hickey on making improvements based on ESRI report

Limerick senior hurler and GPA Chief Executive Séamus Hickey speaks to Sporting Limerick about the recently published ESRI report which details in length the impact the inter-county game has on players.

The report claimed players sacrifice on average 31 hours per week to fulfill inter-county commitments and compromises their personal relationships and general downtime.

That’s just one of the findings of a new report from the ESRI, commissioned by the GAA and GPA, on the realities of being a player.

Hickey says that the report has allowed the GPA and GAA to focus on the issues that need to be addressed.

“We’ll have to look at systematically how can we improve that time commitment that players are removing of other facets of their lives. We really have to focus on the two extremes of the age bracket.”

“We are losing the later age groups of between twenty-nine and mid thirties. What that implies is that you’ll have to rely on a younger core of players who are already proven to be over committed so it creates a knock-on effect that is not in the best interest of our game.”

Hickey understands that players within the GAA will continue to pursue playing for their county despite the high demands of the amateur game and says that it is down to the GAA and GPA to actively protect that unique facet of the game.

“The motivation for players to play inter county sports despite the high demands remains the same. It is their love of representing where their from, the pride of wearing the jersey. That motivation is pure and it’s unique. If you want to protect that and sustain that you have to actively protect it, to actively protect that is to protect the amateur status if that’s what we choose to do or if we choose a different route how do we maintain and even highlight the core grassroots of the game in the club championship.”

Listen to the full interview below.