Gaelic Players Association head Tom Parsons reckons the drain of talent experienced by Steven Poacher’s Leitrim this year is a worrying development which needs to be addressed.
Poacher lost a whopping 20 players from his panel ahead of 2025 and at one stage in the National League was forced to hand Fermanagh a walkover.
It was a low moment for the Down native and the Connacht county though GPA chief Parsons said the reality is that they suffered a major haemorrhaging of players, partly due to the costs associated with county activity.
Parsons was speaking at a press briefing where the GPA’s Pre-Budget Submission 2025 was revealed, a document which calls for the government grant scheme for county players to be significantly increased.
Read More: Fermanagh official ‘surprised and disappointed’ by Leitrim decision to not field for League clash
As things stand, county players receive an average of €1,471 in grant funding each year, a scheme paid for by the government which has been running since 2008.
The GPA’s ask is that the current pot of €5.6m to fund the scheme be increased to €10m, raising the individual grant to an average of €2,500 for the 4,000 or so male and female inter-county players.
Former Mayo midfielder Parsons was among the first recipients of a grant in 2008 and said it was ‘gold’ to him at the time, helping to offset college bills and allowing him to avoid a part-time job in a bar.
But 17 years on, the scheme is now worth significantly less to players individually with Parsons calling on the government to catch-up or risk more counties like Leitrim losing swathes of players.
“The example I would give is that 20 out of the 32-man Leitrim squad this year dropped out,” said Parsons. “Some Leitrim players were the stars of the Sigerson Cup campaign, some of the best footballers in Ireland. But the majority of that squad were students.
“I talked to Steven Poacher about why did they pull out of not fielding a team (against Fermanagh)? There’s no doubt about it - those students playing for colleges in Dublin, they can’t afford to play the game.
“And, like, if we lose the Leitrims, we will lose the cultural heritage, we’ll lose so much.
“The Leitrim example needs to be looked at. If we survey all those students in Leitrim and we say, ‘Look, there is a grant that is more substantial, it means you won’t need part-time jobs’, I’d be flabbergasted if they didn’t say that that would entice them to play with their county more.”
Read More: Inter-county players almost £4,000 out of pocket to play claims new GPA-commissioned report
Figures show that inter-county players generated a total economic impact of almost €600m in 2023.
Yet individual players are still being dragged down by expenses like the €4,600 annual spend on nutrition and travel. Loss of overtime earnings is estimated at €3,500 per year with over €5,000 of an average reduction in annual income ‘due to impacts on education and career’.
Dublin camogie star Aisling Maher said it is just as much a problem in the women’s game as it is for men.
“I feel very strongly that for young girls coming up, especially if they have the talent, if they have the ability, if they have the want to be there and to put in the hard work then the expenses being incurred by them shouldn’t stop them from playing,” said Maher.
“Your participation shouldn’t cost you so much that you can’t afford to play.
“I think it’s really important that we move in line with the cost of living crisis and the expectation that’s on players in terms of their nutritional costs and sleep and everything else that goes with playing.
“Everything costs money and that’s going to create a barrier if expense payments don’t increase in line with the cost of living.”
