'I hope this can be resolved within the coming days' - LGFA chairman

Ladies football

Damien Donohoe

The Cavan ladies football county board are due to meet on Thursday night as hopes rise that a solution may be found to the ongoing impasse around the senior county team.

Representatives of the ladies squad along with Tom Parsons of the GPA met with members of the county board last Thursday to discuss matters following an explosive interview with three of the players last Monday in which they stated they would consider not fielding for their match against Tyrone on Sunday were issues around expenses and playing gear not satisfactorily resolved.

In the event, no agreement was reached and the players withdrew from the fixture in protest. The ladies board issued a statement on Sunday evening, which reflected an earlier players’ statement, which stated there had been “positive engagement”.

With regard to the players charter, which was signed by the board and players and the issue of expenses, the board’s statement read:

“On the 15th of January, the charter was signed by the Cavan LGFA Gaelic Players Association representatives and representatives from our Executive board. The charter is an advisory recommendation document as per the Ladies Gaelic Football Association. On the 30th January, we received an email from the Senior team Female Liaison Officer.

“This outlined that they requested travel expenses for four cars travelling down from University in Dublin. In an act of good faith, subject to a full executive meeting where the finances could be discussed and finalised, a once-off payment was paid to the cars on 1st February.

“At the full executive meeting following this discussion on the 2nd February, at that moment and upon disclosure of the Senior Team expenses, it was not a feasible option at this particular point in time, as there was an alarming increase of 101% on the same period in 2022 on the Senior Team. This was not proportionality being offset by income. This was open to be reviewed as per the charter in April.”

At the time of going to print, there appears to be fresh hope that the issues can be sorted out.

The players were understood to be very unhappy with a social media post by a member of the executive but the board have distanced themselves from that statement.

“We apologised on behalf of the executive (for the post),” ladies board chairperson Philip Wilson confirmed today (Tuesday).

Wilson stated that the abuse, on social media particularly, directed at members of the ladies board over the past week was “unreal”.

“Our executive is made up of volunteers, it’s made up of club members. They are coming from clubs within the county. There are players from their clubs on these county panels. They’re husbands, they are wives, there are business people on it, the amount of abuse they have got, for volunteers… if it was a referee or anybody else, there would be holy war that a volunteer could be treated or abused the way these people have been abused.

“We had an executive meeting and we had two ladies very, very upset.

“It’s nothing got to do with the players themselves or the management. I don’t go through every social media post but I actually got a private text to my phone last night at 20 to one saying the executive were cowards and shame on them.

“It (abuse) is definitely nothing got to do with the players.”

Vice-chairperson Stephen Hughes added that the “abuse” was in no way related to the players themselves.

“It is the general public, maybe people not even from Cavan, not even GAA people. There’s no way I’d like to go through the week I’m after going through, the abuse directed at the executive was absolutely disgraceful.”

One issue, which is understood to have been a sticking point, was the relaying of information regarding the loss of grants due to forfeiting a fixture. The board say they were informed by the LGFA that over €42,000 in government grant funding to players, distributed via the GPA, would not be awarded should Cavan fail to fulfil a fixture. It has since emerged that Cavan may not lose this funding, which may help ameliorate the current situation.

It is believed that some members of the ladies board indicated they may step down at Thursday’s meeting, which Wilson said is a concern.

“I’m actually worried because, for someone to replace them, they’re going to have to volunteer,” he said.

He hopes to see the issues sorted out in the coming days.

“I hope that this is resolved within the coming days and we can move on. First and foremost, I hope Cavan can beat Donegal in the first round of the Ulster Championship and can be in the Ulster final. Everyone makes a mistake, if you make the same mistake twice, in my book, you’re in trouble.

“I hope we’ll never be at this discussion again, that the ladies won’t be making podcasts and definitely me and Stephen (won’t). And Cavan will never, ever come to the circumstances that we won’t field a team.”

He added that “60 or 70pc of the executive are a new executive, they haven’t 16 months done. Last year was their first year.”