By John Considine

Tomorrow marks the begining of SKY Sports coverage of gaelic games (Kilkenny v Offaly).  When the GAA deal with SKY was announced it provoked much reaction.  One of the more humourous reaction came from the folks at TodayFM's Gift Grub.  Their initial audio offering is dubbed onto visual coverage from SKY's Soccer Saturday and can be viewed in an entertaining YouTube clip (here).  One of the funnier elements is seeing/hearing Phil Thompson struggle to understand the scoring system.

In his first intervention, Thompson calls a shot that goes over the crossbar "a miss" only to be surprised that the player is being congratulated by his teammates. He says "this is a bit queer".  In his second intervention, he struggles to combine the goals and points tally.  He says he is unsure who won the game as one team scored 6 goals and 17 points while the other team scored 3 goals and 23 points.

It is easy to laugh as Thomo comes to terms with a "foreign" game.  He became a Liverpool legend playing a game where the only scores were goals.  In gaelic games teams can score goals and points.  The GAA website gives the following definition of the scoring space.  "The scoring space is marked in the centre of each end line by two goalposts 6.5m apart, with a height of not less than 7m above ground level. A cross bar is fixed to the goal posts at a height of 2.5m above the ground."  If the ball crosses the end line between goalposts and below the crossbar then the team is awarded a goal.  If the ball crosses the end line between goal posts and above the crossbar the team scores a point.

A goal is worth three points.  Therefore, the team that scores 6-17 defeats a team that scores 3-23 despite the latter getting more scores.  It seems pretty straight forward to GAA people.

At least that is what I thought until Seamus Coffey a contrary, but intellectually stimulating, colleague asked me if it was fair.  I was stumped.  There were two reasons for my confusion.  First, Seamus has little time for economists who discuss the "fairness" of economic policy.  Yet, here he was raising an issue about the fairness of GAA scoring.  Second, he had presented a question about a scoring system I had happily operated under all my life without questioning.

Seamus wondered why a team would get three points (goal) for a shot 2.4m above the ground, one point for a shot 2.6m above the ground, but nothing for a shot 2.5m above the ground that hits the crossbar and rebounds into play.  He also wanted to know if the GAA was the only sport with such a system where a contestant does not get rewarded for hitting the 'middle' of the scoring zone.  He explained how Australian Rules football splits the scoring zone (see picture above left) but awards a score if the dividing post is hit.  I could only muster the game of darts as a possible comparison with gaelic games.

It seems there is a gap in the GAA scoring zone.

By John Considine

A couple of years ago my colleague Robbie Butler drew my attention to a comparison between baseball and golfball production used in a book called How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor.  In the book, Erik Reinert offers an explanation as to why baseball production has moved to places like Haiti whereas golf ball production has stayed in the United States.  In the course of the explanation, Reinert makes a claim that still astonishes me.  Praised like the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme, he said "All the engineers and all the capital of the United States have not managed to mechanize baseball production".  This means it is a labour intensive production process and, therefore, is outsourced to places like Haiti, Honduras and Costa Rica.  "Every baseball is stitched by hand with 108 stitiches, and each worker is able to sew four baseball per hour."  Because golf ball production has a high level of research & development, and direct labour costs of about 15%, it tends to remain in the United States.

Like baseball production, hurling ball production is being outsourced from the country in which the game is predominantly played.  The hurling ball is now being produced in places like Pakistan and China (a brief entertaining account is provided by Josh Chetwynd in his book The Secret History of Balls).  However, it is not just a matter of stitching and costs of production.  There is also a matter of innovation in the production of the core (centre) of the ball.  Ignoring the pun, it was something that was sprung on the GAA about a decade ago as the balls started bouncing to unprecedented heights.  A sample of the media comments are reproduced below (from a PowerPoint presentation from Kevin Cronin and his colleagues here).

Reacting to the criticism, the GAA set about bringing some consistency to performance of the ball.  On examination, it seems that the key contributor to the new found "life" in the ball was changes in the core - the part that lies inside leather skin.  A share of these new cores were being imported (many with the leather skin already stitched on).

The GAA funded research on the issue.  Some of the research can be found in two papers by Fiachra Collins, Dermot Brabazon and Kieran Moran of Dublin City University (here and here).  Collins, Brabazon and Moran set about examining the impact bahaviour of 4 types of hurling ball core ranging from the more tradition core (80% cork wraped in 20% yarn) to the newer core (100% polyurethane-based polymer).

Previously, the bounce of the ball was tested by dropping it from a height of 1.8m.  The team at DCU developed a testing laboratory that tests the core with various impact speeds, e.g. 5m/s of 20m/s.  An impact test is illustrated directly below.

The results of the tests showed that there was less variation in the modern ball types when compared with the traditional ball types (although my engineering colleagues tell me there are a few caveats).  Therefore, as the core of the ball changed there was massive variation in performance while the traditional ball was used side-by-side with the modern ball.  Now that virtually all balls have the modern core the stability of the performance has improved.  The new balls may bounce higher but there is a consistency to their movement that was not their previously.  Players have adapted and the game moves on.

By John Considine

Earlier this week, as I was grading summer examination papers, Seamus Coffey sent me the following statistical output on the Cork - Waterford, Munster Senior Hurling Championship game.  The output was produced by Ray Boyne (here).  It is an example of what inter-county teams use to examine their performance (Ray was involved with the Dublin senior footballers for a number of years).  Of course, the statistical and video analysis that is conducted by teams goes much deeper than what is presented below.  Last January, I attended a presentation organised by Avenir Sports on the type of work they do with inter-county teams.  In the presentation, Sean O'Donnell outlined the extensive work done analysing the playing and training performances of the Cork senior hurling team.  I was left pondering the gap between the statistical analysis on academic performance and those of sporting performance.  While academic assessment practices are improving, they could benefit from a look at the sporting world.

At a minimum GAA teams would have the above type of material to them before their next training session (usually two days later).  Timely and detailed feedback is followed by planned performance improvement.  A pretty good system.  Unfortunately, a portion of academic assessment falls short of timely and detailed feedback.  Sometime this is a function of student numbers and the lack of technological supports.  However, there are some technological developments helping to facilitate academic performance improvement.  For example, in economics there are systems like MyEconLab and Aplia.  The latter was developed by Paul Romer.

Romer's thinking about the crossover between performance assessment in sport, and that in the study of economics, is discussed by David Warsh in his book Knowledge and The Wealth of Nations.  Romer believes that students need a coach, and that as a coach what he "needed was the equivalent of a stopwatch, or a heart-rate monitor - some way of gauging their performance and discovering which areas needed work".  As a result, Romer developed an online assessment system for students of economics that allows them to assess their knowledge and receive immediate feedback.  Aplia is limited in its application and is far from providing a silver bullet for students of economics (see an evaluation of its potential here is a piece by Brendan Kennelly, Darragh Flannery and myself).  However, Aplia and MyEconLab do provide another support mechanism in evaluating student performance and providing timely feedback.

The above sporting statistics and assessment systems are only scratching the surface when compared to the way such data is used in other settings.  An example of how F1 use an almost unimaginable amount of performances statistics is explained in a TED talk by Peter van Manen (here).  The skills involved have been put to good use outside of F1.  Van Manen explains how they used their expertise in data analysis to help monitor the health of babies in life and death situations.

As time passes, we can expect the the use of sporting statistics to increase.  However, they are unlikely to prove a short-cut to success on the field.  They can be a useful supplement to hard work rather than a substitute for it.  In my experience, individuals who seek out new methods as a means of reducing their effort come unstuck.  It is those that use new method to improve their performance that accumulate the benefits.

I hope that not too much time will pass before we can see further improvements in the assessment systems in academia.

By John Considine

This week there has been plenty of column inches in the print media, and large amounts of airtime on broadcast media, devoted to one aspect of the next round of broadcast rights to GAA games - the Sky element.  This blog has also posted on the issue (here and here).  One aspect of the coverage has focused on the exclusion of viewers who do not have access to the relevant Sky Sports package.  This debate is usually framed in terms of a comparison between TV viewing figures on Pay-TV versus free-to-air.  UCD historian Paul Rouse, and his work, have featured heavily in the discussion on the issue (see previous post on Paul's work here and a NewsTalk Off-the-Ball interview with Paul at 19mins in Part 2 of the programme of April 3rd here).  Therefore, for a small novelty value, I would like to look at the large numbers of people that are excluded when a game is not available on TV.

A comparison of the number of TV viewers and those who attended last September's All-Ireland finals is a useful place to start.  Table 1 below shows that for the All-Ireland football final between Dublin and Mayo there was 12.65 people who watched the game on RTE TV for each member of the public inside Croke Park on the day.  The ratio for the drawn and replayed hurling games are 10.84 and 7.56 respectively.  The lower figure for the replay is influenced by it being broadcast on a Saturday evening.

An advantage of looking at the figures for the All-Ireland is that the attendance figures are fairly steady at around 82,000.  The variation in the ratio comes from the TV audience.  Most of the spectators at an All-Ireland final will be from one of the competing counties (this is particularly so for a replay and may help account for the larger attendance).  While the TV audience is more widely spread, it is probable that having Dublin in the final contributed to the viewership figures as its population is 1,273,069.  The combined county population for the football finalists is 1,403,707 while that for the hurling finalists of Cork and Clare is 636,228.

A feature of All-Ireland finals is that, as designated sporting events, they have to be broadcast on free-to-air TV according to the Irish application of the Television Without Frontiers directive.  Therefore, there is not a decision about whether or not to put these events on TV.  However, when games that are not designated events are not on TV then there is a loss of viewers.  We can approximate the ratio of TV viewers to those attending by repeating the above analysis for other games.  It is an approximation because it is difficult to say how many did not attend the games because they could watch it TV.  I did this a number of years ago for about 160 games during the 2006-9 seasons.  The ratios of viewers to attendees is presented in Figure 1.

For all games the ratio of TV viewers to spectators was 8.83.  The ratio for all hurling was 9.37 whereas that for all football games was 8.51.  Figure 1 further decomposes these figures.  The large ratio for Munster football ratio is probably exaggerated because it has only three games included.

At present the GAA games tend to be scheduled and broadcast on Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons.  The above numbers are for games on such "slots".  Where one of these slots are left without a free-to-air TV game then the GAA is missing out on promoting inter-county games.  However, even here the analysis is approximate, as it could be argued that a day free of inter-county games on TV provides a chance for people to go to a club game.

By John Considine

Last night's Prime Time programme carried an extensive discussion on the GAA deal with Sky (here).  There are two battle grounds on which the GAA and the wider sporting community will have plenty of confrontations.  One battle cry will be "think of the children".  Those opposed to the deal will claim children will have to frequent places where alcohol is sold to watch the games.  Those in favour of the deal will claim that it is bringing in revenue that will allow the GAA develop its games for those very children.  The GAA will also use this argument to fend off arguments that current players are not being paid.  The GAA response will be along the lines that it is an inter-generational matter.

A second battle ground will be about whether public funding should go to a sport where games are not available to all.  The GAA will put the IRFU in front of it when it comes to defending this argument.  The problem is that the IRFU does not sell itself as an amateur organisation.  Why exactly government should fund sport is a much wider discussion.

One of the biggest issues for the GAA will be how the deal is presented.  Almost two decades ago the GAA separated the provincial and All-Ireland championships.  It was branded as a back-door for losers.  It was sold as a second chance.  Yet this is not strictly true.  It was a separation of the provincial from All-Ireland series.  You can only be beaten once in each championship.  Try telling that to most GAA people.  How you present the change matters.

By John Considine

In the last couple of weeks there have been a variety of newspaper accounts of knee injuries to gaelic football players (here, here, here and here).  One knee injury has grabbed most of the headlines – it is the damage to the anterior crucial  ligament (ACL).  There seems to be a consensus that there is an increase in these injuries but there is less agreement on the exact cause of any increase.

It is possible to examine the incidence of injuries in gaelic football that are covered by the GAA injury scheme.  This information is provided in the GAA Annual Report.  Table 1 opposite presents the top-15 injury locations based on this data for 2013.  There were 4,367 gaelic football injuries in total.  Knee injuries are by far the most common injury accounting for 28.99% of gaelic football injuries.  Table 1 includes injuries in hurling for comparison purposes.   Knee injuries also dominate in hurling with almost the same  percentage of total claims on the scheme.  As might be expected, given the nature of the games, there are far more hand, finger, and  thumb injury claims in hurling.

It is important to note that the information in Table 1 is based on the GAA injury scheme.  Claims on the scheme for 2013 amounted to over €8m.  One might argue that these are the more serious injuries.  Those players covered by the scheme might have made a claim based on the seriousness of their injury.  It does not mean that knee injuries are the most common injuries in gaelic football.  Table 2 presents the top 5 injuries in gaelic football based on a 2012 paper in The American Journal of Sports Medicine.  The paper is the work of John Murphy, Edwenia O’Malley, Conor Gissane and Catherine Blake.  According to the work of Murphy et al (2012) thigh injuries account for the greatest proposrtion of injuries in gaelic football.  In their study thigh injuries accounted for 33.3% of the injuries.  Knee injuries were the second most common injury.

The American Journal of Sports Medicine paper defines an injury as “any injury that prevents a player from taking a full part in all training and match activities typically planned for that day, where the injury has been there for a period greater that 24 hours from midnight at the end of the day that the injury was sustained”.

John Murphy and his colleagues document how most of these injuries are the result of  match activity rather than training.  The incidence of injuries in gaelic football are 61.86 per 1,000 hours of match activity whereas it was only 4.05 per 1,000 hours of training activity.  They also compare these rates to those in other football codes.  They point out that the incidence of injuries in soccer training is similar to gaelic football.  However, the incidence of injury in match activity is much higher in gaelic football.

The authors point out that injury to the anterior crucial ligament (ACL) accounts for 1.5% of the injuries in their study.  The corresponding figure for Australian Football is 2.0%.  They argue that the severity of the ACL means that any intervention to reduce its incidence would be very important for the sport.  There is widespread agreement.  What is now needed is research into the causes of the ACL and potential ways of minimising the numbers suffering from it.

By John Considine

This week the Sunday Business Post announced that The Competition Authority was launching a Phase II investigation into the proposed takeover of Wexford Creamery by Glanbia.  The Competition Authority moved it to a Phase II investigation because it was unable to conclude that the acquisition would not substantially lessen competition.  The business world was following the sporting world. For almost two decades Wexford GAA players carried the sponsorship of Wexford Creamery on their shirts. This ended five years ago. A couple of weeks ago it was announced that Glanbia would now be sponsoring Wexford hurlers and footballers. The Wexford players will carry the Gain logo on their shirts for 2014.
 
Wexford hurlers are now being sponsored by the same company that sponsors Kilkenny - Wexford’s great rivals and chief tormentors for the last decade and a half.  The Kilkenny players carry the Avonmore logo on their shirts.  Hurling supporters might wonder if The Competition Authority should allow this "takeover" of the Wexford shirt given  Kilkenny's dominance of the Leinster Hurling Championship!!! Kilkenny won every title between 1998 and 2011 except for Wexford's 2004 triumph.  Of course, Kilkenny's dominance at senior level has probably more to do with the fact that they won every under-18 Leinster tiles between 1990 and 2004 with the exception of Offaly's win in 2000.

Glanbia's investment in the sponsorship of gaelic games is not their most significant sporting related investment.  Another takeover by Glanbia also made the headlines this week.  When announcing their annual results Glanbia highlighted the acquisition of Nutramino Holding ApS (“Nutramino”), a Scandinavian sports nutrition business with operations in Denmark, Sweden and Norway.   According to Glanbia, “Nutramino focuses primarily on branded,  ready-to-consume products sold through the gym and convenience channels. The acquisition gives us a strong foothold in the Scandinavian market and offers the potential to leverage Nutramino capability in the convenience sector in other markets. The business was acquired for a total consideration of approximately €25.5 million, a portion of which is contingent on future earnings.”   It seems that Glanbia was benefitting from their “focus on the specialty and internet sports nutrition market sub-segments which remain the largest and among the fastest growing segments in the
market”.

By Paul O'Sullivan

In a recent post, I referred to the annual report of Central Council of the GAA. One particularly interesting issue raised by the report is the GAA’s attitude to supporting an IRFU bid to host either the 2023 or 2027 Rugby World Cup (RWC) in Ireland.

A successful bid by the IRFU would require the use of some of the major GAA venues, to which the GAA is amenable to. Many people will remember that in 2005, the GAA voted to allow Croke Park to be used to host ‘foreign’ games during the rebuilding of Lansdowne Road, despite much criticism from within, and outside of, their own organisation. This led to Croke Park hosting some of the most memorable occasions in Irish sporting history, particularly the Ireland-England Six Nations game of 2007 and the Munster-Leinster Heineken Cup semi-final in 2009. 

On page 35 of the report, GAA director general Paraic Duffy points out that in making GAA venues available for any prospective bid,  “…there was agreement that the economic benefits to the country outweighed all other considerations” [my italics].  Unfortunately, Mr. Duffy does not elaborate on what these perceived benefits are, nor on what magnitude they may be.

In terms of providing GAA grounds, Mr. Duffy notes that “…a successful bid will involve an upgrade of facilities….We have made it clear that such upgrades must be funded, in large part, by government.”  It is not specified as to what constitutes ‘in large part’. While the GAA may be admirably patriotic in making its grounds available on the basis of the benefit to the country, there is also a financial incentive for the GAA themselves.  On pages 5 and 7 of the Central Council report, the rent earned by the GAA from 2007-2010 by making Croke Park available to the IRFU and FAI is clearly seen, and was approximately €8m per year. 

One might infer from Mr. Duffy’s statement above that such upgrades would notbe undertaken if Ireland was not to  host a RWC. If the government must fund ‘a large part’ of any upgrades to ensure the RWC takes place, then should the government not be entitled to a ‘large part’ of any rent the GAA receives, as well as a ‘large part’ of any future gains accruing to the GAA as a result of such upgrades? If the GAA is to solely benefit from the RWC in terms of stadium rent earned, why should the government subsidise such upgrades, especially when any money spent on upgrading GAA facilities is money that cannot be spent on health, education, flood defences, etc.?

One might argue that the government should commit to investing in GAA grounds to ensure that a bid may be successful. In return, the government will benefit from the spending of visitors to Ireland during the RWC, as well as the intangible and symbolic benefits of hosting the tournament. While initial reports (see here and here) made reference to potential benefits of up to €800m, in another previous post, I pointed out that many economists have argued that, for various reasons, the net monetary benefits to country of hosting a major event are often found to be either negative or close to zero. On the other hand, hosting major events can make people happier, as pointed out here by Robbie Butler. Indeed, such intangible benefits seem to be a major justification for the bid. According to Minister of State Michael Ring in this article, "We all witnessed the massive boost to the national mood that was provided by the London Olympics. The Rugby World Cup,…, I would hope it would have a similar impact here. Sport is a great unifier, it brings people together and large events like this can also bring about a great sense of pride." Whether Mr Ring thinks the London Olympics’ £9bn (approx.) price tag was a price worth paying for the massive boost to the national mood is not known. Maybe he wasn’t asked.

By John Considine

Yesterday I received a text message telling me that Phil Prendergast (MEP) had called for the protection of Irish hurley manufacturing under the guise of the hurley being a cultural tool (or “hurl” if you are from Leinster).  My initial reaction, probably based on my training in economics, was that this was an interest group seeking to avoid competition.  Of course, the fact that a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) was making noises in the run up to the European elections was not surprising.  I read the material reported online (here) and the following words stuck out like a sore thumb - “the protective status would prevent others from making and marketing the hurley outside of Ireland”.

I then visited the website of Labour's Phil Prendergast (here).  It says that Phil sits on the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection.  I followed the link and found the ‘Welcome Words’ of the Committee Chair, Malcolm Harbour, The first two sentences of those welcoming words read “The Single Market and its free movement of people, goods and services is one of the absolute foundations of the EU. It has provided prosperity and growth, jobs, mobility and freedom of choice to Europe's citizens and businesses.”  These words seem at odds with what one of its members is suggesting.

We are more than happy to import ash to make the hurleys in Ireland.  Imagine if other countries banned the export of timber for hurley manufacturing.

During the boom years many citizens from eastern Europe came to work in Ireland.  Some worked at making hurleys with imported timber.  I remember reading newspaper stories about how some were returning home to eastern Europe make hurleys with timber from their own countries.  The idea was that they would then export them to Ireland.  Is Phil Prendergast proposing we ban such imports?

What about consumer protection?  If banning cheaper imports means kids and their parents have to pay higher prices then is this promoting hurling?  Is it promoting consumer protection?

I’m probably being too harsh on our European representative.  I can understand why she might seek to ensure that current and future generations of Irish kids have the opportunity to experience the magic of interacting with a local hurley manufacturer.  It is magic.  For those who have not had the experience, the best way I can describe it is to compare it to the moment when Harry Potter got his first wand (see it here).  If you think I’m stretching the point then compare the Harry Potter clip with what you find in superb documentary From Ash to Clash (go to about 4:30 here).

You never forget the experience of buying your first hurley in such a setting.  In my case it while visiting my grandparents’ house in County Laois.  My uncle brought me to Sean Brophy’s workshop and it was better than being let loose in a sweet shop.  A couple of years later, I was even lucky enough to get a stick made by Mick McCarthy in Riverstown, County Cork.  Legend had it that Mick made hurlies for the hurling great Christy Ring (and other great inter-county hurlers).  Under normal circumstances he would not have wasted his time making a stick for me as he knew well his efforts would be served making a stick for better players.  However, my father was a woodcutting machinist who specialized in maintaining the saws that cut timber.  In return for my father’s help, Mick delivered one of his unmistakable McCarthy hurlies.  I’m convinced I can still feel the way it felt in my hands.  This type of experience does not need to be protected by legislation. It can’t be protected by legislation.

The next best experience is to buy a stick made by prominent inter-county hurler (usually a family business).  In my time there was a year or two where some of us bought hurlies made by the Galway hurling family the Connollys.  If it came with the approval of John Connolly then it must have had something.  In recent years kids have flocked to buy hurlies made by Ben & Jerry (the O’Connors of Newtownshandrum rather than the ice-cream makers).  In the last few weeks my son purchased a Canning hurley (another Galway hurling family). This stick is brought indoors to protect it from the elements.  I’m sure he believes he will light up the summer with the aid of a Canning hurley. It was the exploits of Joe Canning on the hurling fields that prompted that purchase.  He could care less if Joe was from Portumna or Poland.  No legislation is needed to protect the Cannings when it comes to making and marketing hurlies.

I guess Phil Prendergast hopes future generations of kids experience the magic of searching for the stick that is made for them.  I think likewise.  Unlike Phil Prendergast I do not believe that legislation should be enacted to ensure that kids can only play hurling with sticks made and marketed in Ireland.

By Paul O'Sullivan

On page 36 of his recent report to the GAA’s Annual Congress, GAA director general, Paraic Duffy outlines what he believes is an imperfect system of financial re-distribution from the GAA’s Central Council. Mr Duffy is quoted in this
Irish Times article as saying that “We treat all of our counties exactly the same. We give Leitrim the same direct financial support as we give any of the large-population counties. I think there’s an issue of fairness here.” 

Duffy’s argument is that the ‘weaker’ counties, with lower population and funding resources, must incur similar levels of
expenditure to ‘stronger’ counties in terms of travel, meal and medical costs, as well as having to fund players’ expenses for travelling to training from large population areas. Consequently, Duffy would like to see “a county like Leitrim or Longford…… getting more money from us. Some of the bigger counties……could do with less from us”.
 
With the current redistribution system, ‘stronger’ counties are already subsidising the ‘weaker’ counties as most  Central Council gate revenue is generated by the former, yet distributed equally among all counties. In economics jargon, weaker counties are net beneficiaries from the revenue pool.

This idea of re-distribution is usually justified in terms of ‘promoting competitive balance’. Many sports have some form of revenue-sharing mechanism or constraints on talent accumulation, e.g. salary caps and player drafts, that seek to minimise the gap between the large/rich and small/poor clubs in order to‘level the playing field’ and maintain fan interest. 

If such a proposal were to be implemented, would it be successful in improving the outcomes, in terms of playing success, of weaker counties? One of the biggest problems for many GAA counties is that their talent pool is restricted by geographic location and there is no transfer market as in professional sports. Given these constraints, providing more financial resources may not translate into much greater playing success, however ‘success’ is defined. 
 
While Duffy talks in general terms about amending the re-distribution mechanism, and rightly foresees complaints from those that would have their funding cut, he offers little indication as to what criteria might be used to assess whether one county receives more than another. While the report makes reference to differences in population size, the number of clubs in the county and what division of the National League a county is in, what other criteria might be used? Previous spending? Average attendance at home games? The number of championship games won over a given time period? As well as this, if counties are to receive different allocations, how much different will these  allocations be? Whatever criteria are used, the GAA will need to ensure that there are no perverse incentives whereby a county may find it in its interests not to exert maximum ‘effort’ on the field in order to benefit financially. 
  
As Gaelic football and hurling are amateur games for players, the GAA cannot impose a salary cap to control spending on talent.  Instead, Duffy talks about regulating spending on county teams. As it is likely that the interests of Central Council will be in direct conflict with those of many county boards, it will be interesting to see how successful the GAA would be in effectively tracking all spending on teams and what penalties would apply to those counties that break any spending regulations.