'And it was interesting that there was no reference at all last week of the perks: the mileage paid, the nutrition allowances, the cash for various programmes, the appearance fees . . . the SuperValu ads’. Photo: Sportsfile

Properly managed, fame can be a handy commodity. When adidas were looking for 11 Gaelic footballers to endorse their new boot at the start of the summer, (Alan) Brogan was an automatic selection. They fitted him out with the Predator Pulse and offered a choice of personalised logo for the tongue of the boot. He could have gone for any variation of his name but he went for BAC (Baile Atha Cliath).

A couple of years ago he was a poster boy for Club Energise in a billboard campaign and, this summer, he made a stand for his old product partner. Man of the Match against Meath, collared by RTE for a snap interview after the game, he asked the director if he could swig from a branded bottle in the interview and was told he couldn't.

So Brogan declined the interview and the simmering dispute between the GPA and RTE on the issue of product placement suddenly had a boiling point. "It was something I felt strongly about. If players were going to receive a little perk of €500 per swig on TV, why stop them?"

Denis Walsh,

The Sunday Times, July 17 2005

In his latest promotion for SuperValu, we find a pensive Bernard Brogan marvelling at the human spirit and the power of community. "What is it about where you're from," he asks, "that can silence the doubters who say you're finished?"

(Cue a triumphant Andy Moran in Mayo.)

"That drives you on when you're carrying the hopes of so many."

(Cue a wistful Peter Keane in Kerry.)

"And gives you the courage to be true to yourself."

(Cue a serene Valerie Mulcahy in Cork.)

"It can even bring you back when you're told you won't make the Championship."

(Cue Brogan as Rocky in Dublin.)

"Or see another week, never mind a season."

(Cue the cancer-beating Oisín Kiernan in Cavan.)

"Where you're from is everything," Brogan concludes.

Sweet.

I'm from Coolock, a working-class suburb of Dublin, and in the 1970s that meant lying about your address and pretending it was Artane when applying for the latest opening at the bank or the civil service, in the hope that you'd at least get a call for an aptitude test.

Those tests were really something. There might be 5,000 applicants for five jobs and you'd be summoned to some great big hall - the Ks were usually Wednesdays - thrown a pen and a book of riddles, and walk out knowing you hadn't a fucking prayer. Unless you had connections.

Or played Gaah.

The Gaah men were always the heroes in school and playing well opened all kinds of doors - the bank, the civil service; the insurance company, the ESB. 'Soft jobs' as Kieran Donaghy referred to them last week on Off The Ball where you weren't even expected to work: "You could go off playing golf and pat fellahs on the back and everything would be okay."

Gaah was the golden ticket.

There were few soft jobs for boxers or cyclists or runners or rowers or swimmers. We were fitter and trained harder than the Gaah men, and won multiple All-Irelands, but these were sports that demanded more than just beating your neighbour. We're talking Americans and Russians and East Germans and Poles. You were competing against the best in the world.

There was no Sunday Game or government grants.

When I first raced for my country - the Manx International in 1981 - I was handed a moth-eaten green jersey with the stinking remnants of a Mars bar in the pocket. In 1984, after the Olympic team time trial in Los Angeles, we were required to give our skin suits back. A year later, I returned home from Italy after finishing sixth in the world championships and did not have an arse in my trousers.

I was an amateur. That was my choice.

So it's been amusing to witness the Gaah men - our most celebrated amateurs since forever - parading their usual sense of entitlement with demands for tax breaks. It started with the Mayo defender Chris Barrett, and some observations he made in an interview in The Irish Times, on the demands being placed on inter-county players.

"I think we're getting to a stage where there's so much commitment (needed) that you could have players deciding not to play because it is going to impact on their careers, or the other way, they might decide not to pursue their careers, but to concentrate on the GAA, which is kind of contrary to what we're trying to promote, that's amateur, it's community based.

"I think we need to be proactive on this, not reactive, and realise that it's got to the stage now that it's not sustainable as it is at the moment."

His suggestion was tax breaks and the Revenue's 'Sportsperson Relief' scheme where, upon retirement, professional athletes can claim a deduction of 40 per cent on their wages and prize money from their ten best earning years.

"When they finish they have a lump sum," Barrett observed. "I guess that incentivises them to be more successful as well, because the more successful they are, the more they get back. I'm not saying this is the actual answer, but something to that effect that will just incentivise the intercounty player."

This was music to the ears of Donaghy on Off The Ball.

"We're filling Croke Park with concerts and big games - there's massive revenue coming in - and I just think there could be some tie-in between Croke Park and the tax office and they (might) say: 'Listen lads. Is there something we could do for amateur players here?'

"(The scheme) is a professional sportsperson's tax relief, and we're not professionals, but if you told Chris Barrett he wasn't a professional after all of the training he put in, or if you told any of the female Dublin footballers, or the female Cork footballers, that they weren't professional with all the effort they're putting in, they would be highly insulted."

A day later, Alan Brogan took the baton.

"I wouldn't be for pay-for-play or professionalism," he told Off The Ball. "But something like a tax break might just give a little. A few quid at the end of someone's career that you might be able to put a deposit on a house or you can get yourself a car. Other sportspeople and artists in Ireland have them. There's tax breaks in arts and culture and for guys writing books."

True, but there's a distinction here. Those 'other sportspeople' and artists and 'guys writing books' are professionals. No? And aren't we constantly being reminded - especially when the issue is dope control - that Gaah is an amateur sport. So I'm confused. How does this work?

The players are not professional, and are against pay-for-play, but would like to be rewarded for pulling on the shirt . . . a lump . . . a sweetener . . . a deposit for a house or a car. So what exactly are we talking about here? Bitcoin?

And it was interesting that there was no reference at all last week to what the GPA are already getting from the government - €7m over three years since 2016 - or the perks . . . the mileage paid . . . the nutrition allowances . . . the cash for various programmes . . . the appearance fees . . . the SuperValu ads.

But the glass is always empty.

Sunday Indo Sport