James Horan has spoken to Sean Moran of the Irish Times about the crazy demands placed on inter-county managers. They are so severe that he believes the positions might have to be filled on a full-time basis before long.
Horan reckons the status quo is unsustainable. He said that if a manager quit his job, he could give one or two percent more and would become a better coach. He alluded to the curious situation whereby the medical staff (rightfully) get paid for performing their role but the man over the whole operation receives nothing.
But in a lot of cases you have a manager that’s managing that whole group that’s putting in crazy stuff and is not getting paid. And that’s the case in a lot of counties. That’s not sustainable. I don’t think it is.
Rumours about payments to managers in the GAA are so widespread to the point of being generally accepted as fact by most of the population, but Horan insists he never saw any of these contracts.
Eugene McGee contended in his recent autobiography that managers were earning €40,000 a year. Horan described those claims, with his usual mixture of succinctness and forcefulness as 'nuts stuff'.
