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GPA want Congress to merge GAA with Camogie & Women's Football

The Gaelic Players Association (GPA) is to push Congress for immediate integration of the three m...



GPA want Congress to merge GAA...
Hurling

GPA want Congress to merge GAA with Camogie & Women's Football

The Gaelic Players Association (GPA) is to push Congress for immediate integration of the three main Gaelic games bodies. 

The players' union says 97 per cent of their representatives want to see the Camogie Association and Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) come under the banner of the GAA.

Last year saw the GPA merge with their female counterpart - the WGPA - and the union believes it's high time that happened at an institutional level.

They'll put a motion to GAA Congress, which convenes on February 26.

An agreement between the three associations for closer cooperation lapsed in 2020, with Director General Tom Ryan writing in last year's Annual Report that he hoped for similar alignment in the future.

He warned, however, "They [LGFA & Camogie Association] are well run and eminently capable, and they deserve the right to determine their own destiny.

"Merely assuming that they would be better served in an all-encompassing GAA does them a disservice."

But GPA CEO Tom Parsons wants to see decisive action on the Congress floor later this month.

"The spirit of this motion is about action for gender equality in sport and bringing the Gaelic family together," said the former Mayo star.

"It is about showing women and girls, whether they are involved in Gaelic games or not, that the biggest sporting and cultural organisation in Ireland values you every bit as much as it does your brothers, partners, nephews and husbands.

“We appreciate and respect the three NGBs have been on a journey towards closer links and closer cooperation.  What players are asking for now is that the GAA expediate this process, in a spirit of consultation with the LGFA and Camogie Association. I believe this change will have the power to unite us and ignite Gaelic games.

“The outcome players want to see is a road map that sets out clear actions and timelines that leads to one national organisation overseeing our games.

"Players believe in today’s world we must deliver equal opportunity, recognition and investment regardless of gender and that this motion supports the GAA mantra ‘Where we all belong’.”

The GPA say they will be lobbying for support of their motion between now an the February 26 Congress in Mayo.

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Camogie Association GAA GPA Gaelic Players Association Ladies Gaelic Football Association Lgfa