GENERALLY speaking what a FAS employee earns won't make news in the back pages of newspapers. Until, that is, the employee in question is the soon to be President of the GAA. President-elect Chirsty Cooney earns a substantial € 158,000 a year for his work at the government training agency.

So what you might ask? Isn't that his own business? Well no actually, because as of January 1 last Mr Cooney's generous salary will be paid from the coffers of the GAA. That means that over the lifetime of his threeyear tenure as GAA President the GAA will have to find almost half a million euro to keep paying his salary, according to a report last week in the Irish Independent.

"In the first year of my Presidency, we will launch the Annual Volunteers Forum. We will put in place a process to address the issues surrounding the amateur status and implement a clear framework to maintain it at the core of the Association... The role of our volunteers and our amateur status has been key to the success of our Association." Chirsty Cooney, GAA President Elect, in ' The GAA Strategic Vision and Action Plan 2009-2015'

While serving as president Mr Cooney's salary will continue to be paid by FAS, but as he is offically seconded to the GAA they must pay FAS back the full value of what they have paid to the Youghal native. This is nothing new. Previous GAA presidents have been beneficiaries of the very same system, including the present office holder Nickey Brennan and Kerry's Sean Kelly.

The present system of secondment for the President was introduced in 2000 in recognition of the increasingly full-time nature of the position and hasn't generated any controversy until now. Mainly because none of the previous Presidents were in receipt of such an large salary.

It is outrageous to think that the GAA should have to pay such an extravagant fee to a "volunteer". It's important to stress that Mr Cooney isn't doing anything wrong. He earns what he earns and is fully compliant with the GAA rulebook, but that doesn't mean it's right that he should continue to be paid that salary while GAA President.

It has been noted again and

€ again by people in the upper echelons of the GAA, including Mr Cooney (see above), that it is an amateur organisation with voluntarism at its core. How can an amateur ethos be upheld when the President of the Association is drawing more than five times the average industrial wage from its coffers?

How can the President of the Association call on players to retain their amateur status when he is in receipt of monies that mean he is anything but an amateur? How can a President of the Association call for an end to the practice of illegal payments to club and intercounty managers while in receipt of a six figure salary paid for by the GAA?

By having such a large salary paid for by the GAA a President cedes a great deal, if not all, of his moral authority when it comes to the 'amateur' issue. It's also problematic when one considers the current financial positions of county boards and clubs throughout the country.

Here in Kerry the County Board is looking at a very grim financial situation over the next couple of years, while clubs up and down the country are struggling to break even year on year. Cash-strapped clubs will have every right to question how much of their affiliation fees will go towards paying Cooney' salary. Club volunteers who sell lottery tickets to help keep their clubs afloat will have every right to question it too.

The GAA's finances at national level do look a great deal healthier, but the rents paid by the IRFU and the FAI for use of Croke Park are artifically inflating the GAA's bottom line. When Lansdowne Road is built neither the IRFU or the FAI will be using Croker any more and the GAA's finances won't be looking as rosy.

Allowing a situation exist whereby the President of an amateur association can be paid such a high figure probably won't be sustainable and will have to be looked at.

Instead of seconding the president from his place of work the GAA should consider a fixed salary, much lower than Mr Cooney's FAS salary, for the position. It is a full time job and nobody should be expected to do it for nothing, but a situation shouldn't be allowed develop whereby the president is getting a salary of five times the average industrial wage.

The argument against a fixed salary and in favour of the secondment arrangement is that a salaried position would undermine the GAA's amateur ethos, but when a situation occurs like the one that presently exists that argument becomes redundant.