Why integration was always doomed - and how to fix it | Conor Meyler & Sarah O'Donovan | OFF THE BALL

0:00This is a free off the ball podcast. For access to the best in sporting analysis from the lakes of Brain O Driscoll and Edone, Kevin Kilban, Deon Fanning, Tommy Waj, Darren O'Sullivan and last more, becoming off the ball in Ember today. Join in the obsession. Subscribe now at offtheball.com for a flat join. The off the ball rugby roachow is coming to your province. Some of the biggest stars from Lenscher, Monster, Ulster and Connucked as we travel around the country to preview the 2026-27 rugby season. Don't miss your chance to be there. Get your tickets now at offtheball.com for slash events. Off the ball. GAA. Back to Wednesday nights off the ball. Now we've got two former Intercounty players with us on the line to discuss the ongoing story regarding integration in Gela Games. We've got Sarah O'Donovan and Connor Miler with us on the line. Good evening to you both folks.

1:00Sarah, I might just kick things off with yourself here. It feels that the most important thing that's worth discussion today in terms of the comments that have been made today is from G.A. President Jarrett Luth Burns. He basically went on or tea radio and said the stalling of integration is down to the financial concerns. That for true equality, the 45 million that we invest in in Intercounty G.A. is going to need to be matched with 45 million investment into the LGFA and Kamogia Association. Your thoughts when you heard that from the president of the G.A.? I think it's scaremongering. In all the years that I've involved with teams, we've never spent even remotely close to that. I don't think we've ever even hit a million in some cases, in some years, because the county boards that I've dealt with in Dublin and Cork have been so streamlined in terms of how they use their money. I think it's very naive of Jarrett Luth Burns to suggest that the Ladies Football Association and the Kamogia Association

2:02would see us integrating with the G.A. as a blank check for us to progress our games. First things first, let's get that off the table. That was never a number that we would have considered spending in the process of integrating into the G.A. It was certainly not something that was driving our participation in steering groups in relation to integration. Just to reiterate the facts on this. The average 2025 spend on a G.A. Intercounty team was 518,000 euro on the average 2025 spend on an LGFA slash Kamogia. Intercounty team was 130,000 euro. It's a fraction of the 45 million that was actually spent on Kamogia or LGFA and nobody said it has been commented at the table on this saying, we now need a massive stumping up of our finances. It is actually just coming into the organization. That was the plan for 2027 and then where that funding to increase as the years went by, that discussion could be had. But nobody was necessarily saying, let us into the organization

3:02and give us the 518,000 euro per team immediately. We wouldn't have known how to spend it. There's the level of expertise that have come into a high performance environment which both Tom Ryan and Jarla Burns referenced today are not available at our level yet. Our games haven't got there yet. So we wouldn't have been spending that kind of money because we wouldn't have expected those kind of expertise as yet. We were building some teams within senior ranks in Kamogia. We don't even have strength in conditioning programs in place. That's the truth of it. So it was building blocks. It was never about a blank check. Connor, you were one of the authors of the policy brief integration in Gaila Games. Yourself Dr. Rief Elaine and Dr. Katie Liston worked on this. There were five recommendations for integration in Gaila Games and there's one of them that I want to put to you here. It's number four. Develop a funding model based on equity. It was point number four on one of your recommendations.

4:03How have we got to the stage where equity has become equality in all of this? Where the president of the GIA is going out and saying what we give to the male teams, we now need to give that to the female teams. How has the equity thing just got muddied completely? Evening. Yeah, language in terminal is a big problem. Because from the outset, the first statement from these during committee was this will be an integration built on the principle of equality. And there's been no definition for that. We don't know what it means. So we have no idea what equality means. The chart of this change is terminology to equity. We couldn't explain what it meant. We went straight to finance. And there are kind of teams. One, the numbers don't add up. Two, Tom Parsons, committee has then said that's not the case as well. When they reviewed on three, we're all missing the bigger picture.

5:07This isn't about inter-party teams in spend. Like the bigger picture here is we've over a million members. This is impacting every single person on the ground, not just the inter-party player. If you want to get into budgets and stuff, there's so much to refine and streamline. That's one problem of it. Our piece on the equity of finances is building a funding model with a strategy as to how we close the gap over time. But when we jumped on the call 2022, Ms. Helf you and Kieri, are we talking about these things as this Kieri even said, this could take a decade before we reach a point of January and equality. But it's all been ignored. Nobody has taken on board. To me, the committee was set up to fail from the start because it didn't take on board a lot of what we had proposed in that policy roof. Right. So is there a situation here where there is a lot of work to be done in order to bring the organizations together

6:13across the streets left with a corner? Because when you listen to the president, he's very much pushing the idea that actually knows it's just the elite. The elite is where we have the problems. At grassroots level, there are a number of clubs who've already come under the one club model and another rake of clubs who are willing to pull the trigger on integration immediately. One I discipline things about probably the statement from Jar today was, obviously the fixation on the enter kind of expand, right? But here's the institute, it's continuity. So Jar does nodded to enter kind of expand. Ryan Lois nodded to facilities. Tom Ryan has said it's more organizational logistics and it won't bore us with the details. Dr. Maclease has said it's leadership, which has been less impressive. The Aljafay haven't really said much. The Aljafay and the Kmoge are part of the same GA Management Committee.

7:14So you look at the representation on that GA Management Committee. There's Aljafay representation, there's Kmoge representation, there's gender balance on the board. Like, it's also more like nobody really knows what's happened. And I just want them to come out and tell the truth. What's actually happened? What is actually going on? How has this got so far down the lane that we've got to a point now where Dr. Maclease has kind of just dropped a nuclear bomb on us? And the whole thing is going up the left. But we have allowed this to get this far without really challenging. And to me, in that policy brief, we published four main things. But even in my merger research, publication of National Sporting Organizations Reviewing, all the National Sport and Organizations Research on it, leadership was one of the standout things. I think we have seen really per leadership from the steering committee here as a whole.

8:14Because you have representation on that committee. You have Aljafay Presence CEO, Kmoge Presence CEO, a GA Presence CEO. The GA has been hungry to write a minute. And absolutely. But the Aljafay and Kmoge are both part of that committee. And there's been very little set out there too. So I just don't know what's happening because the committee, as well, published 20 plus reports, right? Which don't really say anything in the last four, three, three, four years. The roadshow report doesn't really say anything significant. I propose the structure, which doesn't really make sense either. Like the warning signs have been here for a long time. Like it was never going to happen by 20 to 20 times happen. Can I ask, and I want to put this to you as well, Sarah, but Connor, just on the point you make about the management committee, having a seat for the Kmoge association and the Aljafay on that, has that essentially placated them to a degree where

9:19their sense of urgency around integration has been subdued somewhat. So if you want to jump in first, I've talked about it there. So I met the new CEO after the Kmoge final. And she replaced Naive McNulty last year. Karen was very forthright with her plans for what she sees in terms of the next five, 10 years for the Kmoge association. My understanding was that she was very excited about integration. And this is why she would have taken a role at CROPE Park and stepped away from, say, her commercial role previous to that. I would be hoping that a seat in the management committee at CROPE Park would not placate her. But I haven't heard her on the record since she's taken up office. The only person that I've heard on the record routine me is Brian Maloy. So if there is placation going on, it needs to stop this week.

10:23And the sense is that staffing is an issue as was referenced by Jarlis today. Are we talking about the management committee and the CEOs of the respective organizations who don't want to lose their jobs if the structure changes? And is that why things aren't moving more quickly? And is that why four years of work went down the drain with Mary McLeese's resignation? And that would be my concern is that we're certainly not vocal enough from the Kmoge association side today. In what we're saying, Brian Maloy isn't enough to my mind. Okay. It's dangerous point as well, right? Yeah. You look at that committee as far as my mind is aware, right? I presented to the steering committee back in 2022. From that committee that I presented to, there's only two people still on it. Tom Ryan and Mary McLeese. We've had two new CEOs.

11:23We've had three new presence and we're about to reach another presence. So any progress that was made by Larry at the start, so Larry gave me historical documentation at the start. I pulled together a full merger timeline, did back for the last 50 years of all the talk of integration. The policy briefs out there, hopefully when you can attach it, right? I have it in front of me. It's just a nod of you. In 2000, there was a GA annual Congress report for strategic alliance. 2002, there was an integration task force established between the three associations. 2002, 2004, there's one county pilot scheme carried out in eight counties. And then there was an integration task force report published on 2005. 2007, integration report talked about the benefits of mergers, the principles, the proposed structures, I spoke with Leonel, God rest them, who talked to me about the biggest, the most disappointing thing that happened during his term, was he didn't get integration over that. And the reason he couldn't get done is because he couldn't do it on his own.

12:26So if you have presence that will take another three years basis, three, four years basis, any progress you make with one is gone. So any progress made in the committee with Larry, gone, when Jarrett comes in. Jarrett picks it up and then it's going to come and do it. Larry can't know. He hasn't been on the committee. So any work that's done in the steering committee is not a start of fresh. So yeah, like we're talking about Kamogia and UCO and ladies, football and UCO and part of the GA March committee. They're coming into the committee then fresh, unaware as to what progress has been made. I outlined this from the start. You cannot have a committee with three presidents on it that will rotate. Who in that committee at the minutes, oh, is an organizational change expert or is a merger and governance expert? Nobody. Go all the way through an integration 2016-2021. Don't interview. Don't fully cast down. They brought in a night side expert, Jane Williams, Braggens. They get rid of the presence from the transition committee because they're too vested in trust.

13:28And they also don't have the competency and the space of organizational mergers and logistics and policies and structures there to do that up. Bring a night side expert to get it over there. We didn't do that. We didn't look at the research that happened and all the cases that happened in the UK, Australia, recalls, and take the advice on board. The things that work well, the things that didn't. I can see the fear from ladies, football and Kamogia because in a lot of merger cases, it becomes a merger takeover where the women's organization gets to be. I'm not sure if the women's organization gets swallowed up and forgotten about it. Now, we're far enough down the line that that won't happen. That comes a lot of the time from political drivers and financial contacts, which are things that we can manage. But we never blod in the experts. And we never followed the research. So, for four years, I've been buying my head. We've done interviews. If I don't interview last week on integration. It didn't even make any headlings. We don't have chat three years ago. We don't.

14:28Barely get any interest. People haven't even been making noise about it until this moment where the ball must drop. Things have been tutoring along. There's no strategic roadmap. There's been no, by the end of 2023, we're integrating this. 24, that, 25, that. There is a lot of really good people. I've spoken to more chairs and people within Gilly Games who want this to happen. And they don't know what to do. They haven't been given the tools to know what to do here. And that's the feeling that it's got this far without, and the board composition is a huge problem, and part of that. Sarah, your thoughts on everything, Connor's detail there. I don't want to use too strong language here, but it sounds like in many ways the process was a little bit shambolic, or at least there were square pegs and round holes with regards to the type of people that were required to get this very complex piece of work done.

15:29Yeah, so I've been a volunteer with the GA and the Kamogu Association in 2018. And just as an example, the road shows that were rolled out at the start of this year to explain to the people on the ground what was happening. They were seen as useful by the GA in Clark, I think. 70 people attended Parkie Keith to discuss integration in a, you know, in a county of Clark size. Do you think that's a successful, you know, demonstration of information to a cohort of Clark people who clearly love their GA? I think everything was mooted and muted on purpose to get to this point. And it's no surprise that this announcement or this, you know, supposed this meeting happened after 83,000 people filled Croak Park on Saturday night.

16:29I don't think we'd have had the same level of enthusiasm for cage Taylor and Croak Park if last week if we had known that this was coming back down the track from the GA. And I'm thrilled that Mary McLeese literally lit through my fire as she exited because it was on a live line today, Connor. And when it makes a live line, it's making news, you know, people were genuinely insensed. On both sides, you know, I listened to both sides, but people were genuinely insensed today at 1 o'clock that this had taken place. And that we had lost somebody of Mary McLeese's caliber as a former president of Ireland and that she felt the need to go nuclear yesterday. So I agree wholeheartedly with Connor that the way that the GA, Komogui Association and the LGFA tried in verticamas to bring about change was never going to be successful.

17:29And as a fundamental point here, we keep holding up the GA as this amazing business organization. It's a business model centered entirely around volunteerism. If you don't have the volunteers on board, the GA has nothing. I'm talking countless of thousands of hours of labor given freely by men and women across the country. And I think in the last four or five years, it was being given towards integration because people's lives got busier, but they saw an out. They saw that there was going to be a change. And now this huge turnaround from the GA and the LGFA and Komogui by not supporting Mary McLeese is, to my view, a real kick in the teeth for every volunteer who has spent the last four years assuming that the GA were going to stand over what they had committed to. When it comes to considering what's next, there would be a replacement found for Mary McLeese and this person maybe less likely to rock the boat than Mary McLeese, I'd suspect.

18:34Does there need to be a proper rethink on the structure around integration, Connor? Like given what you've just outlined there in terms of the personnel involved, is it worth considering a lesser role for the president of the GA given how frequently that is rotated? It does sound like the process here and the committees that have tried to usher this through. There's been a massive failure there. Yeah, I don't think we need the three presence. Sometimes you add too many people and it brings in too many complications. So you streamline it, you get the right people in the room. Three CEOs, perfect, spot them. Along with your organizational change expert, your governance emergent expert, and one other water. But fund the group, give them time, give them autonomy,

19:35give them the resources they need to get the thing done and get it done well. So again, who holds Gilly Games to your kind? Membership, it has to be. The membership hold them to kind, but who's above them that can actually hold them to kind in the sense of the finances and numbers because what I find as well, the financial context and the political drivers is huge. So that's what happened in the UK. The organizations were pushed into mergers because of a neoliberal move. Sports Council put pressure on says we're not fund in separate government bodies. Talk, work it out, get something done. And when there was a deadline put to them, they met it because the financial drivers are there in the political drivers. It didn't always work out as best practice. But we also have an opportunity. My big thing here one is it's bigger than just structures and systems. Nobody's taken into account the cultural and the sociological impact and implications of this. The socio-economic report was done there recently last year was at Indicone,

20:382.8, 2.9 billion with the Gilly Games trade for their economy. This is bigger than just a sporting merger. This is one of the biggest things that's going to happen in Irish sporting history. And that's someone can give me another example of where three of your largest associations that govern well, the 4,000 clubs, there's more Gilly Games clubs than there is Robins Walker combined on the island. I'm probably athletics. It touches everybody. Right? It's huge. But what this does is it sets up the young boy in the garril who aren't even born into the organization yet. But you're told where you stand and where you sit by the organization that you go into. So I've done reviews and more research on other governance bodies here within the country. And the problem with the gender debate is if you give equality is equality of opportunity. So a young boy and a young garril walk in they get the same level of opportunity. What do you do that opportunities up here? Right? But the men of the young boy is going to get 15 times more investment because this organization generates so much more than ladies football and Kamogi from the ladies side.

21:43So boy, style of hand to train three to four times a week, ladies, two to three. You're getting access to the new pitches. You're getting all the brand new footballs and the herbs are getting the homies. Right? Speaking loosely, but my eyes are open as a man to go. I didn't have to deal with any of these issues. But I speak to other enter county players who are saying, yeah, sure when we were with garriles, we were told to warm up with invisible balls. Oh, we didn't even get access to pitch. But we didn't get access to shares. We had a change in the angle in myself. What do you mean like this has never happened? The opportunities haven't been there, right? But we have an opportunity to change that and say from a grassroots level, build your organization up that gives young boys and young garriles equal opportunity when we build from there. But there's four prongs that we've all gone after policy and strategy, but we have found in the research that doesn't work unless you look at transformational leadership. And as you look at the biographical disruption and the culture and sociological impacts, all the conversations that people are having when they sit down at the kitchen table, right?

22:47How do they speak about man sport and woman sport? How does that young boy get treated compared to the young garril? We need to look at, yes, strategy and policy. We have to have hard tangible things in place. That's why we have our 40% but also there's an awareness and an education training. But the thing that actually annoyed me and it's not going to be popular. But the thing that annoyed me as well with all this was there was a bit of misogyny and what some people were commuting to say today. That was a bit of man-bashing. And I get it because the GA government man and boys, but that's the point. The GA government man and boys, they don't govern these football or Komogi. But I'm a man who's involved in GA and I've been fighting and knocking doors for better and for equality and allyship for the last four years. And there's so many good men in the GA who want this to happen. The Komogi presence is a man. You never play Komogi, right?

23:48But he's a man and he's fighting for your quality. The previous LGFA presence. You never played Lee's football. You played Gaelic football under the GA. These men wanted as well. But it felt like there was a target. Oh man, I'm from the gender form and gender equality research that I've done. Man or such a huge part in component of it. They hold so much power and cloud at the minute in decision making because the majority of man are still holding decision making positions. And what I found in my third study looking at senior male leaders, some of the most prominent positions in the country. There's a lot of good men who sit in a conditional middle. So I created this bathroom yet. You know, you're reflexive, you're emerging, you're transformational, but there's this conditional piece in the middle where a lot of men sit where they will be an ally. As long as it doesn't come at a cost or an implication. You also have a lot of men who want to do the right thing but don't want to do. So they're so scared of saying the wrong thing.

24:49And that's where we need a real strong leadership from. The man as well here to set an example rather than kicking them all down. Okay, guys, we have to leave it there could easily talk for a much longer period of time. But Sarah Donovan and Connor might appreciate your thoughts this evening. Thanks for joining us. Thanks. We will take a quick break. There's another big story in the world of Gala games that's come out today. That's about the new rules that are going to trial in her. We'll bring you the ads and the eight o'clock news and then we'll email her and Richie Hogan will be with me in studio. Off the ball. GAA. The Off the Ball rugby Roacho is coming to your province. Join some of the biggest stars from Lenscher, Monster, Ulster and Connacht as we travel around the country to preview the 2026-27 rugby season. Don't miss your chance to be there. Get your tickets now at Off the Ball.com forward slash events.