Pundits Shouldn’t Make GAA Player Reviews Personal

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The Gaelic Players Association (GPA) has stressed that pundits should avoid personalizing their player reviews.

After Saturday’s SFC All-Ireland final, which resulted in some Mayo footballers being singled out in the media, GPA communications manager Kieran McSweeney highlighted the impact of some remarks on the life of the players.

It takes more than one player to win an All-Ireland and it takes more than one player to lose an All-Ireland, McSweeney said.

To distinguish an individual the day after a match, I would leave it to others to decide if it is a fair and decent thing to do.

It is the responsibility of all journalists, experts, editors, analysts and broadcasters to be fair and honest and not to personalize issues. In the vast majority of cases, it is the blanket that appears around the Gaelic games.

The vast majority of experts are former gamers and know what it is like to play the game. However, there are some who stick around longer than others. The vast majority speak and write about it because they love Gaelic games. They come from a very positive place and they are fair with their criticism and they are balanced.

What I would say is that people need to be aware that they are talking about people and amateurs returning to their jobs, their studies and their families. What is said and written about them can have an impact on them outside of their sport and experts and editors should be aware of this. We all say things that we regret from time to time. None of us are holy, but we need to be aware of it.

The result of the All-Ireland SHC final was even more conclusive, but McSweeney reports that no player specifically contacted the GPA for help after either game. The support is there, but they know it’s there for them and I can’t stress that enough.

All the support services are there right down to counseling. If there is a problem, there are counseling services. While we are not made aware of the nature of the conversations, we are aware of the general themes and online abuse has not emerged as one of them to date.

The GPA has taken a number of steps to educate players on the dos and don’ts of dealing with social media abuse. We try to arm our members with the tools to deal with it, explained McSweeney.

They know they are in the public eye, they know there will be people who will comment on them and the vast majority are fair and positive. Watch the big reaction to the video of Ronan McNamee coming to kiss his mother after the All-Ireland final. There is something positive about social media.

We worked with Dr Kieran File from the University of Warwick who has only developed a number of videos exclusively for our members over the past few months on the pros and cons of social media. They involve dealing with trolls and ensuring that players are potentially subjected to threatening behavior and we always encourage them to notify the appropriate authorities.

McSweeney insists that people on social media have a duty to condemn personal abuse when it is directed at players. It’s also up to peers of people who call them out and point out when they’re exaggerated. There is a responsibility there.

He underlined the positive points emanating from the weekend. RT had over a million viewers for Saturday’s game, its most watched show to date, and then you had viewers on the Sky, GAAGo, and GAA clips.

The attendance was over 40,000 people and there probably would have been 150,000 more if they could have been accommodated. There is massive support and interest in our games and that is hugely appreciated by the players because we went through last year when there was no one in the stadiums and it just wasn’t the same .

Keyboard warriors and people who abuse gamers and those who think they can write and talk about themselves who in their wildest dreams wouldn’t say the same in front of them, they are a tiny minority and this needs to be emphasized. .

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