[caption id="attachment_69602" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Seanie Johnston, who has been dropped by Cavan, wants to play for Kildare. "]
There was a piece in the Spanish newspaper “El Pais” the other week praising the retired Belgian footballer Jean-Marc Bosman. The thrust of the article was that in taking his case for freedom of movement to the European Courts back in 1995, Bosman had created an environment that had greatly improved the game in Spain. Young Spanish players ended up going abroad to get crucial experience and more gifted foreigners came into La Liga, improving the standard and turning it into the finest league in the world.
It was timely to see Bosman’s name featuring in the media because the transfer deadline frenzy of last Tuesday (which is never quite as frenzied as we are led to believe beforehand) is at least in part down to him. Clubs now feel under pressure to cash in their chips and move players on before they take full advantage of the freedom of contract they enjoy since Bosman sought greater rights for footballers all those years ago. Of course, that Bosman never benefited from the ruling and ended up going through financial hard times afterwards was a cruel irony.
"I am on anti-depressants,” said Bosman in an interview last week in which he explained that he lives on welfare in Belgium and suffers from depression. "Everyone has forgotten the man at the center of the Bosman case. I have made the world of football rich and I find myself with nothing.
“I cried tears of blood because of it, I suffered enormously and I've never had recognition from players. I reckon someone should do something for me. I find it disproportionate to have to go to the Public Centre for Social Action and live on a benefit of £630 a month. Fifpro could give me a salary so I can look after my family. I'm not asking for £30,000 a day, but for around £2,500 a month."
The plight of Bosman and the transfer madness of earlier this week dovetail nicely with one of the most prominent GAA stories of the year so far. Like so many other people, I received an email the other day about the joke campaign to “Free Seanie Johnston.” For those of you who don’t know, and that would really be a large proportion of the population, Johnston is a Gaelic footballer from Cavan. Indeed, on his day, he might be one of the best forwards in the country, a description that makes Cavan boss Val Andrews’ decision to cut him from the county panel last October kind of inexplicable.
Like so many of his team-mates, Johnston had a poor 2011 campaign. After eight years on the Cavan panel, during many of which he was among the top performers, the 27 year old was perhaps entitled to a bad one. When Andrews told him he was no longer needed, it seemed harsh to those of us looking in from the outside but that was the manager’s prerogative. If Andrews feels he has better available, he’ll win or lose on the back of that choice. What then of Johnston?
“I still feel I have a lot to contribute at inter-county level,” said Johnston when it subsequently emerged he wanted a transfer to Kildare. “You only have a short time at this level and I’d like to make it count. Someone else has made a decision to end my inter-county career. I respect a manager's right to make that decision. But does that mean that I have to cease being an inter-county player?”
Whisper it but that’s exactly the kind of question Bosman asked back in the early 1990s when the clubs rather than the players held all the aces. Now, nobody knows for sure when Johnston took up residency in Straffan, County Kildare. Nobody can say for certain whether he’d win a starting spot on Kieran McGeeney’s team. What we can discuss though is the principle involved. Why should a footballer in the prime of his sporting life have to give up playing at the highest level?
There are a number of facile answers to that question. The GAA was founded upon and thrives on the fact it’s a parochial association where your allegiance is to your local parish club and to your county. Yes, we know the lines blur from time to time but that’s still a cornerstone of what the GAA is about. And, it goes without saying, Johnston has no divine right to a county jersey. All over Ireland there are footballers and hurlers who can’t get onto county panels or are getting dropped from squads because managers don’t rate them up to the job. This is the way of sport.
That’s not to say the Johnston case doesn’t raise a serious issue. In any sport if a player is deemed unworthy of a spot, he is free to move on to a different outfit. This is not the case in the GAA and maybe it’s something they need to look at. Were he allowed to move, Johnston might be a huge asset to Kildare and could light up the championship in their colors next summer. Wouldn’t the GAA benefit from that? Wouldn’t it be better to have a talented player in his prime on the field rather than off it? Haven’t fellas slipped discreetly between counties before without any problems?
Whatever happens with the Johnston case, one of these days some angry player is going to go a step further with this and try to force the GAA’s hand. It doesn’t take a genius to figure an enterprising lawyer is going to argue the restriction on movement as per the county system impinges on an individual’s human rights. It may sound far-fetched and Croke Park may think its Disputes Resolution Authority prevents this sort of move ever happening but come on, who would have thought in the mid-90s that an unknown footballer could change the way transfers were conducted forever?
Seanie Johnston may not be our Jean-Marc Bosman but somebody else may yet prove to be.
