John Fogarty and Vincent Hogan both raised concerns for the coaching environment for youths, in all walks of under age sports in Ireland.
There have been a number of concerns in relation to discrimination, harm and abuse in GAA circles. The pair spoke in relation to a Paul Kimmage piece in Today’s Independent. The piece is about the suspension of Galway GAA club St. Mary’s juvenile hurling and football activity.
Hogan says the reliance on volunteers is one of the core problems. He says too many of the volunteer’s involved are not qualified to coach in this country. He believes it should be a wake up call to everyone involved in the progression on underage sport, in every sport.
“It’s a shot across the bows of every volunteer, in every sport.
"There is such a reliance on volunteers, in the GAA particularly. People take charge of under age teams with no qualification other than the fact that they’re willing to put in the time,’ said Hogan.
John Fogarty says Athenry may have shown arrogance in their rebuttal to the suspension in the article. He points to a potential source of that arrogance, the past glories the club had in football and hurling realms.
“There seems to be a little bit of arrogance from the club. The point that was made in the piece was; “Look at what we’ve achieved,’ not necessarily in recent times, in terms of senior but in terms of underage, the conveyor belt is still going strong.
Fogarty went on to add the Galway club have a reluctancy to change. He says they must do something in order to change the environment children are participating in. He feels children are a lot more vulnerable in modern times, and says they need even more protection.
“If Some thing isn’t broken, why fix it? - We do have to fix these things. Lets be honest, children are a lot more vulnerable, these days.”
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