The GAA has released a long-awaited discussion document on payments to inter-county managers.

County officials will discuss the issue at a meeting on Saturday.

GAA director general Páraic Duffy stressed within the document that is is not a set of proposals.

However, it offers three options for dealing with irregular payments to inter county managers.

The first is to continue with the association’s existing policy, which Duffy believes has been ineffective.

“It is debateable whether the Association’s current attitude to the problem of unregulated payments to team managers should even be called a policy. The term ‘policy’ gives the impression of a set of guiding principles arrived at and agreed upon after evaluation and discussion,” the paper states.

“The truth of the matter, however, is that the GAA’s attitude to the issue owes more to inertia and expediency than to anything else.”

A second option is “to implement fully the Association’s existing policy, rules and guidelines on our amateur status.”

“The implementation of an enforcement policy along these lines would represent a genuine commitment to live up to the core values of the Association and would constitute a determined effort to eradicate the blight of irregular payments to managers. It would also represent a great advance on the passivity and inaction of the first option.”

The third option, which would mark a departure for the GAA, is to introduce a system of regulated payments for inter-county managers.

The paper states that “pragmatism demands that the GAA at least examines this option as a means of eradicating irregular payments.”

A working group will be set up to oversee official GAA policy on the the issue of unregulated payments.

Read the full discussion paper here.