GAA: "It's time to pay coaches," - says former Cork All-Ireland winner Larry Tompkins:

The issue of illegal payments being made to senior inter-county team managers has long been in the thorn in the GAA's side. Larry Tompkins, who managed Cork from 1997 to 2003, said: "I definitely inter-county managers should be rewarded financially, because what they're getting at the moment in terms of expenses is very small. Managing a team at that level is a huge commitment and it takes over your life. The manager has the most important and demanding role in any team. I've been on both sides of it. As a player, you just pick up your bag in the evening and go training. But a manager is kept busy with it every minute of the day, between phone-calls, planning training sessions and various other things."

Larry does not want full-time GAA professionalism

When asked if employing inter-county managers on a full-time basis would be a realistic option in the future, Tompkins said: "I think it would be, but it could be an awkward situation because there are so many people putting hard work in to the GAA at all levels and they could argue that they deserve to be paid as well. But I'm certainly not arguing in favour of any kind of professional status in the GAA. What would happen then is that the top counties would get even stronger.  The three or four best players in Carlow, for example, would just go away and play for Cork or Kerry because they'd make more money from it. That cannot happen."