Former Dublin footballer Dessie Farrell has announced he is to step down from his role as chief executive of the Gaelic Players Association. His decision will come into effect at the end of December. Farrell is a founding member of the GPA and said it has been a “tremendous honour to have led the GPA and to have served our county players over the past decade and a half. We are all extremely proud of what has been achieved in that time and I feel truly privileged to have witnessed the growth, development and success of the organisation in that period.”

While tributes to Farrell have flooded in from GPA chair Seamus Hickey and former chair and founding member Donal Óg Cusack, RTÉ analyst Joe Brolly is critical of the GPA in this week’s Irish Country Living. Brolly describes the GPA as “a private company representing Gaelic footballers receiving €6.5m a year from GAA coffers with no accountability”.

“I deeply dislike the GPA. The GAA shouldn’t exist to create a livelihood for footballers,” he said.

Elsewhere in the interview, Brolly recounts his childhood living through the Troubles in Dungiven, Co Derry. His father spent several years in prison, his uncle Eunan was involved in the dirty protests and a Dungiven man, Kevin Lynch died on hunger strike which “just sent the town crazy”. Brolly recalls the famous words of the parish priest: “People in Dungiven are only interested in two things: the GAA and the IRA.”

Read the Joe Brolly interview here.