Prenty — one of the GAA’s most experienced and respected administrators — believes that the current public health crisis offers a chance to reflect on “what it’s all about” for the entire Association.

“This shutdown is an opportunity to halt the runaway train that inter-county football and hurling has become,” said the Mayo native.

“The questions I would like people to reflect on are: Do we need to be doing as much? Do we need as many people involved in backroom teams? Is the inter-county game the be-all and end-all? If the GAA championships are played this year, they will have to be played off in a much shorter period of time. I’d ask the question: ‘Why can’t we do that every year?’ I think a large part of the reason is the industry that has grown up around teams.

“The GAA at inter-county level is a professional game played by amateurs now.

“Look at all the volunteers that run the association on county boards, who are being told by professionals and people involved with teams that they want more and more and more. I think all this pressure and all these demands are taking a toll on people’s physical and mental health. And it’s only when something like this pandemic hits that you start to wonder: ‘What’s it all about?’ The GAA is just sport at the end of the day.

“If we pick up where we left off last month, I believe the GAA is headed for a disaster,” he continued.

“County teams and players shouldn’t be coming together every day a week during the season.

“It’s too much. People talk about the inter-county bubble; it’s time to burst that bubble.”

The former Mayo GAA secretary also says that the time has come for county board officials to regain control of the spending and planning for inter-county teams all over the country.

“I believe that the GAA needs to get all the chairpersons, secretaries, and treasurers of all the county boards into a room, come to an agreement on a plan for the future, and then stick to it,” he said. “County managers should then be told to follow that plan. I think it is achievable, and what’s happening at the moment will shock people into implementing it. It reminds all of us that there are bigger things in life than football and hurling. As an Association, if we don’t make changes between now and this time next year I think we’re going to be in trouble.

“This could come back again next year and where will we be then? Anyone who thought the GAA should be semi-professional will have got a rude awakening in the last few weeks. You can’t spend €30m preparing county teams every year and keep going the way we’ve been going.

“The last resort should be that the GAA have to put a limit on the number of training sessions that teams are allowed to have.

“I think we should go back to energising our clubs,” he continued.

“The clubs should be the focus of our communities right across the country all the time.

“And they should be providing games for kids and adults, that’s what the GAA is all about. The values of the GAA are shining through at the moment, clubs helping the vulnerable and people who need help in their communities. That has always happened but now everyone is seeing it, and that will stand the GAA in good stead when this is all over.”