The amateur filling an 82,000-capacity stadium before returning to the day job on Monday morning is one of the sources of pride among GAA folk.

But how long will players be content to train as professionals and generate tens of millions in gate receipts and commercial revenue and go unpaid - while all around them are earning money? Perhaps not long if you go by what Limerick hurler Tom Morrissey wrote in the Irish Times at the weekend.

Everybody on All-Ireland final days, he says, from management teams to media to food vendors and security staff are professional. But the main actors are doing it for nothing but the honour of representing their county and a modest grant payment.

Morrissey cites a recent GPA-commissioned report which claims intercounty players generate €591 million annually for the economy and support more than 4,000 jobs but are out-of-pocket by an average of €4,500 each year.

The players union says this issue must be addressed urgently - which effectively means that the taxpayer has to make up the shortfall through grants and tax breaks. Is this fair to the exchequer, or should the GAA use their revenue to compensate players? But if that happens are we in a world of open professionalism, as opposed to the more covert kind which has existed for decades?

Gav and Sinead get into the details of the debate and try to work out the best Irish solution for this most Irish of problems.

Gav wonders if the GPA has gone full Flann O’Brien in their request for more money to preserve their amateur status. Just do away with the pretence of amateurism, which is long since dead, he says.

Sinead fears a Pandora’s Box if payments to players are regularised and argues that all-powerful county managers making unsustainable demands on amateur players need to be brought into line.

Also, in the name of economic impact reports - of the which the GPA is the latest purveyor - Gav calculates the considerable value to the Irish economy of this podcast.

Get in touch with the show: email gavincooney@the42.ie and sinead@thejournal.ie

This week’s episode of The 42FM is brought to you by An Post Money.