Jarlath Burns says he is "totally against" alcohol bans forced on players by clubs and management.
The GAA President is a member of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association and credits not drinking alcohol as one of the factors that saw him play club football until he was 52.
But Burns believes alcohol bans lead to players going on a huge binge once they end and feels that is "the big problem" rather than players having a few drinks in the days before matches.
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He told Sean O’Rourke's Insights podcast: “The difficulty is not so much people drinking before matches. It’s the drink bans. I’m totally against drink bans. Because what happens is lads go off drink for five or six weeks, or maybe three, four months and when it’s all over they go on a big binge. It’s binge drinking that’s the big problem.
“If we could have a culture where lads can have a few glasses of wine, or go out for a night and maybe have a few too many, so what? That’s ok, that’s part of enjoying alcohol. I have a serious issue with drink bans.”
The comments echo similar ones made by Kerry legend Marc Ó Sé a number of years ago.
He wrote in the Irish Mail on Sunday: "I absolutely get the need to advise players on what to eat and how to refuel to ensure that your body is in the best shape to absorb the benefits of training, but the concept of a drink ban never sat well with me.
"That is not in any way making light of an alcohol culture in this country, one which is not healthy, but I just never saw the point in a ban being put in place just for the sake of it.
"The reality is that if you are serious about your game you are never going to abuse yourself in that way, but going for a couple of pints with your friends is a way of unwinding.
"And if you can't control your downtime then it is easy to understand why players would begin to resent their existence.
"The bottom line is that you have to trust your players to have the same ambition and desire to get the job done, while respecting that they have lives to live.
"That is no snowflake approach, just the common sense belief that if a player is happy in his head, enjoying his life on and off the field, then he is going to be in a far better place with his game."
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