Tyrone footballer Conor Meyler recommends five pillars for Gaelic games' potential merger

Tyrone footballer Conor Meyler has outlined five recommendations he believes should be implemented as part of the potential merger between the GAA, Camogie Association and Ladies Gaelic Football Association.

Former President of Ireland Mary McAleese has been chairing the meetings of the Steering Group on Integration between the three bodies and talks have been aimed at moving towards a 'one association' model.

Meyler has chosen to focus on the topic of integration of Gaelic games as part of his PhD research at the Technological University of the Shannon.

Together with Dr Kate Liston of Ulster University and Dr Aoife Lane of TUS, a policy review on the subject will be published on Wednesday and speaking to RTÉ Sport's Darren Frehill, Meyler discussed the findings they had made in their research.

"From the research, we were able to develop five key recommendations," he said.

"The first being to plan for the process, so to plan throughout the pre-merger, the transition and post-merger phase and to understand and accept the fact that if we want an integration that's underpinned by equality then it's going to take time.

"The second was to have guiding principals and values. Principles such as strategic thinking, strong leadership - transformational leadership - and also clear communication from the bottom up and from the top down.

"(Thirdly), to prioritise female representation like Golf Ireland did so well. They brought in a quota system from the start, 30/30/40, to allow for a female voice throughout and to give them a position in decision-making.

"The next one is to have a funding model. So a funding model based on equality which is going to allow us to close the gap or to bridge it, as such, between the investment in male players