GAA is leading way as its rivals cash in
ON A Sunday when the sporting fixtures schedule was wiped out, Oisín McConville took centre stage in the RTÉ studio to talk about the broader theme of the GAA’s ban on all sponsorship by betting companies, passed by 93 per cent of Congress delegates the previous weekend.
The Armagh All-Ireland winner has his own compelling story to tell in terms of gambling addiction and the personal devastation it can wreak. His double life was brilliantly chronicled in The Gambler and he has remained a passionate campaigner on an issue that has become a scourge in modern society, leaving a trail of destruction in various lives across the country.
He praised the association for ‘a very positive step’, for drawing a ‘line in the sand’ and taking the lead on a problem he describes as being at ‘crisis point’.
The irony of his own club Crossmaglen’s long-standing deal with Bar One Racing being the most high-profile example of a club being affected by the ban wasn’t lost on him.
‘It was a real moral question for me,’ he admitted. ‘Do I pull this jersey on or do I walk away from football?
‘When I was at the height of my addiction, it’s not too dramatic to say that football was the only thing that saved my life at that time. There was no way I was walking away from it. I had to pull that jersey over my head.
‘I wasn’t playing for the sponsorship; I was playing for the crest. I was playing, I suppose in a selfish way, for me. If I had walked away it would have dramatically affected my wellbeing and my mental health at the time.’
Namechecking Colin Regan — the GAA’s Community and Health manager — and describing the work being done in this area as ‘absolutely phenomenal’, here is another example of the association taking the moral lead, to go with the ban on betting on underage games.
Coupled with the phasing out of alcohol sponsorship, here is the association again leading the way in terms of social responsibility.
So how come Ireland’s other main sporting organisations get a free pass?
A free bet is only a few clicks away on the FAI’s official website where Ladbrokes is listed as ‘Official Betting Sponsor’. Click on the bookmakers’ logo and up pops a ‘new customer offer’.
It’s Liverpool v Porto FC who meet in the Champions League tonight. ‘Any team to win a corner — 25/1.’
It just happens to relate to the Premier League team this parish has a loose, life-long attachment — a case of computer analytics or maybe just simple coincidence?
‘£1 bet only. Winnings paid in free bets. Promo code: CORNER.’
Another click to fill in personal details. The +18 alert means that when it comes to filling in a date of birth, the options run out at the year 2000. It’s not hard to imagine taking a creative-fiction approach to the questions. And it’s very tempting to use an old landline as a contact and an old email address.
It’s the deposit limit of €20 that prompts the first reality check, and the three options: ‘daily… weekly… monthly’.
A prompt for credit card details is the other.
All the while, FC Ararat Yerevan 2 v FC Shirak Gyumri 2 — top of the live football betting and which exists on live stream from Armenia — is calling.
IN terms of social responsibility, the GAA continues to set the bar high while its main sporting rivals cash in. The phasing out of alcohol sponsorship in recent years is another example. Look at Guinness — once the main sponsors for the flagship All-Ireland Hurling Championship — replaced by a multi-sponsor model of a different kind. The blue-chip company was quick to find a new sporting partner.
Log on to the IRFU official website and there’s the Guinness Series, the Guinness Pro14. Under sponsors, Guinness is listed as ‘official beer to the IRFU’.
In just the same way, Carlsberg is the FAI’s ‘Official Beer Sponsor’.
The GAA has taken the lead on these issues when the government has failed to, with the latter instead placing commercial interests ahead of societal.
At a time when Ireland rugby manager Joe Schmidt and the IRFU are currently in a power struggle with media over controlling the message, taking their lead from the government’s Strategic Communications Unit, it’s time to ask if the Ireland head coach or the IRFU see any need to question alcohol sponsorship.
The thoughts of Martin O’Neill and FAI chief executive John Delaney would be timely too on betting sponsorship.
Before the start of the 2016 season, the FAI announced a fouryear sponsorship deal with Austrian-based betting company Trackchamp which involved showing live online footage of League of Ireland games. It came with a controversial caveat: that the viewers were based outside of Ireland, have a betting account with a Trackchamp affiliate and have that account in credit.
RTÉ presenter Darren Frehill posed a question to McConville during a fascinating discussion: ‘Maybe this needs to go beyond the sporting bodies?’ wondering if government legislation dating back to the 1950s needs to be urgently updated.
In terms of the scale of the problem, McConville was unequivocal: ‘It’s absolutely crazy out there. It’s like a tsunami… The thing about a gambling addiction is, it’s all ages, very much male and female.
‘It’s from one corner of the country to the other. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor — it affects absolutely everybody.’
Some recent findings also caught his attention. ‘One of the interesting things that Premier League and rugby league have done at all levels is a survey. Results of that survey say that people who play competitive sport are twice as likely to become compulsive gamblers.
‘People who play competitive team sport are three times more likely to become compulsive gamblers.’
There’s a clear message there for all sporting organisations.
There comes a time when the bigger picture counts. More than the Liverpool-Porto corner count.
‘Rich or poor, gambling affects us all’