MATT COOPER ON GAA’S DUTY

THE best thing that can be said after yesterday’s meeting between the GAA top brass and the members of the organising committee for the Liam Miller benefit game in Cork, due to be played in late September, is that the GAA did not state that the doors of 45,000-capacity Páirc Uí Chaoimh would definitely be closed to the moving of the game from the much smaller 7,500-capacity Turner’s Cross.

This was an advance from last Friday’s highly lawyered statement from Croke Park that effectively said ‘rules are rules’, and that the GAA, at its highest operating levels, was not minded to react to public lobbying, from within or outside its membership, to facilitate a soccer match, no matter how good the cause.

So if anyone thought the weight of public opinion would force the GAA to quickly take a decision that its hierarchy might not want or like – just for the sake of some good public relations – they may sadly mistaken. The GAA has a history of digging in.

Even the wording of yesterday’s joint statement was not just careful but loaded. The gist of it was that the GAA had received a proposal which it would consider – but with no indication as to how long that might take.

A proposal is different from a request. The latter would imply a straightforward: ‘Can we hire the ground from you?’, and get a simple yes or no. A proposal would suggest that arrangements had to be made to solve something that isn’t as simple as many outsiders would assume, that some imaginative initiatives were being invited from the committee to make sure that this would not be seen simply as a soccer match involving ex-professionals to raise money.

Rugby

Perceptions are very important in the GAA so whether or not the approach being negotiated results in the game going ahead in the bigger Cork venue remains to be seen. Michael O’Flynn, the property developer who is the driving force behind the Liam Miller charity match in Cork, and who is someone I know personally to be highly involved in many charitable projects in his native county, is a canny operator and he will not go off half-cocked in his efforts to get any arrangement in place.

He will be sensitive to the politics involved, much as the issue may baffle those who are not GAA people. But O’Flynn is typical of many modern GAA people. He is a keen sports fan who owns race horses, is mad for Munster rugby, plays loads of golf in Kerry and is actively involved in the Éire Óg club in Cork, as well as going to Cork hurling and football matches. Indeed, Éire Óg is the club that Miller played for, up to the age of 15, before progressing to professional soccer with Glasgow Celtic, Manchester United, Leeds, Sunderland and others, including, of course, his national team. And that is why O’Flynn set up the committee; he knows the Miller family from his local area and their community GAA team.

Professional

Miller was not an outlier for choosing a career in professional soccer instead of the GAA, just as so many GAA stars have headed to the southern hemisphere to take up careers in Australian Rules. Here’s the most obvious present link between the GAA in Cork and soccer: John Meyler, a former All-Ireland winner with the Cork senior hurlers, is in charge of the Cork team that will tog out against Limerick in this year’s semi-final in Croke Park on Sunday, while his son David, who has captained the Republic of Ireland soccer team, continues his pre-season training as a professional footballer with Reading in England.

Here’s another: Jimmy Barry-Murphy is the most legendary living GAA person in Cork (with a fame to rival the late Christy Ring) and his son Brian has spent his sporting career as a professional footballer in England. Seán O’Leary was a team-mate of Barry-Murphy’s on many All-Ireland-winning Cork senior hurling teams and while his son Tomás captained the Cork minor hurlers, winning an All-Ireland, his greatest sporting fame was as scrum-half on the Irish rugby team that won the Grand Slam in 2009 and for Munster in winning the Heineken Cup in 2008. Dinny Allen and Dave Barry won All-Ireland football titles with Cork but also played League of Ireland football. Darren Sweetnam of the Munster rugby team played for Cork in the All-Ireland hurling semi-final of 2012.

So the cross-pollination in Cork sport runs deep, just like it does in many other counties. This is what makes the shenanigans about the benefit game for the Miller family (and with money also going to the fantastic Marymount Hospice that nursed him as he died from pancreatic cancer at the age of just 36) baffling at one level. It would have seemed logical to most people that the local county board would make Páirc Uí Chaoimh available. Instead, it said it would have loved to help but its hands are tied by the rule book that allows no ‘foreign sports’.

Meanness

Not surprisingly this provoked outrage, among GAA members and the non-GAA public. The ground was made available, at a hefty fee, to promoters to make a profit from Ed Sheeran concerts. In the past it staged sports events such as a Steve Collins and Chris Eubank boxing match. It has been, and will be, open to charity events such as the Night Run for the Irish Cancer Society in August to raise funds for night nurses who provide palliative care for terminally ill patients. This makes the Liam Miller decision event all the more appalling.

I suspect that while the vast majority of Cork GAA people want this event to take place – and did so even before the embarrassment of the past week – there is a residual rump who do not and they are happy to hide behind the rule book.

I come from a Cork tradition of loving and playing many sports, mainly Gaelic football and rugby. When I was growing up there were many divisions and I was discouraged by some in my club from playing rugby (although never the other way around). In 2006 I went to Cardiff to watch Munster win that year’s Heineken Cup and met almost as many people from Gaelic games in Cork as I knew from rugby (just as I often meet friends from rugby in Croke Park or Semple Stadium). Twenty years earlier than the Cardiff game many of these people would not have looked at a rugby match on television. Cork changed over the years but not everybody did. Traditionally, most of the die-hards held positions of authority and loved exercising their power.

Some of that hasn’t changed. But banning other sports was not necessary or wise. It made the GAA look petty and scared. The GAA has continued to thrive despite the rise of soccer and rugby, because its clubs are part of the community, as was emphasised to me some months ago when I attended a special night at Bishopstown for hundreds of club members.

You could argue that Cork soccer has not provided facilities for itself and that it should be able to host this game. But enough with the whataboutery. What threatens the GAA is meanness of spirit.

To the majority of its members I imagine the GAA decision would be anathema. Things are moving slowly but there remains hope that the great sporting community of Cork can unite and the Liam Miller game takes place in Cork’s best sporting venue.