Isolating GAA fans is totally illogical
So many questions after bizarre decision to curtail sport events but one thing’s for sure...
New restrictions feel like an act of self-sabotage
TUESDAY evening’s Government briefing taking in the new restrictions for sport was so contradictory and unsettling that it put a fresh twist on that old classic line from Father Ted, ‘Is there anything to be said for saying another (outside) Mass?’.
Within minutes of the address that left much of the country dazed and confused, the WhatsApp group for my young fella’s minor football team started buzzing. One message read: ‘What’s the rules for going to watch the match tomorrow evening? Can we go to support?’
The simple request from one parent cut to the chase, the accompanying emoji of a monkey covering its face with its hands pretty much the image that was going through half the country’s minds right at that point.
‘We just need a local priest to say an outdoor Mass and we’re grand,’ went one response, pointing out the contrast in allowing a gathering for a Church Mass to continue — a total of 50 are still allowed for such an indoor gathering — while the 50 or so supporters who would be travelling for a Division Four round two minor championship game would have to travel 35 kilometres, drop their kid off, then maybe sit in their car outside the club ground for an hour and a half or so.
Tripadvisor has never seen so many requests on a midweek evening for ‘10 things to do in Rathkenny’.
Various versions of the Government’s black comedy that is suddenly putting sport behind closed doors were being played out all over the country. In Waterford, the minor A final between Ballygunner and Abbeyside was to take place last night in Fraher Field in Dungarvan. As journalist John Fogarty pointed out: ‘Parents of Ballygunner team can’t attend game as per new restrictions. 100km return journey home so they’ll wait to pick them up. At least it’s streamed on YouTube.’
And then the kicker: ‘Some of the parents are going to a nearby hotel to watch it there.’
So having any spectators at an outdoor sports event where the transmission of the virus has been medically documented as 19 times less than an indoor setting – that’s off limits. But those same spectators who can’t watch their clubmate or brother or family member play a game, they can go to a gastro-pub or restaurant and watch the live stream of the same game in an indoor setting where alcohol is being served.
If there is one thing that encourages the losing of inhibitions and the breaking of any social distancing contract, it’s the consumption of alcohol. Nobody starts dancing on tables to The Killers after one too many Greek salads.
House parties are another public scourge in this regard, causing GAA president John Horan to come out with a slogan that fits neatly with 2020: ‘Sport and partying are not going to work.’
When questioned on sport going behind closed doors, acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn made the important distinction that the new restrictions are based more around the congregating of supporters at or outside of venues — or the travelling involved to and from games.
But the lack of empirical evidence presented at the official briefing was part of the reason why more than Twitter was ablaze with righteous indignation.
Offaly chairman Michael Duignan described it as ‘big, big setback, adding: ‘I’d just love to know where the evidence is coming from to support this.’
Instead, as they scrambled for clarification, a note went to GAA members yesterday advising that ‘on the issue of parents attending juvenile games, we suggest that one parent or guardian may attend a game where they consider it necessary for the welfare of their own child’. Releasing an official statement – framed in a personal way and name-checked Dr Glynn – was questionable by the GAA; what couldn’t be questioned was the underlying point. If those invested in sport were privy to the direct impact, the empirical evidence, then maybe Micheál Martin, Eamon Ryan and Dr Glynn wouldn’t have come across like a management team who just lost the dressing room.
Imagine if the National Public Health Emergency Team turned around and said it has 25 cases here that can be traced back to the playing of Gaelic games. A cluster from one county where a county championship game was on, plus another list of separate cases where the people in question spent time congregating at a match or travelling to it together with members outside of their family, then fine. Fans would accept the logic of the move.
But after thousands of fixtures and training sessions that have been going on in the past month since the return to competition action, not a single case yet that we know of has been directly traced to on-field activity.
Does that justify shutting out the thousands of supporters for whom the game has given a much needed lift and all the mental well-being that stems from that? Does it justify cutting off the tide of optimism and positivity the GAA has surfed with the resumption of the club championships?
Why not try an alternative route first? Such as making masks mandatory at outdoor sporting events or stressing the need to do the same in transit to games.
And why have sports fans been restricted when a more searching spotlight needed to be focused on meat-processing plants and direct provision and work practices in this country?
Tuesday night was in danger of being the country’s Boris moment. When the UK first tried to tackle the coronavirus, the bumbling, incoherent message that came from Prime Minister Boris Johnson was rightly pilloried back in May – not for any party-political one-upmanship, but for the truly baffling nature of the fine print when it came to lifting restrictions. As English novelist Matt Haig put it on Twitter: ‘So. Big
day. The day we all head out to work. While staying at home. While exercising all day. In the park. At home. While travelling on public transport. While definitely not. Staying rigidly alert. While totally relaxed. At home. In the fresh air. Outside. Inside. Upside down.’
Tuesday night was Ireland’s version of the same. Here’s Irish author Damien Owens: ‘Ireland: Of course we’ll follow the Covid restrictions, provided they’re clear and fair. The Government: OK, this first one is for Virgos who have seen some but not all of The Wire ...’
In the most testing of circumstances, the GAA has done so much, so right, so far.
If only the same could be said of this new Government. The new restrictions felt like an awkward compromise to try and keep everyone in this unique tri-party Government happy and yet managed to leave everyone feeling put out.
The virus is a real and present danger. Everyone accepts that. But the contradictions in the new guidelines felt like an act of self-sabotage that could arguably endanger the reopening of the schools, as trust in the roadmap is now eroded.
As Cork GAA chairperson Tracey Kennedy pointed out, herself a school principal: ‘Do I have this right? More than 6 people in a house for a couple of hours X.
‘More than 15 in any outdoor setting including a 45,000-seater stadium X.
‘1,000+ indoors in a school building 6 hours a day [tick emoji]. ‘If so, I’m struggling.’ Kennedy can’t support her beloved Killeagh in an outdoor setting but is expected, in a teaching environment, to plough on as above?
The Government reply is a standard one, that there needs to be a distinction made between what is optional and what is necessary – sport fitting the first bracket and education the second. It’s an important distinction.
What is optional and what is necessary? Maybe apply the same rule of thumb to the additional salary allowance that landed the super junior ministers in the headlines.
Or the usual Dáil summer holiday term, despite this country being in an ongoing and unprecedented pandemic.
If the devil is in the detail, the GAA — and all sports fans — deserve that much.