It’s time someone stood up to GAA chiefs who value money, not morals
IT SHOULD never have been set up to be the most significant event of the GAA year. After all, it’s no more than a Saturday evening game in St Conleth’s Park; no more than a rag-tag Kildare outfit limping along in the back door.
Then again, what should happen in the GAA has been occurring less and less in recent times.
So here we are. There won’t be a referee. There may not even be opposition and rumour has it Christy Moore might instead show up to play some music for the crowd.
Regardless, all eyes will be looking in, as Kildare tog and jog out in front of their support – and much promised support from all parts of the country – so they can be thrown out of the championship for following the rules.
How this was needed. And how all the wider association needed someone to stand up and say enough of price over principles, of money over morals, of return over what is clearly right.
This isn’t the first time a county has been shafted by a make-it-upas-you-go-along approach by headquarters that always falls on the side of elitism and more banknotes, but it’s the first time a county has said that it has to stop.
In what is normally a frustratingly docile and obedient world, it takes serious mismanagement to drive people over the edge. And yet, the GAA has achieved that spectacularly, as the few were convinced they could continue to trample over the many.
What it has essentially engineered is a blink-first situation with one of its own units, when it is the one not following its promises and guidelines. That is staggering. We’d offer a penny for the GAA’s thoughts, but we know it doesn’t deal in such small numbers.
On Monday morning, when John Horan pulled Kildare from the pot, you can bet a bead of sweat fell from some of the suits who have responsibility for the integrity of their blue-chip competition. That will have turned into a wall of water when Mayo came next. They’d already announced the first team out was at home, in fact their own website last Friday said as much, stating: “The first team drawn will have home advantage – exception: a Division 3 or 4 team from the current year’s Allianz League drawn against a Div 1 or 2 team will have home advantage”.
The GAA talks about its hierarchy as being a business. But what happens in business when you mess up?
And they’d made all other circumstances clear too, such as Breffni Park being closed and Tyrone-Monaghan being off the table. Still, in plain sight, they couldn’t resist the pay-day.
Why stop and consider when you can cash in? A worthy motto.
Here you have an organisation that made €65m last year, the majority from gate receipts, and this year it has added extra games to grow that. What’s interesting is that this has been a focal point for so much ire around many issues that always favour the best-off.
And now, you’d think some heads are needed on the block. The GAA talks about its hierarchy as being a business, and certainly acts that way, and in many cases it pays that way. But what happens in business when you mess up? There are consequences.
The Sky deal and this suiting them has been thrown into the mix, but it’s time to let that go for it’s an easy out for the GAA. In essence, it turns down the heat on those that ought to be sizzling and frying.
Sources say that initially the Kildare County Board had a carrot dangled in front of it, with Croke Park expecting it to roll over as it has done in the past. But with word seeping out that Kildare may not be at home, the reaction was extraordinary to the point the board had to stand up. There’s much anger in the county and this would have led to the sort of revolt that would have seen a turnover of the executive. Standing up to the GAA was also about saving their skin.
As for the GAA trying to save face, it was bumbling and pathetic. There was a panic around its mention of health and safety when it struggled to expand on this, and it’s little wonder. Back in 2015, remedial work including new crash barriers saw the capacity of St Conleth’s Park upped to 10,000, although it has since come back to 9,020. That is further reduced by 10pc for all ticket games (we have absolutely no idea why), meaning a maximum of 8,118.
Therefore if the Kildare board allows only that many to enter it is absolutely complying with what health and safety authorities deem healthy and safe. That is basically why these reports are done, so what’s the problem? On that, the GAA bafflingly said it was worried about people turning up with no tickets. Are they for real? It was the height of daft and desperate logic.
One element the GAA has never understood is that home advantage isn’t about accommodating everyone or making the most money. It’s about what it says on the tin – an advantage through being at home. What it all means is the GAA cannot win, and Kildare can not lose no matter the outcome.