Horan: GAA can’t return while social distancing stays in place

President insists members won’t be asked to police guidelines as Association faces €50m loss

GAA president John Horan has effectively ruled out a return to competitive action as long as social distancing measures remain in place in society.

Speaking on ‘The Sunday Game’, Horan said the risks of Covid-19 infection involved in GAA clubs, players and members getting back together too soon were too great and that’s why facilities will remain closed until July 20 at the earliest.

Horan said the July 20 date could change if the public health picture changes but “policing” the guidelines in the Government roadmap, which was released last Friday week, was not a responsibility the Association was going to put on its volunteer members.

Horan said the GAA would be prepared to use the first two months of 2021 to finish a 2020 inter-county championship if it got going in October or November but cast doubt as to whether the 2020 Allianz leagues will now be finished.

The president also confirmed the grim financial picture that will see Croke Park, at central and stadium level, lose between €25 and €30m and with club gates thrown in a loss for the overall Association of up to €50m.

Horan said the GAA’s cautious approach was based on a determination not to have facilities develop into clusters and that social distancing protocols would be of paramount importance.

“If social distancing is a priority to deal with this pandemic I don’t know how we can play a contact sport and that is what Gaelic games is, a contact sport,” he said.

Horan said the GAA were initially taken by surprise by the details in the roadmap the Government released that allow facilities to open to groups of four on May 18, followed by non-contact training on June 9.

“I think everyone was taken by surprise on Friday night because no one knew what was coming. It did give everyone a bit of an uplift to feel that we were coming back.

“We had to examine it and look at it closely and there was a concept in it that people had to gather together in groups of four but we felt that it couldn’t be marshalled by people in our clubs because our clubs are led by a load of good quality volunteer people and to put the onus on volunteer people to make the decisions to police and organise training within our facilities, we just felt that would be too much on them.

“I’ve had contact since from one or two club chairmen who said, ‘Thanks for taking it out of our hands’, because we were concerned how we were actually going to police it within our grounds.”

“We took our time but we have taken the right decision in this matter. I think people’s health and safety is the key to it all,” he said of the decision to remain closed for business.

“We’ll be taking our information from the health authorities to see is it safe and it’s only if and when it’s safe that we will actually allow training and our games to recommence.

“Taking that information on board then we’ll make that decision and we won’t bring it up to the line. We’ll be making that decision on a constant. We’re on executive calls every day and we’ll keep reviewing and updating so we’ll be staying on top of things in the next period of weeks.

“Ultimately there is a huge responsibility to get this right and if one club, be it a playing area or whatever, developed into a cluster for Covid-19 that would be a very bad day’s work on our behalf and that’s one thing we are very conscious of.”

Horan reaffirmed a decision to get club action up and running before counties, stating the decision overall will be based on contact, not numbers involved.

“We’re quite comfortable to say that we are going to go with the club game first because it impacts on the greater number of people – 98 per cent of our games are clubs games so if we play club games, it’s inclusive of everybody because the county players would get the opportunity to play with their clubs.

“Then we can actually make the decision to return to the intercounty game. It’s a contact sport decision that is going to influence it so whether at county or club level I don’t see a major distinction between the two of them but the impact throughout the organisation would be far greater if we actually got the clubs back.”

He said the GAA would not rule out testing inter-county players but believes it won’t be as great an issue by the time contact sport returns.

“I would hate to think as an organisation that we would have made a decision that would have cost any family a member of their family.”

He also said the financial picture was “very serious and worrying.”