GAA FINDS THAT THE GRASS IS GREENER WHERE YOU WATER IT

Dublin’s funding continues to go up despite GAA’s pledge for a more equitable system

IN A bewildering week the thing which grated the least with us was the news that Croke Park has gone into the

cheese business. On their 50-acre pitch farm in Naul, polytunnels, which for compost use grass clippings and possibly discarded Ard Stiúrthóir annual reports, grow herbs that gives Croke Park’s Bluebells Falls Irish Farmhouse Cheese its distinctive drop kick.

And those same polytunnels also provide the core ingredient for Croke Park’s very own Rosemary Oil, which purports to provide the same kind of carpet for folliclychallenged Gaels as the turf farm does for the Croke Park pitch.

So the next time you are in the company of some disaffected soul who is wittering on about the GAA’s lack of joined up thinking, just throw that holistic gem right back at them.

Putting the floral necklace on the whole Good Life experience, there are also bee hives which means that Croke Park truly is the land of honey.

Thing is, there are some out there who see it less as a garden of Eden and more of a briar patch. Where to start with the weeding then? The annual financial report appears as good a place as any, which revealed yet again the grass is much greener over on Dublin’s side of the fence.

Four years after a commitment was given to deliver a more equitable funding model, Dublin still get to eat the whole duck dinner which hoovers up €1.3million – that represents yet another annual increase -– of the Games Development budget, while the rest are left sharing the odd Brussels sprout that falls from their over-loaded plate.

Questions as to how the GAA can continue to justify a lop-sided funding model are dismissed by taking inquisitors on a walk down guilt-trip lane, with a reminder that any reduction in Dublin’s funding could lead to a loss of up to 70 coaching jobs.

On top of that, there is the suggestion that the rest of the GAA don’t really know how good they have it.

‘There is a downside to the Dublin model it is actually a cost to the individual clubs in question, there is a 50 per cent charge effectively,’

reminded the GAA’s finance chief Ger Mulryan this week. So the county which has received €17.3m euros since 2007 – the next nearest is the GAA’s biggest unit Cork with €1.4m – and which has the highest commercial revenues is also the hardest done by. Maybe, the good folk of Leitrim could organise a benefit dance for the Dublin cousins.

To be fair, it should be pointed out that some work has been done in addressing the imbalance with significant increases for other counties in latter years.

The problem, though, is because they are coming from such a low base, the financial chasm between Dublin and the rest will never truly be bridged.

At least there is some effort being invested – Dublin’s share of a much larger Games Development budget is now at 14 per cent where once it was closer to 50 per cent. But if a sense of awareness, or possibly even shame, is at least evident with regards to addressing how Dublin have been favoured on one issue, it is certainly not there in another.

Twenty–four hours prior to the launch of the financial report, the motions for this month’s Congress were published, headlined by Donegal’s bid to have some semblance of fair play invested in the football Championship.

Their motion seeks to deny Dublin the opportunity to play two of their Super 8 games at home in Croke Park, while everyone else is limited to a single home game.

Anyone with a shred of justice in their bones, or enough grey matter to recognise the statistically proven value of home field advantage, will not argue Donegal’s motion is cemented in trying to deliver fair play.

And yet, the GAA leadership has shown it no love.

Instead of beating Donegal to the punch by sponsoring that motion to provide it with the political weight it needs, they have accepted the odious interpretation of the GAA’s Central Competitions Control Committee.

The latter ruled that since Croke Park has been the venue for All-Ireland quarter-finals since 2001 and because players like playing there, Dublin should be entitled to have their cake and eat it.

This conveniently ignores the changed circumstances which since the inception of the Spring Series in 2011, has seen Dublin play all their home games in Croke Park.

Which invites the easily solved riddle; when is a national stadium not a national stadium?

Why, when it becomes an away ground of course.

The chances are that Dublin could play on the Liffey Valley car park and still win but that should not detract from the principle they should play by the same rules as everyone else.

Last year, they went to Omagh for their solitary Super 8 game outside Croke Park and Tyrone used home venue advantage to narrow the pitch in an attempt to squeeze Dublin.

It kept it to a one-score game; something that was well beyond Tyrone in the All-Ireland final rematch on Dublin’s home patch.

The bigger argument is not limited to the Super 8s, but to how seriously the GAA is about restoring Croke Park’s status as a national stadium.

That can only be achieved by taking Dublin out of Croke Park for League games, where their plummeting appeal was in evidence in this week’s financial report which revealed that there had been a 20 per cent drop in receipts for Allianz League games played in HQ, despite a four-game Spring Series in comparison to three games in 2017.

That is unlikely to be reversed this year given that just 14,000 turned up for the Galway game last weekend.

Those figures were compounded by the huge drop in gate receipts – which saw a drop in excess of €3m despite the extra Super 8 games providing a boost in attendances – in the football Championship where even Dublin supporters have got tired of winning titles rigged in their favour.

The GAA will argue that the money generated by Dublin playing in Croke Park, trickles down to everyone. But they should be told to keep the miserable few cents and restore the collective ownership of the Big House to the entire family, rather than reducing it to holiday home status, available only when their favoured son has no use for it. Will that happen? Not likely. Still, if you want to pull your hair out go ahead and knock yourself out.

After all, we know a spot where you can pick up some rosemary oil.

The chasm between Dublin and the rest will never be bridged