SEEKING AN ALTERNATIVE ARRANGEMENT
Dublin setting up home at Croke Park has become an accepted part of GAA life but that might not be the case after this week, as Donegal challenge what they view as preferential treatment
IT WILL probably go unnoticed among the delegates gathering in Whites Hotel, Wexford this Friday, but Tuesday marks the eighth anniversary of a significant event in recent Gaelic Games history. On February 19, 2011 the ‘Spring Series’ came into being.
Remember it? More than 35,000 supporters walked down Jones’ Road on a cold Saturday night for the privilege of seeing Pat Gilroy’s footballers beat Cork after Anthony Daly’s hurlers shocked Tipperary in the curtain-raiser.
The crowd even had pop duo Jedward, as the GAA bravely attempted to jazz up the whole event.
Eight years on and the Dublin hurlers are grateful to have returned to, what once was, their fortress in Donnycarney, while their footballing counterparts have set up residence in what is supposed to be the national stadium.
After eight years, they would be entitled to squatting rights by now, but they haven’t needed them. There hasn’t been an eyelid batted as they have been allowed to treat Croke Park as their own home.
What started off as an innovative marketing ploy by the Dublin County Board has become an accepted part of GAA life. Dublin footballers play in Croke Park and that’s just the way it is.
Since that chilly evening when they beat Cork, they have played 29
It is hard to see how the Dubs will retain such an unfair advantage
home Allianz League matches at headquarters. Be it Down, Mayo or Galway, Croker is the venue, no matter what.
Between 2011 and 2015, Dublin played all of their Championship matches at the venue before the gesture was made to take the perennial Leinster champions out of the capital for their opening match. Indeed, since the inception of the Spring Series, Dublin footballers have played 75 per cent of all their games at the ‘neutral venue’ of Croke Park.
It’s in this context that Donegal’s motion to Annual Congress next weekend is vitally important for an association that claims to cater for all of its members.
The motion is worded carefully, so Dublin is not mentioned. It says that no team should be allowed to designate Croke Park as their home venue for the All-Ireland quarterfinal round-robin series.
Given the anti-establishment bent within the county, it is fitting that Donegal are bringing a motion that will ruffle a few feathers within the GAA hierarchy.
But there’s a firm reason for this as the county board insist they don’t want any other team to suffer the injustice they believe they fell victim to last year, as Ulster champions. There was uproar in the north-west last summer when Donegal’s reward for claiming the Ulster title saw them play Dublin first up in Croker. Subsequently, Declan Bonner’s men didnt have a Super 8s game in Ballybofey until the final round of fixtures.
They were informed at the time that Croke Park was nominated a neutral venue, even though Dublin’s home game against Roscommon was also played there. The unfairness of it all still rankles.
And that is where this motion has originated. ‘We haven’t heard anyone talk negatively about it,’ says county board chairman Mick McGrath.
‘The motion simply states that no team can designate Croke Park as their home venue for the All-Ireland quarter-finals.’
The release of the GAA’s annual financial report last week has only intensified the growing anger and resentment over the imbalance in games development funding.
Croke Park insist they are taking the first steps to address it, funnelling €600,000 into the East Leinster project, but they did so while also increasing Dublin’s own funding last year.
The €1.3 million that Dublin received in 2018, dwarfed the next highest, Meath with €367,000.
And in case you need reminding, over a 11-year period from 2007 to 2018, the county received almost €18 million for games development and funding, while Cork were the best of the rest with a mere €1.43 million. Meath and Kildare, with their exploding populations, got just over €1 million each in the same period.
Is it any wonder that members of the association outside the pale are beginning to think the whole thing is rigged in Dublin’s favour? Against that backdrop, it is hard to see how Congress will allow Dublin to keep such an unfair advantage at the Super 8s stage.
In a small way, this one motion can be seen as taking a stand regarding the direction in which the association is going.
There are other important motions going before Congress, including a vote that will allow Central Council to open up provincial and county grounds to other sports, thereby avoiding the controversy over the Liam Miller tribute match in Páirc Uí Chaoimh last summer.
The Gaelic Players Association are also looking for a seat on the Central Competitions Control Committee, so they can have an input into fixture scheduling and planning.
But none are as important as motion 39 on the clár. It won’t address the funding imbalance and it won’t make other counties as commercially attractive as Dublin.
However, it aims to be one small step on the way to levelling the playing field within the association. And nobody can argue against that.
It is one small step to levelling the association’s playing field
There will be outcry that Parnell Park wouldn’t be able to host an All-Ireland quarter-final, but that’s only a problem as far as Dublin are concerned.
They are the county who have indefinitely shelved the plans to develop a 25,000-seater stadium in Templelogue. That was a logical move, after all why should they build their own ground when they can use the national stadium any time they want?
If delegates at Congress ignore reason and fairness and allow Dublin to play two of their three Super 8s games in Croke Park, it will not only leave a sour taste but increase the sense that the GAA hierarchy care little for anyone outside the capital.
And it may be, as Bodie once observed in the American TV series The Wire, that ‘the game’s rigged, man’.