‘WHAT A PRECIOUS THING WE HAVE’
After 40 years in New York, presidential candidate Larry McCarthy knows the GAA’s true value ■ GAA gives thousands of Irish people who go abroad a place to find their feet ■ There is an arrogance in how the GPA behave when they come to America ■ Splitt
‘THERE IS A LOCAL UNIT HERE TRYING TO RAISE FUNDS TOO’
IT IS likely the soup served at Friday night’s GPA dinner at the Capitale in downtown New York would have been ladelled a little too thick and too sweet for Larry McCarthy’s liking. Next February, McCarthy will become just the second US-based official in history – following on in the political footsteps of John ‘Kerry’ O’Donnell – to challenge for the GAA’s highest office, on what is a lengthy ballot sheet that already includes Gerry O’Sullivan (Cork), Jarlath Burns (Armagh), Mick Rock (Roscommon) and Jim Bolger (Wexford).
This weekend, the GAA – or at least that part of it which glitters the brightest – travels his way, as New York hosts the GAA GPA hurling Super 11s. That concept is not the issue; with McCarthy pointing out the work Kilkenny’s Richie Hogan, who is heading up the tournament end of things, has done in engaging with the local GAA.
This has developed a reservoir of goodwill towards it that was not there in the previous couple of years in Boston. But it is what it brings with it that grates a little with the Bishopstown native, whose Cork tones have barely been softened by 35 years of exile.
On Friday night, a fundraising dinner, which honoured the patronage of construction magnate Sean Mulryan, had table packages costing from $50,000 down, forming the centrepiece fundraising event.
It is an annual event sold as a corporate shakedown, with the GPA pointing out that they are targeting pockets so deep they are inaccessible to local GAA groups. McCarthy has heard that line but believes, at best, it is only a half-truth.
‘We heard that argument from the very start but I attended one of their events four or five years ago and to a certain extent they are correct.
‘But I looked around the room that night and I would say that I knew at least 40 per cent of the people in attendance. Now, they weren’t people who were going to Gaelic Park at that stage of their lives, but these were people who owned construction companies, who owned bars, who had, in their time, been through Gaelic Park and who were now sponsors of local clubs.
‘True, the CEO of Coca-Cola was honoured that night but the GPA cannot tell me that many of the people who supported that event were inaccessible to local units.
‘I say good luck to them, on one level, but please acknowledge that you are in the city of New York and there is a local unit here which is trying to raise funds for the GAA and we are all part of the one organisation. It is the disconnect which is most concerning.
‘There is an arrogance in how they behave when they come here that I find not very nice.
‘I don’t have any great grá for the GPA, particularly with how they behave when they come to America. They come in, they do their fundraising and they disappear. We have some serious concerns about how they behave,’ says McCarthy.
That criticism of the GPA’s activities is framed by a mindset, particularly strong in overseas GAA clubs which double as communities, that you take care of your own.
McCarthy has not just seen that, he has lived it. He first went to New York in 1980 when he was a student in Thomond College, he was secretary with a team that had Pat Spillane as its star and won the All-Ireland club in 1978.
But in New York he knew nobody and nothing.
‘I met a girl in Shannon Airport and when we landed in Kennedy her boyfriend threw the arms around her. His name was Liam Fardy and within an hour of landing I was watching him play football for Sligo. I went training with them the following Tuesday and 34 years later I am chairman of the club.’
McCarthy is much more than that now. A husband and father to two grown up sons, he is a professor in Seton Hall University, where he teaches sports marketing in the school of business. He moved over full-time in 1985 to complete a Masters, and the GAA once more proved itself to be much more than a sports association.
‘I rang Jimmy Nicholson who was the manager of the club and when I came out he made me an apprentice carpenter. And every time I am called a professor, I am easily grounded because without Jimmy or the GAA that simply would not have happened.
‘And that is a story that can be told of thousands of Irish who landed in Gaelic Park and were given that opportunity.
‘I know people at home know that happens but I think sometimes the scale of it escapes them,’ says McCarthy, who is committed to moving back to Ireland in the event of topping next February’s poll.
And, yet, the irony is that, as he bids to lead the GAA, those very qualities of connection, community, support and fairness are being openly questioned.
The club/county tug-o-war rages on and the accusation that the GAA looks after those who bring most to their bank account hangs in the air while there is a genuine anger among some that the recent introduction of a Tier Two championship is simply an effort to hide its second-class citizens.
Where to start, then? How about
Dublin, thriving with a huge population base while blessed with a huge slice of the GAA’s games development budget and blue riband sponsorship deals.
McCarthy insists those who argue that Dublin should be split in the interests of fairness miss the point.
‘I don’t think the idea of splitting Dublin is a good idea. I don’t think that you can or should prevent excellence and there is no doubt they are very good.
‘I mean if you split Dublin in two, you would probably have 740,000 people north and south of the Liffey,’ he points out.
‘If you look around Ireland then, you have 4.2 million people, so you would then have to split the rest of the country into six teams if you were to get a balance in terms of population. You do that and then you have achieved equity in population, but who do you think would support those teams?
‘Can you imagine Kerry and Cork in the same constituency, there would be some chance of that happening,’ says McCarthy.
But what about limiting central funds needed elsewhere on the basis the more Dublin achieve, the more outside investment they attract.
‘It is not that long ago that we were crying that the GAA in Dublin was not doing very well, but here they
‘IS THE GAA THE LAST BASTION OF AMATEURISM ON EARTH?’
are and they have used their resources incredibly well, their clubs have developed excellent facilities and now people want to penalise their success. I just don’t think that makes sense. And if you go down that route, you are saying “you are too successful and now we are going to punish you for it.”
But it can also be argued that the pressure to stay the pace financially with Dublin is proving too much for some. The chaos in Connacht’s biggest two counties, Galway and Mayo, where sponsors/benefactors have been seeking to call the shots amid claims of governance short-comings are a timely reminder of that.
Galway’s sponsors Supermacs have called for the publication of two financial audits conducted in the last 12 months, while Mayo’s stand-off with its supporters foundation chief Tim O’Leary has descended to farce, damaging the well-honed reputation of the GAA as being a model of governing competence.
‘Maybe we should be employing people with professional qualifications who can handle that amount of money because county boards, on a consistent basis, would be putting €1m or €2m through their books every year and that is an awful responsibility.
‘Having said that, there are an awful lot of counties who don’t have financial or commercial professionals involved and their finances are in great shape.’
But surely sponsors dictating to county boards how to do things is not a good thing.
‘The county committee has always got to be in charge. Somebody like Tim O’Leary, who I have no doubt is a passionate Mayo supporter, he should be working through the board and not as an independent agent,’ argues McCarthy who is open to the GAA centrally part-funding the appointment of commercial managers in units who can’t afford to employ a professional.
‘The model is there already in that we fund a lot of GDO’s (Games Development Officers). If we were to extend that to commercial managers it is something that would be worth considering, but not at the expense of appointing GDO’s or funnelling money down to the clubs.’
But it is the move of the inter-county scene to semi-professional status – a destination which an unpublished GAA report entitled ‘Towards 2034’ accepted last year – which is something he vehemently opposes.
That perspective is in part informed by living in a society which, he believes, is all the poorer because it does not have access to the kind of sporting infrastructure which the GAA gifts Ireland.
‘I would never embrace the idea of pay for play but when you think about it, are we the last great bastion of amateurism in the world?
‘We are close to it if we are not it. ‘There is no local amateur sport in America. The idea of thirty-somethings going out training twice a week to play for their local basketball club does not exist.
‘I was in class last March and there was a student there, a 22-year-old woman, I was chatting to her about a basketball game the previous night.
‘And she turns around and she goes, “yeah, you know that was my last game of basketball of my life last night.
‘She wasn’t going to the professional ranks and there is no structure for people like that young talented woman to engage in after that.
‘It is moments like that which make you realise what a precious thing we have,’ he warns.