Rights issue highlights age-old GAA conundrum
Progress and volunteerism collide in Páirc’s rebrand
ATENSION, growing for years, has never felt so taut. The row about the naming rights to Páirc Uí Chaoimh has many wellsprings, most obviously the disastrous redevelopment project that has left the county board lumbered with €30million of debt.
Political opportunism, dented pride, and the extent to which tradition should inform how an organisation operates in the current day have also been present.
It is a controversy, though, that is merely the latest example of the GAA grappling with its decades-old role as sporting body and cultural force, and trying to reconcile that with the development of its games into elite codes that lean increasingly on professional standards and supports – and the eyewatering costs associated with such standards.
In truth, making these two aspects of the GAA align has been a daunting job for administrators for years, one that has been often beyond them.
As a result, the grubby culture of illicit payments to managers and backroom teams has grown rampant over the past 20 years. The amount being spent by teams at club and county level in this black economy is unknown, but it runs to hundreds of thousands of euro annually.
The legitimate costs incurred at inter-county level have been alarming leading figures in the GAA for years, but they continue to climb unchecked.
In 2020, GAA director general Tom Ryan described the €29.74million spent on preparing teams as ‘unsustainable’.
He used the word in his annual report again last year, arguing that ‘The size and cost of backroom personnel of senior inter-county teams is becoming simply unsustainable. The values of the Association are being eroded with each paid addition to the backroom team and voluntary roles are in danger of becoming a thing of the past.’
His words are not being heeded by managers making incessant demands, or county executives that invariably cave into them.
So great are the appetites for time and resources within the elite level of the game that a dedicated representative body was required to argue on behalf of clubs.
The agitation of the Club Players Association and the impacts of the pandemic eventually led to the split season, improving the plight of clubs but doing nothing to sate the hunger of those driving the county game.
This the greatest cause of tension in the GAA, but it has associated effects that lead to disasters like the redevelopment of Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
The popularity of the Championship seasons in football and hurling encouraged counties to renovate stadia or build new ones, a process inspired, too, by the necessary and spectacular upgrade of Croke Park at the turn of the century.
But far too much money was spent on far too many grounds, with most of them left empty for most of the year. The yawning chasm between sales pitches and reality was reflected in the Irish Examiner story this week, sourced in the business plan submitted in 2015 to secure €30million of State funding towards rebuilding Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
It estimated that naming rights could be sold for €500,000 a year. The deal with SuperValu was worth half that.
Ambitious attendance estimates were based on attracting premium Munster Championship games, as well as ones in the All-Ireland series.
Clare gave Limerick home advantage in last year’s Munster final rather than play the game in Cork.
This latest rumpus has brought fresh criticism of Cork’s executive, but the current board is dealing with decisions taken by its predecessors.
Moreover, the logic of using naming rights as a means of generating badly-needed funding is persuasive. That this deal has been delayed is no triumph for old virtues, no matter how enthusiastic the spinning.
The pretence that this is a victory for idealism over mammon is to ignore the 16 other naming agreements made with county boards around the island.
Worse, it overlooks the decadeslong struggle between rocketing costs – vouched and illicit – and volunteerism, which itself reflects the wider mismatch between values rooted in the idea of the club, and the elite end of the game.
One practical response to the lamentable redevelopment of Cork’s home should be centralised oversight of all infrastructure projects from Croke Park. The outlandish plans for Casement Park, for instance, require further scrutiny.
Yet the broader struggle between how the GAA is seen (and imagines itself) and what it’s becoming will not relent.
Convention reports from county and provincial officials in recent weeks have once again called for reduced spending.
Tom Ryan will likely echo them when his latest annual report issues next month.
They are forlorn wishes. The tension will continue to grow.
THE enormous smile, the blinding charisma, and the brilliance as a manager make Jurgen Klopp one of the biggest figures in modern sport.
With his comments on Jordan Henderson’s craven retreat from the Saudi sports-washing project, though, Klopp betrayed the deadening lack of imagination that makes soccer stars think taking the money in the first place is a good idea.
Klopp asked how dare people judge Henderson, as if he had done nothing more unusual than change his car. They don’t get it, and they don’t want to get it.