Time the GAA played by their own rules

Afew weeks ago Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds played a concert in the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham. For the uninitiated Cave is a 60-year old Australian musician who is as popular with and loved by some the way Ed Sheeran or Nathan Carter is with others. The only difference is Cave is way cooler and writes much better songs. Anyway, tickets for said concert - about 7,000 - went on sale back in November and were snapped up in less than two hours. Thankfully I got one.

A few weeks before the Kilmainham gig it was announced that Cave announced was going to do an intimate ‘Questions and Answers with an audience’ type show in the Abbey Theatre the night before the main concert. For Nick Cave fans this would be a not-to-be-missed event. I tried desperately to buy a ticket but failed to bag one for a venue that holds less than 650 people. Supply and demand meant that I, like countless others, was left disappointed.

But the whole point of the Q&A event was that it could only work in a small theatre where the audience would be up close with Cave, some even getting to sit around him on the stage. It simply wouldn’t have worked in the Bord Gais Energy Theatre, even if it sold out its 2,000 seats, and it most definitely would have bombed in the 13,000 capacity 3 Arena, which would probably only have been half filled. Disappointing as it was for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people not to be there some things just have to be staged at a certain venue and the ‘Sold Out’ sign has to be put in the window.

Last Monday morning Kildare’s senior footballers were drawn out of the Round 3 Qualifier draw to play Mayo, with the Lilywhites - as per rule - getting home advantage having been pulled out first. St Conleth’s Park in Newbridge is the GAA equivalent of the Abbey Theatre - at least in terms of comparative size to the rest of the country’s inter-county grounds. It’s certainly not on the scale of the 3 Arena, so immediately many people in Kildare - and Mayo - would have realised that demand for tickets would outstrip supply and there would be disappointments. But, hey, not everyone who wants to get a ticket to an All-Ireland Final can, but that’s supply and demand. Even in the biggest GAA theatre of them all puts the ‘No Vacancies’ sign up in September and some of us have to sit outside and suck it up.

By lunchtime on Monday the GAA had fixed the game for Croke Park, for 7pm on Saturday, going against their own rules about home advantage, and by Monday evening both parties - Kildare GAA and the CCCC in Croke Park - had hit the nuclear button. Kildare would not be playing Mayo anywhere other than Newbridge on Saturday and the GAA would be chucking Kildare out of the Championship if they weren’t in Croke Park at 7pm on Saturday.

To say that the whole affair is at an impossible impasse would be to understate things: when was the last time an inter-county team was thrown out of the Championship, or even had the threat of it hanging over them so seriously and so close to their next game?

And to say that Kildare GAA, their County Board, the team and their manager, Cian O’Neill, seems to have widespread support across the country would also be understating matters. And while that might seem like a good thing it could also be a bad thing: the chiefs in Croke Park have entrenched themselves into a position that they are likely to dig into further the more the majority goes against them. My grandfather used to say that if you want a pig to go up the road then face him down the road, but at this stage if doesn’t seem like the GAA - or Kildare - are for turning.

Leaving aside the conspiracy theories that the GAA somehow rigged the draw so that Cavan (who can’t play in Breffni Park at the moment) and Kildare would be drawn out for home games so they could then be lumped into a Croke Park double-header, or that Sky Sports had some act or part in this because it would better suit their broadcast of the two game, the GAA have played the ‘health and safety’ card as to their reason for taking away home advantage from Kildare.

On a simple level there is some justification in the CCCC having concerns over the limited 8,100 capacity of St Conleth’s Park but it is what it is, the place holds what it holds, and sometimes the ‘Sold Out’ sign has to go up in the window with some punters still outside on the street. Although in this case it’s just a matter of pre-selling the game as an all-ticket affair (something that’s often done for GAA games) thereby ensuring there doesn’t have to be anyone out on the street in Newbridge on Saturday evening looking to get in.

For the chairman of the CCCC, Ned Quinn to suggest that there could be crowd trouble in Newbridge if the game went ahead there was nothing short of scandalous, which he did on Off The Ball AM on Tuesday morning

“The rules say that the home venue shall be subject to approval by the CCCC and we felt it was untenable to have the game there given that Kildare would only have 2,000 fans or maybe less if they went on general sale. That’s the decision we made,” Quinn said. “The logic of the decision was that one could anticipate a crowd of 20,000 for this game and there was going to be 4,000 tickets on sale between the two counties and to us it meant that we should move the game out of that venue in the best interest of all spectators, both Kildare and Mayo.

“People are eager to see their own county playing championship and it was a possibility that people would turn up seeking to get admission to try and buy tickets outside the ground despite knowing that tickets weren’t available. The risk would be that people would get involved with other spectators, that’s the risk. I wouldn’t call it crowd trouble but there could be animosity shown to people who had tickets and they couldn’t get them, claiming they were regular supporters of Kildare.”

That’s an outrageous thing for Quinn to say. To suggest that there could be any sort of hassle between ticket-less Mayo and Kildare fans outside St Conleth’s Park is scurrilous. In the long history of the GAA there hasn’t been a single instance of the kind of crowd trouble Quinn is suggesting, inside or outside a GAA ground. The best that Quinn could do now is withdraw those remarks, apologise to the Kildare and Mayo fans and stay quiet.

As for the real reason the GAA stripped Kildare of home advantage, the answer is simple: money. That the GAA offered Kildare to propose an alternative venue - perhaps, Portlaoise - would mean more tickets could be sold and therefore more money collected for the Association. To say that they’re working in the best interests of the supporters, so as to accommodate as many of them as possible who want to see the Qualifier game - is disingenuous and mealy-mouthed. This from an Association that allowed a subscription-only TV company to buy the exclusive rights to a share of games! This from an Association that rips up the Croke Park pitch for concerts and relays it less than a week before a Leinster Final and other big games!

The GAA want Kildare out of Newbridge so they can divest more Mayo fans of their money but they won’t say that. Instead they have flagrantly abused their own rules and expect Kildare GAA to play acquiese like some at heel pup. Well, the pup seems to have grown teeth and isn’t going to roll over and have its belly tickled.

The Kildare County Board, Cian O’Neill and, one hopes, the Kildare players will hold firm on their stance, come what may. That the Kildare players might have to forfeit a game they should feel they’re capable of winning in Newbridge would be a great shame, but the real shame will be on the GAA if they let that come to pass. The GAA hierarchy made the rules for the Qualifier draw, and it’s time they started to play by their own rules.

Sticking to their principles could be Kildare’s biggest victory of the year.