President Horan provides clarity for G.A.A. members

G.A.A. PRESIDENT John Horan has ruled out any Gaelic games being played for as long as social distancing is in place. In a wide-ranging interview conducted by Des Cahill on ‘The Sunday Game’, he also estimated that the financial loss to the Association – should there be no games this season – will come in at a massive €50m.

In what was the strongest indication yet, the President told viewers there is a chance of no more games being played in 2020 – despite the government last week indicating G.A.A. activity could return on July 20.

‘I can’t see it happening to be quite honest, because if social distancing is a priority to deal with this pandemic, I don’t know how we can play contact sport,’ Horan said.

‘That is what Gaelic games is, it’s a contact sport. They [players] are not prepared to take the risk of actually bringing anything home to their family.’

Horan was quite specific when it came to contact sport.

‘Our concern has to be the players on the pitch, their families, their work colleagues.

‘When this is all over and we are all back to normal health I would hate to think that we as an organisation, that we would have made a decision that cost any family a member of their family.’

And Horan said the G.A.A. would not be looking to follow the scenarios currently being examined by other professional sports in terms of cocooning players.

‘I’m not going to pass that responsibility over to the club volunteer who does a great job for us to make those decisions.

‘Professional sport is in a different league. They don’t go back into work.

‘They can be cocooned from their family and relations but we can’t do that and we won’t.’

He also said that to ‘get into the operation of testing players would prove extremely expensive, so we would have to even be beyond the point of testing players before they go out on the pitch, because it had already been said if sporting organisations want to take on [a] testing process they would have to fund it themselves’.

Horan admited the G.A.A. were caught somewhat unawares by the government’s announcement that stated groups of four could meet for outdoor sporting activity on May 18, and that on July 20 certain G.A.A. games could resume.

‘I think everyone was taken by surprise on Friday night [May 1] because no one really knew what was coming,’ he said.

‘I think it did give everyone a bit of an uplift to feel that we were coming back but [we] had to examine it and look at it closely.

‘There was a concept in it that people could gather together in groups of four but we felt that that just couldn’t be marshalled within our clubs,’ he explained.

‘That’s why we continued to keep our premises closed.

‘You would have a group of four gathering here, and another group of four, and all of a sudden then you would have a full squad gathering.

‘Then, the next thing, after that period of training they’d probably push on and you could have a game behind closed doors or something..

Horan also questioned whether inter-county games behind closed doors would be a runner.

‘I don’t think it’s going to happen to be honest with you because I think if the games are on the pitch there is going to be a certain acceptance there is going to be a crowd in the stadium, and I think that’s where it’s going to rest.’

The G.A.A., Horan outlined, is going to take a massive financial hit. ‘It’s a serious situation for us and it’s one of the things that is worrying for us an organisation.

‘Our whole operation and budgeting this year would have been based on revenue streams coming in from our games and coming in from our sponsors.

‘Looking at the figure at the moment, it’s looking like we’ll end up with a loss of between €25m and €35m in Croke Park centrally and the stadium.

‘Taking into account the whole organisation, County Boards and clubs, the loss if we don’t get any games played is probably heading in the region of €50 million.’