Horan: Dublin have not been gifted advantage
GAA president John Horan admitted yesterday that a ‘debate needs to be held’ on the future scheduling of Gaelic football’s Super 8s. Horan conceded yesterday that the furore sparked by Donegal’s objection to Dublin designating Croke Park as an official home venue for the Super 8s would ensure a review of schedule and venues at the end of the season. ‘This is a debate that needs to be held. ‘Look, I think Donegal felt they had to express a view on the matter,’ admitted Horan, speaking at the launch of the All-Ireland Championships on Inis Mór Island yesterday. But Horan rejected the perception that Dublin have been gifted an advantage by their use of Croke Park as a home venue, suggesting that the county’s success was fuelling the debate. ‘I don’t feel there is begrudgery against Dublin. ‘People have a rivalry against Dublin, which his healthy, they’re the capital, they’re successful. ‘I mean there is rivalry against Kilkenny, I’m quite sure if Galway keep going the way they’re going there will be a rivalry against Galway. ‘Dublin never look on it as begrudgery. Look, you’ve
got to live in the real world, when you’re up there you are always going to be challenged and you have to live with that,’ insisted Horan.
The controversy generated by Dublin’s advantage of playing two home games — they open the Super 8s against Donegal this Saturday in Croke Park and conclude it there with a final-round fixture against Roscommon — has put the spotlight on their exclusive use of Croke Park.
They have not played a Championship game in their official home ground of Parnell Park since 2004 and not a League game since 2010.
Since 2011, Dublin have played 83 out of 112 competitive games in League and Championship at Croke Park — 74 per cent of all their fixtures.
But Horan believes the issue has been blown out of proportion.
‘But like when has this developed?
‘Dublin have been playing in Croke Park for a long number of years now and all of a sudden one issue over the Super 8s has kicked all of this off.
‘I don’t think Donegal’s real gripe is about Dublin necessarily playing in Croke Park, I think Donegal’s probable frustration is the actual structure of the games, that their first game is in Croke Park, I think that is part of their problem.
‘I think it’s more the arrangement of the games that their first game happens to be against a provincial champion.
‘Some people are making that point, that maybe the provincial champions shouldn’t play off against each other in the first set of matches, that they should all get a home game in the first set of matches,’ added Horan.
But the sequence of fixtures in the Super 8s is only one source of growing discontent with regards to Dublin’s perceived advantage of playing in Croke Park, with some critics arguing that the GAA has to re-examine the decision to allow Dublin to ‘rent’ headquarters for League matches, where
whole programme of games out and I think the sensible thing then would be in the calm light of day to settle down and just see are there any tweaks we may be able to apply to just improve things, for the player, the spectator and the competitions overall.
‘They (the CCCC) are in new territory and they are looking at that.
‘I think that will be addressed in the next 48 hours and you will get all of those fixtures laid out to you, in fairness to them.
‘I think they’ve been faced with a big challenge this year. I always liken it to going back to my days as a school teacher, you get a new text book and you go through it and you think it’s absolutely wonderful but you only really get to know the meat of it when you actually go and teach it.
‘And I think it’s only when we roll out all of these fixtures that we’ll actually get a full feel for some of the difficulties that probably were unforeseen when we set out on that road.’