A vulgar display of wealth which can not be tolerated
‘Finance or fairness?’ is now a defining motto
WE’VE no idea how long Seamus O’Donnell took in thinking up the question ‘finances or fairness?’ Maybe it came to him behind the wheel of his car, or it was the result of a long, stretching walk. He might have taken days scratching his head. Anyhow, his effort fell on deaf ears last Saturday at the GAA’s congress.
But, no question about it, O’Donnell’s words have not been defeated, only unheard on a particular day when the association’s bosses had obviously gone to the trouble of doubling up on phone calls and ensuring, in advance, that Donegal’s motion to limit the Dublin football team’s use of Croke Park would be decisively beaten down.
Last year, the people of Kildare won their fight when they cried out the words, ‘Newbridge or Nowhere!’
Kildare manager Cian O’Neill fronted that battle and issued his declaration in a public place. The people of Donegal might also have won if they had fought on the streets and the airwaves for justice.
Battling for what is right — for what is blatantly required in order to have every team lined up equally at the very beginning of the summer — was never going to be as easy in the walled confines of the McClure Suite in White’s Hotel in Wexford town.
That is where the GAA sat to do their business last Friday and Saturday. And business was the clearest and most opportune word.
The GAA bosses and their obedient underlings from all around the country had made it clear, all winter long, that they were quite disgusted at having the nation’s finger wagging in front of their faces through much of 2018.
Government ministers and jumped up influencers and commentators, had dared to tell the GAA how to do its business. GAA business. How dare they? The bosses and their underlings queued up, month after month, to voice their displeasure at being frogmarched towards the correct decision — and allowing the Liam Miller soccer match be played in Páirc Uí Chaoimh last September.
They still felt quite miffed at having to do an about-turn and allow O’Neill’s Kildare use Newbridge in the middle of the summer.
The GAA, consequently, had a big thick head on display last weekend in Wexford.
And the association was in no mood to get a shoulder into its back from a crowd of do-gooders up in Donegal.
AS usual, Jim Gavin was at pains to emphasise that he and his team would turn up at any ground they were asked to attend. On the cusp of writing history and winning five All-Irelands on the trot, Gavin, however, did not care to admit that his team was once again going to receive an unholy advantage in the Super 8s by having two games at home.
Croke Park is now Dublin’s home. Nobody signed the ground over to them, of course. They’re squatters.
No other team in the Super 8s will have two games at home late this summer but, evicting Dublin was described as ‘mean spirited’ by the county’s CEO John Costello and ‘very negative’ by former association president, Sean Kelly.
Quite how the pair of them could view an unlevel playing field, and come out with these personal views, is astonishing.
Dublin have been brilliant and extraordinarily resourceful in building one of the greatest teams we have ever seen. They have done it for themselves. But the truth, also, is that they have achieved it all by receiving more help — hard, hard cash — than any other county in the history of the GAA.
They have been given it all, and now they have officially been handed Croke Park. It’s wrong and it is actually vulgar.
But the smugness displayed by the GAA’s bosses at their victory last weekend might only be temporary. The words ‘finance or fairness’ will not be forgotten. They will return. Those words will be reused. They will be aimed at the GAA with a regularity.
Seamus O’Donnell will see others take full advantage of his effort to touch the GAA’s conscience.
We saw an ugly and especially greedy side to the association last weekend. We also saw the association act foolishly. Damagingly.
By underlining its belief that there is nothing at all wrong with Dublin getting a leg-up in its effort to win yet another All-Ireland title, they have left their own grubby handprints on a team that was never in need of help in the first place.
Dublin’s 35,000 hardcore supporters, as cited by John Costello, get to see their team play in Croke Park throughout the League, and they get to see them in Croke Park a couple of times in the Leinster Championship. They’ll also, most probably, get to see them twice in Croke Park in the Super 8s and, possibly, two more games beyond that.
All the people of Donegal asked last weekend was for the Dublin team and those 35,000 supporters to give up on one of those days.
And for Jim Gavin, his team, and their supporters to see, and agree, the fairness in such an unselfish act.
‘When it really mattered, I’ve questioned whether they can win these big games.’ - WALES COACH WARREN GATLAND PUTS THE BOOT INTO AN ALREADY HUMBLED ENGLAND