BUILDING A BRIDGE
From tourism to jobs, the loss of sporting events is manifold. That’s why so many want drastic action
REOPENING Ireland is a process that should fill people with hope – but the amount of detail involved in sustaining those hopes is staggering.
Evidence of this can be seen in the feel-good accounts of golf clubs and tennis clubs allowing members back in from Monday, as part of Phase One of the roadmap out of the restrictive conditions under which people have lived for the past two months.
Sport is one part of a highly complex, inter-dependent system that was shuttered almost entirely over the course of two weeks in March.
The reasons why are well rehearsed and fully justified. Reversing that drastic, urgent action will be a much more deliberate job.
Golf and tennis clubs are obliged to adhere to strict conditions as part of their re-emergence into the lives of their members.
This involves more than sticking bottles of hand sanitiser around the premises.
There is significant logistical detail involved, from staggering tee times and match arrangements, to parking facilities, to overseeing access to premises in the first place.
Given the usual demands of running a sporting club, this is a level of complexity that is asking a lot of organisations that may be, to varying degrees, relying on volunteers to do jobs.
This will not receive a great deal of coverage in a time of economic collapse and the threat of rampant unemployment.
It is still important, as the increasingly restless demands from some sports to start allowing access to their facilities, shows.
Establishing an expert group to help guide sports through what could prove an elaborate process is, then, a sensible idea.
One source described it as ‘filling a hole in the system’.
Dr Tony Holohan, the Chief Medical Officer, and the National Public Health Emergency Team he heads up may wield great power in this pandemic, but asking them to decide on the resumption of the GAA or soccer seasons would immerse them in a level of micro-detail that is unnecessary.
If NPHET is not answering the deluge of questions and demands from a sports sector desperate to know what it should do ahead of the next phases in the roadmap, they must be addressed elsewhere.
Thus, the formation of a Return to Sport Expert Group was announced shortly after lunchtime last Saturday.
It was not prime-time scheduling, and the news rather stole into the public space.
The content of the actual release itself was sobering, with the Minister for Sport, Shane Ross — not a man instinctively associated with considered decision-making — effectively cautioning Irish sporting bodies that getting back to action would not be done quickly.
‘Small and very measured steps must be introduced slowly, which is what the roadmap sets out to do through the various phases,’ said the Minister, who is no longer a TD but is still acting in a caretaker capacity.
‘But the good news is that some low-risk sporting activity can start up again next Monday in accordance with the public health advice.
‘The sports organisations are putting detailed protocols in place and the expert group that we are establishing today will be assessing the consistency of these arrangements with the roadmap and current public health advice.
‘In my view, it is essential that the public can have confidence in how sport is being restored in Ireland — and I believe that this initiative is an important confidence-building measure.’
No wonder there was no pyrotechnic display accompanying the release.
However, the purpose of the group is still useful, and a reflec
“Fabric of sport, and society, will be fractured”
tion of the difficulties that many Irish sporting bodies now confront.
It is a place for them to turn for advice on what they should do ahead of restarting.
The challenges confronting the three big field sports that dominate the Irish landscape are well rehearsed, as are the financial challenges confronting them.
The prospect of the GAA seeing a €50million fall in revenue is astonishing – but it is one that grows more plausible with each passing week, and the chances of a championship season of any kind diminish.
Potential losses in smaller sports are not as large, but still pose the risk of ruin.
Bernard O’Byrne, the chief executive of Basketball Ireland, made that point yesterday. He warned that Government intervention is vital. ‘Otherwise, the fabric of sport, and indeed society, will be fractured and may crumble in many cases,’ he said.
The Federation of Irish Sport warned in these pages from the outset of the crisis that it presented huge difficulties for the more than 100 sporting bodies it represents.
Cancelled matches and empty stadia are obvious issues, but other sources of income have been shut off, too, from the sale of club lotto tickets to the closure of facilities that prevented camps for children being run at Easter – and which will put a stop to summer camps, too.
The Federation has called for the establishment of a resilience fund, acknowledging the establishment of the expert group but politely insisting it is simply not enough.
‘While we welcome the setting up of the Return to Sport Expert Group, its remit is very specific, which is to assess the consistency of the various protocols being prepared by NGBs to return to sport in Ireland,’ it said.
‘The Federation believes, however, that in addition to this group, that sport needs a separate task force similar to the one Government has set up for the tourism industry.
‘We need innovative thinking, swift action, and investment at local and national level providing business and administrative supports to Irish sport to help sustain it through this unprecedented emergency and the recovery.’
Advocates for Irish sport know they must repeat the importance of the sector to Irish society generally, time and again: almost 40,000 are employed, and generating consumer spending in excess of €2.7billion every year.
Both of those figures look certain to suffer.
Confirmation that the Dublin Marathon is cancelled for 2020 was inevitable, but no less a blow for that. The race series that has traditionally served as a training route to the race itself on the October bank holiday weekend has also been cancelled.
This will all disappoint the tens of thousands who had signed up – the Dublin Marathon is now the fourth-largest in Europe, with 25,000 places selling out within days for this year’s race, and over 35,000 applying – but the cancellation of the race will also have a significant impact on the Dublin economy.
Since moving the race from the bank holiday Monday to the Sunday, its attraction to overseas visitors has increased, which means more hotel bookings and a consequent boost for restaurants and bars.
The tens of thousands drawn to Dublin at a quieter time of year for tourism is a loss in itself, but particularly so in a country whose tourism industry will suffer enormously this year.
From Phase Two, currently due to start on June 8, outdoor sporting activity can increase, but huge concerns remain about the effect the requirement for social distancing will have on not just contact sports, but the prospect of attendances in general.
An array of issues need to be identified and tackled — a job that could overwhelm sporting organisations, especially smaller ones. Advice, then, is needed, be that from an expert group or elsewhere.
“Sport needs a
task force like tourism one”