Coalition in dire need of GAA lifeline
Martin pins his hopes on Gaelic games
MONDAY morning brought another moment when sport, politics and the media intersected. This time the setting wasn’t the Station House Hotel in Clifden, the scene of the Golfgate soap opera that is losing cast members quicker than a Game of Thrones finale. Instead, it was an RTÉ radio studio.
Claire Byrne, now the full-time successor to retired broadcaster Sean O’Rourke, another attendee at the Oireachtas Golf Society dinner debacle, had her first important catch as host of the
Today programme. Taoiseach Micheál Martin shouldn’t have to remind listeners of his sporting credentials — not when his own family are involved in Cork GAA royalty Nemo Rangers, his son Micheál Aodh Martin a player with a track record at club and county level.
But the contradictory messages that accompanied the Government’s move to put sport behind closed doors meant the Taoiseach had some explaining to do.
An exchange over the removal of the 200-person limit at outdoor sporting events while allowing indoor gatherings at Mass and restaurants said a lot about the confusion on the ground.
Byrne: ‘Should we not be getting more information as to why that decision was taken? Because people don’t get it. The GAA doesn’t get it.
Martin. ‘I know it doesn’t. I know! My own clubmates don’t get it. Every sports person across the country doesn’t get it.’
Right there is an admission of a serious breakdown in communication by Government. Even if the data from the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) supported the logic behind the decision, the Taoiseach’s acknowledgment of widespread confusion is worrying in terms of the public’s confidence in the Government to get the big decisions right.
‘My sons are playing Gaelic football, I’d love to go see a match. That caused real anger across the country,’ added Martin.
The anger of sporting organisations at last Tuesday’s announcement that fans will be prohibited from attending games until September 13 perhaps explains the Taoiseach’s headline statement from that interview.
‘In taking the decision we did on the crowds, we saved the championships and the leagues,’ he said.
‘We want the Championship to go ahead. I want an All-Ireland this year because I think it would be a symbol that the country is fighting this virus.’
All of a sudden, Martin was sketching the Government as some kind of comic book hero, swooping in to save the day. As if this was all part of a grand plan.
A pity they didn’t share a version of the grand plan with the GAA beforehand.
It was easy to think of the interview in different terms – Micheál Martin’s three-party coalition under siege, using the GAA as a political football in an attempt to save themselves as much as our beloved Championship.
The decision not to allow sport move to phase four and entertain a crowd of 500 instead of 200 meant, in simple economic terms, that cash-strapped county boards would have limited gate receipts to fund any inter-county return.
Alarm bells were ringing out from county secretaries and treasurers all over the country, warning of shortfalls in the accounts of anything between €300,000 to €500,000.
Putting sport behind closed doors as county championships come to the boil removed any last, lingering hope for county board officials to cover the costs of an All-Ireland season.
Last week, the GAA themselves took the decision on the chin and told county chairs in a Croke Park conference call led by president John Horan and director general Tom Ryan, that they would ensure there is a level of financial cover. That the show will go on, once public health protocols allow for it.
In fairness to the Government, it was a proactive step to make €40million in support funds available to the GAA, FAI and IRFU, though the finer details of the share have yet to be worked out.
Monday morning’s interview though sounded like political opportunism – particularly when most of the anger and frustration at the highest level of the GAA is over not being kept in the loop.
This prompted the ill-advised calling out of Acting Chief Medical
Officer Dr Ronan Glynn last Tuesday night.
As a counter balance, their criticism of the CMO prompted the well-advised publication of empirical data detailing the GAA’s role in providing a sense of normality to people during the pandemic via their own Return to Play protocols.
Some 5.1million answers have been completed on the Covid-19 questionnaire, which is clicked and ticked when a player trains or plays. The same system has been used by 91,000 people since the end of June.
Not a single Covid-19 case could be traced directly to the Cúl Camps which already cater for 71,000 kids nationwide.
When the roadmap stalled and the 200-person limit wasn’t increased to 500, it was reported that Micheál Martin had expressed surprise that the figure wasn’t for spectators only, that it also included the two matchday squads and the 100 or so personnel attached to any game.
As Offaly chairman Michael Duignan explained in these pages: ‘That extra 100 people would have made such a difference to every parish in Ireland.’
The future of the GAA season will hinge on a lot more than any grand gestures or statements from this Government.
“Show will go
on once the rules allow it”
“Interview
seemed like opportunism”