Irish Daily Star - Inside Sport
GAA must keep its moral compass despite financial pressures
high-level sport has turned a blind eye for too long
THIS was a week when we bid farewell to Saint Roman Abramovich.
Lately, there has been plenty of talk about the dark side of sport and it brings questions to my mind.
How far does your loyalty to sportspeople/sports teams you love go? Does it mean you’ll look the other way if they cross a line you shouldn’t cross?
It’s an interesting time for the sports world as we are becoming more and more aware of the reality of what is meant by sportswashing.
It has become increasingly harder to ignore the nature of the money men at the top in some cases, or what your favourite sports person might be all about.
It’s always been there, of course, but it’s mostly been ignored.
How many fans ever asked how Abramovich accumulated his wealth, or what his relationship to Vladimir Putin was — as long as trophies came to Chelsea, they didn’t care.
Willing
It asks uncomfortable questions of us and how far we are willing to go to ignore the price that goes with success.
Golf had its own moment recently and the words of Phil Mickelson on playing in Saudi Arabia were startling.
“They’re scary motherf*****s to get involved with. We know they killed (Washington Post’s) Jamal Khashoggi and have a horrible human rights record,’’ he said.
“They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.”
Maybe we shouldn’t be looking for sports people and sporting institutions to show us moral guidance. Why the fascination to know which side a player falls on a certain social topic?
You shouldn’t be looking to the upper echelons of the sporting world for any moral guidance.
Ribbons
Despite all the ribbons and armbands and laces on boots and all sorts of gestures, much of it is just window dressing — no more than corporate shite talk.
Sport nowadays operates in murky waters and it’s led me to become completely disillusioned with any type of high-level sport.
This is a sporting world where one of the biggest players in boxing is Daniel Kinahan, who is top of the Gardai’s wanted list.
There seem to be some positives about Tyson Fury and causes he’s involved in, but he still poses for photos with Kinahan, forever tarnishing his legacy, in my view.
Look at this year’s World Cup which will take place in stadia in Qatar where workers — often on very low wages — literally died to build them.
Cheer
Watch how many people don’t bat an eyelid as they cheer on different teams when the tournament goes ahead.
The World Cup is the biggest sports event on the planet and we know that different countries have bribed FIFA in order to get the honour of hosting it.
For me, that sums up highlevel sport in the modern world. Sport itself is the best mirror of the hypocrisy we all see in society everywhere.
We will find no moral guidance at the top level of professional sport and it’s why we in the GAA should be doing all we can to stay away from becoming an organisation where money means everything.
If that becomes the case, then it’s simply inevitable that the GAA would end up becoming twisted like so many organisations before it.
And it would also mean the temptation might arise to join hands with some questionable forms of income.
We don’t want a situation where we have to turn a blind eye.
It would be a sad day for the GAA if we ever went down that road.
It will be tough for the GAA to keep their moral compass while the financial demands remain the same, it will be tougher to turn down situations which would force us to turn a blind eye because it’s helping our teams.
The same demands are on clubs around the country and I’ve no problem saying here that there are a small number of clubs in Ireland that have money coming into them from questionable sources, and a blind eye turned.
We shouldn’t have to turn a blind eye to anything in GAA.
There is a wide spectrum in terms of what we let slide. I’ve seen it in my own history with my own experiences and the scrapes I got myself into.
Lots of stuff happened that probably shouldn’t have been let go but, because of my status as a county player, it was brushed under the carpet. Didn’t do me any favours in the long run but it happened.
Again, take that logic its whole way up the scale and look at the different ways sportspeople have been treated and some of the soft touches we give them.
Different standards for so many high-profile sportspeople.
Look at all the amazing sports people that are out there and we ignore the flaws — some of them massive, glaring and ugly.
Being loyal to something you cherish is an important trait but it’s dangerous territory when it clouds your judgement like that.
Upon Carl Frampton’s retirement from boxing, when I sensibly pointed out that his legacy would be tarnished by being associated with MTK Global, I was given dogs’ abuse online.
Frampton had a brilliant boxing career. To many fans, that was all that mattered.
Pedestal
We shouldn’t be putting highlevel sport on a pedestal, we shouldn’t forgive it for what it has done to put us in situations where we turn the blind eye.
And we in the GAA have to be wary of some of those that offer financial assistance.
Let’s not get into a situation where we have to start looking the other way.