The GAA needs to stop these foreign jollies
There’s nothing to gain from foreign jollies given the issues at home
‘IT SEEMS A HOLIDAY CAN STILL WOW OUR MODERN PLAYERS’
THE diaspora are valuable guilt-trip triggers for the GAA. Those inclined to question end-of-season jollies like the Wild Geese flight to Australia last week or the latest manifestation of the Super 11s absurdity in the United States today, will find themselves rebuked for ignoring the needs of immigrants.
These trips sustain them, apparently, as if in a world shrunk by media that allows access to instant news as well as live matches (through a medium like GAAGO), groups of emigres nonetheless huddle by piers, waiting for the mailboats carrying the latest news of Championship reform or on-field violence from home.
The diaspora are often the justification for these junkets, which are repackaged as mercy missions or a type of cultural aid-drop, with hurlers winched from helicopters to bring meaning to the lives of our exiles.
Never mind that they come at a time of year when club schedules are packed to bursting point. But this is not the most nonsensical feature of these trips.
The GAA is celebrating its cultural wonders at a time when it is facing problems that cut to the very heart of its meaning.
The disillusionment of club players, the scourge of violence at matches, and moves to introduce a two-tier football championship with no convincing evidence that players from the counties affected support the idea, are enormous subjects that should be seriously addressed.
Moreover, they need to be debated publicly in engagements led by the senior figures in the Association. That should be driving GAA concerns in November, and not jaunts abroad that are sold as evangelical missions. The Wild Geese concept was said to be a way of honouring the 2017 All-Ireland champions and this year’s Allianz League winners, and saw Galway and Kilkenny play in Sydney.
But one report suggested it was also a way of giving an Australian trip to a hurling community disgruntled that they never get to visit Down Under, like many footballers have as part of the International Rules series.
Despite the advances in sports science and the increasing sophistication of our indigenous games, it seems a free holiday can still wow modern stars. Rewarding players is certainly understandable, but let’s not try and pass off a treat as an act of sporting generosity.
‘It was all about the GAA getting exposure and I think that happened,’ Galway manager Micheál Donoghue said after the match.
Hurling needs exposure in most counties in Ireland before we turn covetous eyes on Australia. The unalterable conviction among a certain constituency in the sport that the world is waiting to be converted is tiresome.
‘Galway’s All-Ireland demons are exorcised by Wild Geese win’ read a headline on the GAA website, a rather strained attempt to invest this match with importance. If a player’s disappointment at losing the biggest match of the year could be salved with such cheap gratification, scratch cards would be handed to losing finalists as they leave Croke Park.
Meanwhile, the Super 11s hits North America later today. Limerick, Clare, Cork and Wexford are taking part at Fenway Park, the ground of the Boston Red Sox.
On the Red Sox website, tickets are being sold with the explanation that ‘the ancient Irish sport of hurling will feature four teams competing in a tournament for the coveted Players Champions Cup’.
This gimmick has been pursued by the GPA for years, and its survival looks awfully like a sop from the GAA to its players’ body.
‘I am also pleased to note the ongoing co-operation between the GAA and GPA in working together to organise the competition and bring some of the best traits of our great game to new audiences,’ GAA president John Horan said at the launch in September.
The desire to reward players is understandable, even commendable, and a trip to the United States or Australia is a sweet way to end a long year.
Let us acknowledge these trips for what they are and stop insulting the public’s intelligence with vacuous claims about bringing hurling to new markets (try Ulster and most of Connacht first).
However, the trips should not be littering those months of the year that are dedicated to county finals and provincial club matches.
And more pertinently still, they should not soaking up coverage and energies that should be redirected to the problems that are palpable within Gaelic games.
The summer just passed will be remembered for the controversies that blazed around Newbridge and Páirc Uí Chaoimh, and the dislocations between leadership and membership exposed therein.
Solving those problems should be the concern.
Home is where the hurt is.