‘We have never had a better opportunity to improve our games’
Former president Liam O’Neill says the pandemic has created conditions conducive to revolutionising the GAA and ensuring it continues to thrive
‘THE NEXT 3 YEARS WILL BE A VERY EXCITING TIME IN THE GAA’
LIAM O’NEILL has seen the world through the eyes of the GAA, through the eyes of president during his three-year term in charge of the association from 2012 to 2015. But he never imagined living through a slice of history such as this.
‘No. I don’t think anybody did. Or the only people who thought this were the fellas who dug bunkers in their back garden in America – and we all thought they were crazy! The end-of-the-world-is-nigh crowd.
‘The awful or funny thing is, they turned out to be nearly right. Only a person of that mentality could ever have foreseen this. No, you couldn’t in your wildest dreams imagine that no plane would be flying in the sky.
‘But people are resilient. The GAA was central to what happened in the early part of the pandemic here but I’ve always said that great GAA clubs come from great communities. And we have great communities in this country. People just rally around and support.
‘I’m not saying it’s unique to Ireland – I’m sure it happens in other places. But the fact that we’re organised in parish clusters, in community clusters, in school clusters at primary level, gives a kind of cohesion to the community spirit and the effect that has on people that isn’t evident always in other countries. That has really been shown.’
Taking up office opened up a vast array of new experiences. Opened up the world to the former Leinster Council chairman, Laois native and Trumera primary school principal.
For all the clubs and countries he visited, and the vast array of experiences that come with leading the GAA, nobody envisaged sport in such a position in 2020.
But he says the pandemic has also opened up a world of possibility in how to do business, of learning to adapt fluidly and quickly to meet changing demands. And that hasn’t always been the case for an organisation that tended towards the conservative, historically.
Just look at the success of live streaming of club matches the country over, the introduction of e-ticketing and removing of cash from the gate, the Return to Play protocols and the online Covid-19 health questionnaire that has had over five million engagements.
‘I think maybe learn a few lessons from it and say, “If we can agree for a pandemic, maybe we can do more together in the normal run of things.”
‘For an organisation like the GAA, the people who stopped change, the traditionalists, need to take a hard look at themselves and say, “Look at what you can do when you have to do it.” Because the GAA handled this so well, look at the possibilities opened up to us for fixtures, for the whole organisation of our games, because we took things seriously during this pandemic.
‘Hopefully the fears we all had of the hundreds of thousands dying, hopefully that is not going to be realised. I’m confident that it’s not, now. But it just showed what could be done. We all need to step back and learn something. Say we should look at the possibilities more.’
One of those possibilities concerns the split season and the restructuring of the calendar to lend more weight to the club player.
It’s one that gained a groundswell of support very quickly, especially since the Gaelic Players Association recently endorsed the idea. It involves bringing the All-Irelands forward to July and letting the clubs have the second half of the season uninterrupted.
So is he a fan? After all, he has been there on the biggest day, the showpiece occasion of All-Ireland final day. Has experienced the promotional element and everything that goes with it.
So does he see much more can be gained than could be lost?
‘You asked me the question at the start, would I love to be the president taking the ball from where it is now for the next three years… the answer is “yes”. Because the possibilities for change are boundless. Honest to God, there has never been as much opportunity for change.
‘I think, the next three years, assuming we get over this, will be a terribly exciting time in the GAA in the sense that if we open our minds to change and the possibilities and trying things out, I think we can revolutionise what is already good.
‘There is very little wrong with the GAA at the moment but the possibilities for improvement and development are such that have never been seen before in my time within the GAA.’
For someone who served in such a public role as president, it was never in his personality to try and be the centre of attention in a room. His election came on the back of his track record in a multitude of roles rather than any larger-than-life persona. A doer, just in low-key fashion without the bells and whistles. And an ability to see the lighter side of things.
He laughs when asked how he has coped with lockdown and the time on his hands since his retirement in 2018 after 40 years in the role of either teacher or principal at Gaelscoil Thromaire.
‘I was asked by a friend of mine early on in this, “How are you really Liam?” I thought, well I’ll put an end to this quickly now. So I texted him back. “I’m an introvert. I’m shy. I’m not that friendly anyway. There’s people going to be worse affected than this than me.” And I can laugh at myself on this but there is a tiny bit of truth in that.’
Not that he hasn’t kept himself busy in other ways – ‘I’m a chair of a second level school and primary level school, on the board of management.’
Watched as the GAA has done the government’s job for them in many ways during the pandemic with Cúl Camps testing the water before primary schools went back.
That more than five million people have engaged with the Covid-19 health questionnaire shows the scale of the activity that has been going on as the schools return.
‘Sporting organisations have been doing the government’s work for quite some time. What has been thrown up by this pandemic is that when money needed to be found, money was found.’
As for the Micheál Martin’s claim that the decision to put sport behind closed doors has ‘saved the championships and the leagues’, he replies: ‘If the thing went belly up, I wonder would any politician be as quick to take the credit?’ There is no getting
away from the fact that club activity is local, fits with the restrictions of Covid life better than inter-county which involves the crossing of borders and cross-pollination of players and personnel. So does he see running the provincial and All-Ireland championships as feasible?
‘I’ve been urging caution – and I’d still be cautious. I wouldn’t want us to the be the ones to contribute to any spread or any sort of outbreak.
‘I don’t think we have and I think we’ve held our line fairly well on good behaviour. But I realise that our authorities have to think on their feet and play this game live, much the same way as the medics are handling the virus.
‘You can’t plan for something that you don’t know the extent of. I’ve great sympathy for the medics and supported them.
‘The difficulty about where we are right now is that there is no certainty. We can’t plan for a definite inter-county. The best we can do is what John Horan says – play it, and if somebody has to drop out, they drop out.’
It says something when Kildare senior football selector Tom Cribbin said it has already reached the point where the rest of the season should be used to complete club programmes rather than trying to squeeze in a winter All-Ireland, prophesying an extension of the lockdown in Kildare which has since caused the county board to defer the concluding stages of the club championship until after any inter-county involvement. ‘I didn’t realise as many were thinking the same way,’ admits O’Neill who points to how club activity fits far better with the natural restrictions of a pandemic in staying or playing local and how inter-county goes against all of that.
‘I think if we had the club matches, with a reasonable concession on supporters, say 200 to 500. There is a huge difference between a player in Laois playing club championship, say Stradbally playing Ballylinan, a few hundred going to the game. All localised. So any spread is localised.
‘That’s very different to Laois playing Fermanagh in a National League. And that game is outstanding. Now you have to cross the border, you have to cross jurisdictions, you have to cross different attitudes to the pandemic.
‘So there is a huge difference between travelling that distance, even if it’s only the team.
‘The club thing gives us a chance to localise it. Have the feelgood factor. Streaming has been brilliant. I watched almost the entire first round of the Laois championship online. It was great.
‘I will watch as many games as I can from now on in the hurling and football championship.’
What about the counter-argument that Limerick hurling manager John Kiely has expressed, so too Wexford manager Davy Fitzgerald, president John Horan and even Micheál Martin last Monday, that the country needs and would benefit so much from the lift an All-Ireland championship would generate, especially for supporters during the cold winter months, whether they are allowed in to the ground due to restrictions or have to tune in at home?
‘I accept that. But a county manager has a vested interest. That’s just fact.’
County, too, brings its own pressures. So far, any clubs impacted by a Covid-19 positive test have almost uniformly stood down, either the club as a whole or the section as a whole.
Will everyone do the right thing at inter-county in such a high stakes scenario? Because they didn’t when it came to the training ban when counties weren’t meant to be training before September 14.
‘The fear is that somebody will delay announcing the virus,’ says O’Neill.
‘If we force this through and say we’re playing this championship, come hell or high water, even if we won’t have everyone taking part in it – because it’s more important to play it than be inclusive – what happens if it breaks down?
‘What sort of a blow if the first rounds are played, and half the counties are out, and then there’s a lockdown? Or for some reason it becomes unsafe?
‘Then you have to make a call where most people will be disappointed.
If the medics think it’s unsafe, and I think they need to be asked a straight question, is it safe to go ahead with it or not?
‘If they say no, I think we have to listen to them. And if they say, yes, can they guarantee it will be finished? If they say yes again, I would certainly support it.
‘The biggest thing people want in a time of strife – and this pandemic is a time of strife – they want strong leadership and strong decisions.’
But surely certainty is impossible in a pandemic, with the best will in the world?
‘But let them admit that. Then, based on their best evidence, let us make the decision. With the full information.
‘Open, transparent advice from NPHET. And if we have to make the call then, I would trust our leadership to make the call.’