Radical idea for State role

GAA: A radical idea to open Croke Park to other sports has attracted interest within the higher councils of the GAA. Whereas there have been no formal discussions on the matter the application of a sale and lease-back arrangement with the Government has obvious appeal for the parties concerned.

Sale and lease-back involves the sale of a property or business for a specified period of time during which the vendor is entitled to lease it. At the conclusion of the term the lease may be renewed - generally at a declining rate - or sold back.

This would address two critical areas: the use of Croke Park and finance. With the future of Rule 42, the provision used to prevent soccer and rugby being played in Croke Park, still uncertain, the sale of the headquarters venue to the Government would remove it from the operation of the rule, which applies to GAA property.

This differentiates the idea from that being floated by Wicklow club Arklow Geraldines who have proposed a motion that Croke Park be leased to the Government for five events a year - a suggestion that wouldn't get around the need to delete or modify Rule 42, which governs "Uses of Property".

Under a sale and lease-back agreement Croke Park would not belong to the GAA and accordingly wouldn't be subject to the provision.

In financial terms it would allow the GAA to settle the outstanding debt on the Croke Park redevelopment, which at this stage with Hill 16 demolished and the Northern End being rebuilt is running at near € 100 million.

The GAA is already smarting at the Government's abrupt refusal to disburse promised funds of €38 million because of the collapse of the Stadium Ireland project at Abbotstown just over a year ago - on the basis that the money was intended to compensate the GAA for moving a certain number of matches to Abbotstown.

There is no precedent on which to base a price but a figure of €150 million has been speculated by a GAA source in respect of a 20-year lease-back.

It is accepted such a move would need to secure the backing of congress were it to go ahead although there is no specific requirement to do so as under the terms of Rule 45 units of the association, including Central Council, have the power to "sell, lease, let, mortgage or otherwise dispose of" GAA property.

The legal status of such an agreement is open to question. As one legal source - a senior commercial solicitor - put it: "You have to remember that sale and lease-back is essentially a financial arrangement to raise cash. How it affects ownership rights in this case is unclear.

"Were the GAA to have a leasehold interest in Croke Park it would still probably count as ownership for the purposes of the rule on using GAA property in that it remains an interest even if it is leasehold rather than freehold. In those circumstances a member of the association could well sustain a legal argument for the enforcement of the rule.

"If, however, the Government were to make it a term of the lease that Croke Park be available for other sports then the GAA's leasehold interest would be subject to that term. Although it is usual in these cases for the lease to be renewed, it could also be provided for that the GAA could buy back Croke Park at a nominal sum after the first term of 20 or 30 years."

Were the GAA and the Government to agree the terms of such an arrangement it would also have the effect of addressing another difficulty that has arisen in the Rule 42 debate.

The closest debate on the issue came down to a simple cash for access equation such as was discussed at the 2001 Congress, which decided by two votes, not to give repeal of Rule 42 the requisite two thirds majority.

Although this would again be a central consideration, the ancillary matter of other venues within the association feeling pressurised by the opening of Croke Park wouldn't apply because it would no longer be governed by the same rules on GAA property.

At a press launch in Croke Park earlier yesterday GAA president Seán Kelly reflected reservations within the GAA about the public perception that Rule 42 is inexorably on the way out. Commenting on the Arklow motion, Kelly, who supports the removal of the rule, welcomed its contribution to the debate but cautioned that it didn't represent part of an inevitable shift towards abolition.

"People know my views on the issue," he said, "but that would be reading too much into it. People want a lot of answers before they come down in favour of change."