On Gaelic Games:The association occupies a place in the public affection like that of men in uniforms peering out of palaces over an array of tanks, writes SEAN MORAN
THEIR ESSENTIAL inanity laid bare by recent upheavals, what do banal slogans about “the nanny state” and “getting government off people’s backs” actually signify? Generally they mean statutes and civic regulation, which inconvenience people no matter that they serve the common good, should be relaxed or abolished.
Equally, though, it is protested that situations and conventions which vex frequently the same people should be dealt with by mobilising the full rigour of the law.
The GAA hierarchy know the feeling at this stage. They run an organisation which administers some of the few remaining mass-spectator indigenous sports in the world and do so at a profit, nearly 80 per cent of which is returned to the members.
Yet, judging by reaction and comment they occupy a place in the public affection more usually associated with men in military uniforms, nervously peering out of palaces over a massed array of tanks.
There is endless complaint about the manner in which the association is run on one hand and, on the other, belligerent demands for deliverance from perceived inequities.
This week’s press release on championship attendances to date was a model of restraint. Having been lectured all summer on their failure to market matches properly, the GAA could have been forgiven for a more smug statement on the fact that in the teeth of the worst recession in three-quarters of a century and against the quadrennial challenge of the Fifa World Cup aggregate crowds have so far declined by just two per cent.
It was wise to avoid being too boastful.
Crowds are still on course to decline for a third successive year. And whereas economic circumstances have to be taking their toll, the 1950s, a previous era of stagnation, was the heyday of GAA attendances.
Sport provides a distraction, particularly welcome in hard times.
Nonetheless, the promotional discount initiatives undertaken in the past couple of years have been effective in braking the decline in spectator numbers at a time when emerging new contenders have been thin on the ground in football and hurling.
The story remains an isolated piece of positive news after a few bad weeks. Fire-fighting in the aftermath of the Leinster final was a good example of how difficult it is to satisfy the GAA constituency. There was widespread condemnation of the authorities for failing “to provide leadership”, as if it were possible to do anything about a match that has concluded on a decisive score-line, no matter how controversially arrived at.
What sport in the world provides for adjustment of a final score on the basis of refereeing error?
Croke Park spokespersons were berated for saying their hands were tied. Not alone is there no provision in the Official Guide for such intervention, but a case from the first year of the Disputes Resolution Authority (DRA) states as much in black and white.
A football match in Limerick in 2005 between Fr Casey’s and St Senan’s gave rise to a challenge from the former, based on a refereeing error during the match.
The decision covers the precise situation that arose in the Louth-Meath match. “If Fr Casey’s are correct that there was a mistake in this case and that it changed the outcome of the game, then one must have sympathy for them. However, even if they are right on both of these issues, this cannot allow for an erosion of the principle of referees’ control.
“How an error at any particular stage in a game will affect the outcome is something of an imponderable, and the fact that injustice will occasionally result from a blanket protection of referees’ decisions is a consequence that must be borne by all. It is the lesser evil.”
The decision goes on to make specific reference to “situations where teams agree to replay a game for one reason or another”.
That’s the position that comprehensively governs the matter. The only way out was for Meath to offer the re-match, and the players refused to do that, as was their right. All the whinging from the county about how unfair it was that they were put in such a position and that it was Croke Park’s fault and the Leinster Council’s responsibility is no more than cant.
The difficulty the GAA encounters in getting across its message is partly self-inflicted. Instead of protesting its inability to intervene in the matter at the end of a turbulent week, it would have been better to issue a statement immediately, simply setting out the rule and DRA decision – deviation from which would still have had Meath being presented with the Delaney Cup, albeit in a committee room rather than the Hogan Stand.
The other significant fallout concerned the issue of pitch invasions. Its topicality relied on manipulating the usual crowd safety arguments into referee safety arguments but was nonetheless pressing for that.
Yet this is another failure of communication. That’s not to say Archangel Gabriel could get the message on pitch invasions across to that impenetrable GAA constituency, which decides its indulgence outweighs any amount of evidence on the safety of themselves and others – on a par with protesting in the 19th century that arsenic gave such a pleasant green colour to wallpaper and that lots of houses had it with no ill effect.
But we’re now nearly a year past last season’s doomed attempts to keep crowds back. Last April’s congress sombrely supported the measure after watching a video setting out the costs and real dangers of thousands of people hurtling onto the field.
The promised education campaign has been muted and the 2010 provincial finals had crept up on us before the issue was adequately aired. Unfortunately, the more the message goes out the more entrenched opposition becomes, and it only takes a handful of jackasses to barge their way through in defiance of all reasonable requests.
Classic GAA dilemmas: on the one hand pilloried for not breaking its own rules and on the other condemned for trying to persuade people to do the right thing.
