Readers' blog: GAA treated unfairly over Liam Miller charity game
I agree with GAA director general Tom Ryan who said that the association felt “bullied” into hosting the Liam Miller tribute match which was held in Cork’s Páirc Uí Chaoimh in September — ‘GAA ‘felt bullied’ into hosting charity match’ (Irish Examiner, January 31).
It is my view that the GAA was also subjected to unfair press coverage over the fundraising event.
The hostility shown towards the GAA for not sanctioning, with immediate effect, approval for the charity match despite being prohibited in rule from hosting such games, was, by any standards, regrettable.
I noticed that the FAI, despite initiating the event, was not subject to the same level of scrutiny of their stewardship as the GAA was.
Despite decades of attracting huge attendances at international football fixtures, which in turn generated massive revenue for the FAI, nothing was done to secure exclusive national and provincial stadiums for Irish soccer which could have been used for events like the Liam Miller fundraiser.
The FAI’s income was further inflated by the €5 million given by Sepp Blatter and FIFA officials to the FAI in order to stop any Irish legal action over the Thierry Henry handball incident.
The opening up of Croke Park by the GAA to both soccer and rugby was a positive step in sporting ecumenism and a magnanimous gesture to the FAI and the IRFU while Lansdowne Road was being re-developed.
By accommodating other sporting codes the GAA projected a positive and progressive image of the association which had in the past been portrayed as both narrow and insular.
This ‘reaching out’ by the GAA to the disparate sporting strands in our society, which even included a warmly welcomed visit to Croke Park by Queen Elizabeth II in an act of Anglo-Irish reconciliation, has been thrown back in the face of the GAA.
