John Fogarty: Contentious agenda makes lively debate a virtual certainty at GAA Congress

GAA Director General Tom Ryan hosts a remote briefing announcing the 2020 GAA Annual Report and Financial Account last week. Congress will take place virtually next Saturday. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

“You’re on mute”.

“I didn’t quite make that out but from what I can gather I think I understand you said...”.

“Can everybody please mute their microphones?”

“Can you type what you were trying to say?”

“Can anybody hear him?”

“You’re going to have to log out and log back in.”

“Turn off your camera and the audio might improve?”

“Is that any better?”

“You’re still on mute.”

Two rounds of All-Stars nomination and selection meetings on Microsoft Teams have given us a taste for the technological issues that may arise at Congress this Saturday when it is held virtually for the first — and hopefully — the last time.

We’d like to blame a gremlin in the system for William O’Donoghue not picking up what we considered a deserved first All-Star; alas, we can’t. But as scaled back as Congress is, there is a strong possibility logistics could get in the way of making the annual convention a workable one.

Nobody expects it to be seamless but the GAA’s IT department have their work cut out. They will surely have devised something more elaborate than asking delegates to click the hand up icon for Tá when it comes to voting. If they don’t, the Club Players Association’s proposal to make voting transparent may just become a reality.

The enormity of the task doesn’t appear to be lost on the GAA. “[M]any of the proposals are complicated and have far reaching consequences,” wrote director general Tom Ryan in his annual report. “They require careful debate, which is not best achieved in a virtual meeting.”

At the time of writing, maybe Ryan didn’t envisage as many as 37 of them would be discussed. Indeed, the advice Croke Park gave to counties back in October regarding their own AGMs was “any matters that can wait, make them wait and remain conservative — 2020 is not the year to consider contentious motions”.

However, Saturday’s agenda includes the sin bin for hurling, allowing just one captain to receive a cup, and limiting senior club championships to 16 teams, so there are bound to be differences of opinion expressed. According to the schedule, there are officially 70 minutes allowed for motions, although that will have to be extended even if 10 of those are housekeeping recommendations and six set the foundations for the establishment of World GAA.

Besides that, the reports of Ryan and director of finance Ger Mulryan should prompt reaction, especially when Mulryan’s view — “It is not too late to see the Championship relocated to the backend of 2021 and to allow club to go first when restrictions hopefully begin to ease from late spring to early summer” — is at complete odds with GAA president John Horan’s recent statement: “The inter-county, obviously will be the one that will come back first and then the club.”

As mostly chairpersons will be representing their counties this weekend and they themselves backed county first, the majority won’t agree with Mulryan but there are some like Tyrone’s Michael Kerr who do — “if club is played in the middle of the summer, then there are weekday nights when matches can be played. And if the inter-county season is extended into that period, we would lose all of those available fixture nights.”

Mulryan is coming from a different perspective, in that the later the start to the inter-county season, the greater the chance of Championship gate receipts. However, waiting on restrictions to lift so that clubs can return to action is likely to be a long one and the Government have intimated to the GAA they are prepared to subvent the inter-county season again.

Does it come down to a question of who needs the gate receipts more, Croke Park or the counties? Should crowds come back from September and the club championships are in full swing, counties and more importantly clubs will reap the benefits. Is it any wonder the likes of Cork and Galway are hoping counties go first not only because their clubs will have more space and time to play their championships but to generate much-needed revenue?

Before he exits stage left on Saturday afternoon, it would be understandable if Horan wanted to sign off by ensuring county does indeed go first so that 2021 forms a bridge to a fully-fledged split season from next year. He needs a couple of things to go his way, of course. The green light in this evening’s Government’s revised Living With Covid plan and then another from the GAA’s Covid advisory committee.

Larry McCarthy may be of similar thinking to Horan but it’s reasonable to believe he will want to put deed to his words. As divisions in Croke Park grow about which teams should play first this year, nobody will want to be muted.

Hurlers may stymie sin-bin proposal

John Kiely obliged us last year not once but twice; funnily enough, he spoke about motions which in some shape or form are on the Clár again this year. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

The sound of silence will be music to the ears of those hoping the sin bin is introduced to hurling on Saturday.

Usually around now there’s a cacophony of inter-county managers giving out about proposed rule changes.

They and journalists know the drill — a few questions about the league game just played and then to finish off one or two about whatever proposals are upcoming at Congress.

John Kiely obliged us last year not once but twice; funnily enough, he spoke about motions which in some shape or form are on the Clár again this year.

After beating Galway in the second round of the league, he dismissed the sin bin: “The game is fine, the game is absolutely 100% fine. There is nobody giving out about the game apart from one or two who are going to be giving out anyways.”

Two weeks later following his team’s win over Cork, and he spoke of the plans to end the role of the maor foirne: “It’s like speeding and you take away the cars — we won’t have a problem with speeding. There is no need to be introducing some other daft notion.”

The demand to keep the communication channels open is strong among managers but the proposal was 1% shy of becoming a rule last year and looks all but certain to get the go-ahead this weekend.

Managers may not have their usual plinth to damn the sin bin but the hurlers via the Gaelic Players Association are expected to give a major thumbs down to it. With the top table insisting they will postpone the debate if it becomes too divisive, could that be enough to see it shelved?

Quinn’s last call a sign of the times

Quinn’s pub in Drumcondra.

News that Quinn's pub in Drumcondra is closing means another GAA hostelry won’t be around when the crowds return to Croke Park.

The question is how many more pubs within walking distance of the stadium will survive the pandemic?

The Hogan Stand, The Red Parrot, and The Temple will hopefully return to business once they are permitted but there are surely question marks over many others in the area.

The effects of the restrictions on the pub trade won’t be seen for some time yet and the results could be catastrophic, although some of culture around Croke Park had been on the wane over the last decade because of “the grey unyielding concrete”, as Pete St John put it.

The Big Tree on Dorset Street (which was knocked down and made into a hotel) along with The Hideout are two venues who have called time permanently.

The seasonal dependency of pubs close to Croke Park is exemplified in Gill’s at the top of Jones Road now only open on match-days.

And when the taps flow again, will they be able to make up for lost time if the All-Ireland finals are done and dusted? It’s not just the GAA’s finance department hoping that clubs go first this season.

Closer to the city centre, pubs famous for the GAA connections such as The Boar’s Head and The Palace Bar should be back better than ever but around Croke Park that character and colour is becoming sparser.

• Email: [e-mail]