Kieran Shannon: Time the Government stopped treating sport as a political football
Instead of devising and stressing the necessary protocols that would allow children’s sport to open up now — ‘Drop them off, then buzz off’ if that’s what it took — the Government last week was once more in thrall to a Big Idea, the Big Event: this time, a soccer World Cup.
While it would seem the only plausible reason stopping the Government from allowing kids back playing — or at least training — outdoors is the prospect and fear of parents yapping at the gate, unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any stopping politicians talking and thinking about sport in their old usual way.
Instead of devising and stressing the necessary protocols that would allow children’s sport to open up now — ‘Drop them off, then buzz off’ if that’s what it took — the Government last week was once more in thrall to a Big Idea, the Big Event: this time, a soccer World Cup.
Jack Chambers declared Ireland “won’t be found wanting” in playing its part in the potential joint bid with England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Taoiseach Micheál Martin was similarly enthused, saying Ireland would be “very happy” to co-operate with the UK.
The most excited Fianna Fáil TD of the lot though was Jackie Cahill, who claimed his native Tipperary, in the form of Semple Stadium, would be “ideal for the group stages”, given its “long, proud history of hosting sporting occasions”.
It’s safe to say that in the remote chance Ireland does happen to stage such matches in 2030, they’ll be confined to Dublin and possibly Belfast; Kylian Mbappe won’t be joining Ring and Kelly in the lineage of great forwards still banging them in by the Town End well into their 30s.
But unless Micheál has Boris or someone else picking up the bill, then we should spare ourselves the time and cost of assessing whether we have the capacity to co-host such an event. We’d be much better re-examining — and reimagining — our sporting infrastructure and how limited it currently is to adequately stage our own sportspeople, let alone the rest of the world.
Newstalk Breakfast co-host Shane Coleman made a particular cogent case in his dismay at the Government pursuing its latest “trophy project”, by highlighting a “ridiculous” scenario developing in his native county.
“Louth GAA are going building a new stadium with some state funding in Dundalk while Dundalk FC are going to [continue to] play in a rundown stadium in Oriel Park. Why isn’t the Government saying, ‘Hang on a second, let’s have municipal stadia’?”
Although Coleman was leaving himself open to some grief from his own, Louth being, along with a Casement-less Antrim, the county with the least adequate GAA home ground in the whole country, his thesis remains a valid one.
In the rest of Europe, municipal sporting facilities are the norm. They belong to the community, not any one club or sport. Instead of competing with one another, sports co-operate with one another, making them more accessible and affordable to all.
That’s not how we roll here. For geographical — climatic — reasons, we should be a powerhouse at indoor sport — the rain, the cold — but for historical reasons — colonisation, the Ban — we’re not. So many of our sporting facilities are vested in Croke Park because the State invested so much of its trust in the GAA.
Dessie Farrell, as this column has noted before, summed it up well in his 2005 autobiography. “We delude ourselves, telling ourselves ‘We’re a great sporting nation.’ We’re not. I often wonder if the GAA has been as much as a hindrance as a help to sport in general. By providing a sporting infrastructure for two games alone, has it let successive governments off the hook for not providing municipal sports centres in every major town?”
True, with the advent of the national lottery and subsequently the capital sports grants, the Government now provides greater funds for more and better facilities, but even that essentially maintains the status quo. Politicians jostle to win funding for their own and credit for themselves.
Of the €52m dished out in 2018, over a third — €19m — went to GAA clubs and grounds, whereas soccer, a sport with a huge participation rate, was only handed €6m. For the indoor sports as a collective, it was minimal.
Because to get a grant, you basically have to have land, your own land. They’re not attached to property, to money, the way old money sports like the GAA and rugby are. They are mere tenants, never landlords, and so their clubs — volunteers — have to pay rent and insurance costs at a rate unimaginable to their counterparts on the continent.
In a post-Covid, or at least a post-2021 society, money will be tight, which means it needs to go further. Expenditure policy needs to be more accountable, ecumenical even.
It’s not just in facilities there needs to be greater and smarter investment in sport and physical activity. Even before the pandemic and all its lockdowns, kids were not getting enough exercise.
In 2013 the EU’s Education Network Eurydice report found that Ireland had fewer hours of compulsory PE classes than any other EU member and of other developed European countries.
At primary school level, it’s even more alarming, where we’re one of the few countries with no dedicated PE teachers.
Again, in a way, the GAA is bailing out the Government. It’s well documented how Dublin GAA now has more than 40 games development officers in which they go round to the schools and introduce children to some fundamental movements, and hopefully, their local GAA club.
But there’s a downside to that. The provision of such a service means some teachers and even schools feel they can skip their PE obligations. And it means not all aspects of the supposed PE curriculum is being covered.
The kids are supposed to be exposed to dance, athletics, gymnastics, and outdoor pursuits. The various games development officers might be introducing the kids to some fundamental physical movements, but it’s still with a bias towards their own sport. It’s a football, not a basketball, they’re bouncing; a hurley, not a hockey stick, they’re holding.
There’s an increasing clamour within the GAA for more GDOs to be rolled out across the country, but perhaps the Government should first consider investing more in dedicated primary-school PE teaching or teachers.
We were told in the election just before Covid that we were entering a new politics. So far though, outside of a greater commitment to the outdoors and greenways, all we’ve largely had so far when it’s come to sport is the same old, same old.
A new way of thinking about sport is needed instead of just treating it as the same old political football.
