Tommy Martin: Government won’t gamble big on a sporting summer

If other countries are enjoying the roar of the crowds while our stands remain silent, the Government can expect more of a bruising than it received for losing out on the Euro 2020

Fans in the stands during the Carabao Cup Final at Wembley Stadium on Sunday. Picture: Adam Davy/PA

As a stick to beat the Government with, Ireland losing the right to host four matches in this summer’s European Championships left only mild bruising.

Even the fact that we were alone among the original 12 host nations to lose out provoked only slight disgruntlement. Those who feel that the authorities are mishandling the Covid crisis have plenty other ammo at their disposal.

Whatever political capital the Government does have was never going to be gambled on allowing Poland, Slovakia, and Sweden to grace Lansdowne Road this summer. In the context of this country’s painstakingly careful reopening plans, the guarantees sought by UEFA would have won the appreciation of few outside the sizeable Polish expat community and IKEA middle management seconded in Ballymun.

Those who still wanted to take a potshot at the Government wondered why we could not make the commitments to accommodating crowds that countries like Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, and Romania felt able to do, despite having a lower incidence of Covid-19 in the community than all of them.

This ignores the fact that, apart from Romania, all of those nations are preparing to host their own national teams at a major tournament. If there were hoops to be jumped through, the Republic of Ireland’s failure to qualify for the Euros made it a leap not worth taking, even if the decision played into the greater frustration at the glacial speed of Ireland’s reopening.

In fact, Micheál Martin felt on such solid political ground on this one that he had a swing at UEFA himself, something the diffident Taoiseach is loathe to do unless scrapping with the usual suspects in Dáil Éireann.

Asked on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics by Áine Lawlor, adopting the stagey high dudgeon beloved of political interrogators, about Ireland’s decision to slink away from the Euro party, Martin said UEFA “were out of order, quite frankly, putting that condition on countries…to force spectators in prematurely…I never thought it was a realistic proposition.”

While other countries were prepared to tell UEFA what they wanted to hear, there was another important reason why the Irish Government felt it was never a ‘realistic’ option for us: the European Championships fall right at the ignition point of the GAA’s compressed intercounty season.

The Allianz Football League finals are scheduled for the same weekend as Sweden were to play Slovakia at the Aviva Stadium. June 26th, the Saturday night on which Dublin was due to host a last-16 tie, possibly featuring England, falls on the opening weekend of the provincial hurling and football championships. Imagine the outrage if infection rates meant showpiece GAA fixtures were being played behind closed doors while the authorities were bending over backwards for UEFA’s big jamboree?

Indeed, what Martin said next revealed what the tiptoe Taoiseach sees as the real sunlit uplands for the return of spectator sports.

“I want to be at a match. There is nothing I would love more than to be at a club championship match at some time in the summer. That may happen towards the end of the summer…but we’re not going too far ahead of ourselves either.”

It is very Micheál Martin to dream wistfully, not of glad-handling UEFA bigwigs in front of a global television audience, but of settling down next to the parish priest and the county board secretary for a hard-fought club GAA tussle under the lengthening shadows of a late summer sun.

And such modest, not-getting-too-far-ahead-of-ourselves, ambitions could be in sight. 

While he may yearn for the parochial charms of club championship, it’s unlikely that Martin sees himself attending a gig by Spanish indie band Love of Lesbian any time soon. But it’s their recent show in Barcelona in front of 5,000 rapid antigen-tested fans that provides the most encouragement for a return to mass sporting and cultural events.

It was announced this week that after a two-week follow-up to last month’s pilot event, only six positive Covid-19 cases were found among those attending, an incidence rate half that of the wider Catalan population, while medics believe at least four of the six did not contract the virus at the concert.

Rapid antigen testing is cheap and delivers results in less than 15 minutes, allowing for mass screening of spectators. Leinster Rugby has applied to host a pilot event at a Rainbow Cup match in May, allowing 2,000 tested fans to attend.

Earlier this month, an expert group chaired by the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Mark Ferguson, recommended the rollout of rapid antigen testing to complement other measures and to help identify asymptomatic cases across society.

Professor Paddy Mallon, infectious diseases specialist at Dublin’s St Vincent’s Hospital and a member of the expert group, says we need to crack on with it.

“We are beyond piloting it on a small scale,” he told the Sunday Independent. “What we need is large-scale pilots right now, across various sectors. General industry is crying out for this. The construction sector, nursing homes, meat processing plants. The time to act with this new technology is now.”

Such urgency would benefit sporting clubs and organisations crying out for turnstile revenue. But the number of sectors and industries ahead of sport in the pecking order explains why the Taoiseach’s spectating dreams remain modest and certainly beyond UEFA’s demands. 

A more detailed picture of what might happen this summer came from his Minister of State for Sport, Jack Chambers. Speaking on Monday’s Tonight Show on Virgin Media One, Chambers dangled the prospect of fans returning to GAA inter-county championship and League of Ireland matches.

“There’s a huge amount of science going into this across the world,” Chambers offered tentatively, citing the vaccination effect and the possibilities of antigen testing. “And I think we’ll be able to see — whether it’s a GAA match or a League of Ireland game — I’d like to think, through the summer, we’ll be able to test those events.”

For good reasons, Ireland will only gamble small stakes for the jackpot of a sporting summer — certainly not enough to impress the high-rollers of UEFA. But if other countries are enjoying the roar of the crowds while our stands remain silent, the Government can expect more of a bruising than it received for losing out on the Euros.