John Fogarty: At what price have Cork GAA joined up with Mike Ashley?
Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley also heads up Sports Direct the new sponsors of Cork GAA
News on Sunday that Sports Direct are to be Cork GAA’s new shirt sponsors was shortly followed by Donal Vaughan’s decision to call a halt to his Mayo career.
Eight years ago, shoe shop owner Vaughan questioned the GAA and GPA’s decision to partner up with the Mike Ashley-owned company in establishing the now defunct Gaelicboots.com.
“I was looking at their [Adidas] World Cup boots, for example, and they’re selling at €80,” he told this newspaper at the time. “I’d hardly be able to buy it for that!”
Soon after, Adidas pulled their boots from the arrangement and the initiative died a death but for some time now Sports Direct have been looking to expand their presence in the GAA market. They already have a presence in Cork GAA in the form of an advertising hoarding in Páirc Uí Chaoimh while they have taken to partnering clubs over the past three years at least.
Their €400,000-a-year deal for the next five seasons isn’t an incredible jump from the €330,000 outgoing shirt sponsors Chill were paying per annum. However, there are All-Ireland winning bonuses involved as well as a boot agreement. What’s more, money will be paid ahead of seasons, which would seem to provide security for a county board that will be counting the cost of Páirc Uí Chaoimh for a long time to come.
The question is at what price is Cork GAA taking Ashley’s money? Not for the obvious bad PR reasons — workers’ conditions or his at times questionable ownership of Newcastle United — but the strong possibility they will disenfranchise those local sports stores who have been backed GAA in the county down through the years.
Cummins Sports have long been backers of Cork GAA, sponsoring the Rebel Óg awards in the last 10 years. Owner Kevin Cummins’ grand-uncle was William “Bowler” Walsh, chairman of the board during Cork’s great hurling reign in the early 1940s. Steeped isn’t the word. Can they contemplate selling Cork jerseys in their nine stores across the county when it carries the logo of a rival company? Would they or the likes of Elverys, another Irish company, even be allowed?
Ballincollig-based Mycro sports manufacturers have lent a lot of support too but they have no presence on the Sports Direct website. Neither do any Cork-based hurley makers such as recently-retired Aidan Walsh in Kanturk. May be that will change but you would imagine only on the terms of the English sports retail giant to whom the bottom line is more important than ever. In 2020, Sport Direct reported losses before tax of €19.5 million in Ireland, which has to raise some questions as much as they seem to be keen on expanding here. On Ashley’s watch, the giant House of Fraser branch in Dundrum Shopping Centre in Dublin was closed last year.
Eight years ago, Dungarvan-based sports shop owner Ger Wyley wrote to then GPA chief executive and current Dublin senior football manager Dessie Farrell to ask why they were getting involved with an English company such as Sports Direct. Wyley highlighted he provided €2,000 per annum to sponsor the Dungarvan GAA club as well as sponsoring 14 other local GAA clubs via race nights, draws and other fundraisers. With Skins, he provided €75,000 worth of base layer gear to the Waterford senior hurling panel. “With the GPA/GAA encouraging its members (myself included) and supporters to purchase not only boots but also runners on gaelicboots.com, we will no longer be in a position to continue this level of sponsorship,” he warned.
In such uncertain times, Cork GAA’s decision to bring Ashley on board has likely made the mind up for such local sports retailers who will not be able to compete with the prices of a public limited company promoted by the county’s flagship teams.
Attempts to distance Ashley from Sports Direct’s agreement with Cork, as if somehow it makes the deal more palatable, are almost risible. He retains almost 62% of the company. He might have had “no hand, act or part” in the agreement as one source told the Irish Examiner yesterday but he will have known all about it.
For a county hosting so many multinational companies, it is surprising that they couldn’t attract one of them instead of a retail monster that could devour indigenous companies whose associations with Cork GAA are long founded. Whether it’s to pay back stadium loans, to get back to the top table or a combination of both, the optics of this deal aren’t great for Cork.
From House of Fraser to Evans Cycles to Jack Wills to Agent Provocateur, Ashley has a history of getting involved with businesses in distress. By signing on the dotted line, Cork GAA have proven they are no different. But this isn’t just business and just how much have they sold of themselves is a legitimate question.
It was confirmed last month that the GAA’s Management Committee’s emergency powers have been extended up to the end of this month. It’s the third time that Congress-like authority has been elongated because of the impact that Covid-19 has had on the organisation.
There remains hope that next month’s Annual Congress will be an in-person event although with delegations significantly reduced. Whether real or virtual, it must happen as GAA president-elect and New York-based, Cork-born Larry McCarthy, who has been in Ireland since last month, is taking over from John Horan.
A sport marketing associate professor, McCarthy’s presidency will be viewed closely not just for the environment in which it begins. For one, his relationship with the GPA has been rocky in the past. However, the recent agreement between New York GAA and the GAA with the official inter-county players body about future fundraising events in the US city may have repaired some of the damage.
McCarthy was a member of the Towards 2034 committee whose report, which proposed the GAA pay an agreed allowance to inter-county players and managers, never saw the light of day. And the Bishopstown man does consider “some level of professionalism” as being inevitable in the GAA. “I would prefer never to see it happen but the reality is we are probably the last bastion of amateurism left in the world in terms of top-class sport,” he said in October 2019.
McCarthy insisted it won’t happen on his watch but how he looks to promote and sell the GAA in difficult times will make for interesting viewing.
1. Confirm the split season will extend beyond this year with next month’s Congress vote. There has never been more need of certainty.
2. Money may talk but to provide a calendar GAA club and county players can set their watch by the Covid stipulation that all championship games must be decided on the day has to be made permanent.
3. While they’re at it at Congress, introduce the provincial conferences for the football championship from next year. Proximity remains a large pull and while they mightn’t be the answer they are a step towards one.
4. The playing rules committee’s plans to curb or deter cynicism in hurling and football but primarily hurling is on the excessive side but something has to be done about desperate professional fouls.
5. Sort out the under-age grades once and for all. There are genuine concerns that players are falling through the cracks with the new grades. A series of proposals are coming from counties to Congress next month.
6. If the GAA are adamant about getting rid of the maor foirne they should not put in place any rules that might hinder a medic entering the field.
7. May the new playing rules committee realise the error of their predecessors’ advanced mark and propose to strike it from next year.
8. The establishment of a strategic review of how counties are funded and confirm once and for all if Dublin’s senior football dominance can be matched. To be overseen not by a talking shop but by a group with authority.
9. All parties doing their bit to ensure the Ladies Gaelic Football Association and Camogie Association become fully-fledged members of the GAA family.
10. Stick with the yellow sliotar at least for the duration of the league. The sky still hasn’t fallen down because of it.
