Why sport is more than a political football

AS examples of naked political opportunism go, few can match Charlie Haughey’s decision to call for the government’s private jet 24 years ago and make a dramatic dash for Paris.

Stephen Roche had just won the Tour de France, and the then Taoiseach made it his business to be on the Champs Elysees podium beside him.

Haughey’s hijacking of such a moment is not unique. It is merely the most memorable and cringeworthy example but he had done little or nothing to merit the reflected glory.

Another decade passed before the Irish government paid more than lip service to the sector with the foundation of the Irish Sports Council and regular and significant levels of funding.

Things are better now than in Roche’s time when he and other Irish sportsmen and women succeeded in spite of the system rather than because of it, but sport still lives on the fringes of the political consciousness.

“We see the politicians are more than happy to turn up to the Aviva or Croke Park so it is just a question of them being a bit smarter as to how they use sport overall,” says Sarah O’Connor, chief executive of the Federation of Irish Sports.

“Sport has been our only consistent success story for the last two or three years. Look at the Grand Slam in 2009, Graeme McDowell having a fantastic year last year, Derval O’Rourke, Grainne Murphy coming to international consciousness.”

Some in Leinster House obviously didn’t get the memo. Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and the Green Party all launched election manifestos in recent weeks containing no mention of sport while Fine Gael and Labour have been unable to commit to anything concrete in terms of funding going forward.

At least this time, the political parties are being called out for such oversights. “We have had to work hard to get the message across that sport is not just about the big game at Croke Park or the kids’ game on a Saturday,” said O’Connor. “While those are important, it is actually much bigger than that.”

Central to the federation’s efforts is the campaign to maintain sport’s presence at the cabinet table as it is no coincidence that the present levels of funding only began when that seat was forthcoming at the end of the 1990s.

As it is, the country’s National Governing Bodies (NGBs) are “treading water” according to O’Connor, who warned that a succession of budgetary cuts have left many bodies scrimping and scraping below the poverty line.

Among them is the Paralympic Council which, despite being just over a year away from the London Games, has estimated that it is €300,000 short of what it considers to be the bare minimum required.

Whatever the Irish performance at the London Olympics and Paralympics, O’Connor is adamant that progress is being made and name-checks young talent like middle-distance runner Ciara Mageean and cyclist Sam Bennett as proof.

“At times we are a bit quick to harp on about ‘oh, we were crap at the Olympics’ but we have only really been investing in this type of sport for 12 years so we are only beginning to see the underage guys coming through the system. The system is beginning to work.”

Mageean’s ambitions have been boosted considerably by a six-figure sponsorship deal with a footwear company but private investment in Irish sport remains limited to non-existent.

Incentivising such investment in sport would require a change in the laws regarding charitable status but until that happens the 60-plus NGBs are overwhelmingly dependent on the largesse of the state.

Sport’s cut from the public purse has been pruned since its peak of €311m three years ago and there is no guarantee what will come its way from one year to the next. That would change if the federation’s call for as little as 18% of the National Lottery monies were funnelled straight to the Department of Sport, as it was originally envisaged, as opposed to the central exchequer.

We are not talking billions here. The Irish Sports Council’s funding for 2011 amounts to just €47m, a sum which is divided up between the high performance athletes, NGBs and 32 Local Sports Partnerships. It doesn’t seem too much to ask for an industry which accounts for 1.4% of GDP, provides 38,000 jobs, accounts for €1.8bn of household spending every year and returns €149 to the exchequer for every €100 the state spends on it.

Over to you, Enda.