Kelly backs New York Gaelic sports complex

GAA president Sean Kelly has appealed to investors to back the dream of a Gaelic sports complex in the heart of New York City.

Kelly addressed an investors’ meeting in Manhattan on Friday night and the following day visited the 25-acre site of the proposed $40million (€33.3m) Randall’s Island Gaelic Sports Complex.

“It’s a fabulous site and there’s great potential there. It’s a great location within Randall’s Island and Randall’s Island is a great location in New York, linking all the boroughs. I hope the people here have the confidence to go for it because it’s going to be a huge, huge asset to the association here in attracting more and more people and getting non-Irish people involved. The potential is enormous,” said Kelly.

The New York board wants people to pledge $10,000 (€8,323) each to raise an initial $7m (€5.8m) capital to launch the first phase of the plans.

“I’m happy to give it every encouragement; it’s a big project, a costly project, but I think it’s an opportunity that they may not have again. It really is that serious. Obviously in a place like New York you’re not going to have land big enough for a Gaelic pitch coming on stream every day and particularly on this whole sports complex on Randall’s Island,” said the GAA president.

Asked whether GAA headquarters would be offering financial backing Kelly said: “I would hope so, down the line, yes. While everybody looks for grants from Croke Park our ability to give grants isn’t what we would like it to be. But at the same time it’s important that some contribution would be made.

“We have made contributions to a number of projects; in the individual context this would be small but in the overall context it will be very large.

We have over 2000 clubs, county grounds, provincial grounds and the whole apparatus overseas so trying to divide up the cake isn’t easy but we do our best and we certainly will in this instance as well.

“Everywhere now, the GAA has its own facilities, top-class facilities, from the smallest club throughout Ireland and that’s replicated overseas in many places. And a city like New York, which I think many people regard as the home of ex-pats worldwide, needs to have a strong GAA presence: not just in terms of teams, personnel, but in terms of facilities.”

Kelly was at Gaelic Park to see Down defeat New York in their Ulster SHC match before watching Kerry play Donegal in a New York Senior A Football Championship encounter.