Plans for permanent GAA home in New York delayed
GAA president Sean Kelly, past president Peter Quinn, president-elect Nicky Brennan and former Dublin footballer Tony Hanahoe flew into the Big Apple for four days last week to try and find a way to finally turn the long-held dream of a permanent, wholly-owned home for Gaelic Games in the city into a reality.
The plans for a Gaelic games complex on land at Randall’s Island donated by the city of New York call for a 10,000-seater stadium, playing fields, an Irish-American cultural centre and banqueting facilities. Those close to the situation say there are many issues preventing the project on 25 acres of land beneath the Triborough Bridge linking Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens from moving off the drawing board and into reality.
Following meetings with board members of the Randall’s Island Gaelic Sports (RIGS) corporation as well as the New York GAA board, the Croke Park chiefs returned home without completing their mission. Fresh talks have been arranged for the second week in January and the quartet from headquarters will return to New York in February for further meetings.
While the GAA in Dublin has pledged $2 million (€1.68m) and RIGS board members are said to have access to funds in excess of $3m (e2.5m) at their disposal, insiders say Irish American investors have been deterred by Croke Park’s insistence that the venture remains a not-for-profit operation.
Potential backers are happy to let the GAA control the stadium and fields and other sporting amenities as not-for-profit operations but would want bar and catering concessions run for profit for the benefit of shareholders in the RIGS corporation.
Locals perceive the GAA’s stance as an indication that having done all the preparatory work in drawing up the plans and getting hold of the real estate, all the profits from a Croke Park-run Randall’s Island complex will head straight back across the Atlantic to swell the GAA’s coffers.
Yet former NY GAA board president Monty Moloney, who has been the driving the force behind this project since its inception and is chairman of RIGS, was cautiously optimistic.
“We’ve had some success but not enough time in these meetings for the people from Ireland to fully complete their mission,” Moloney said.
“They had to leave in midweek but we intend to get together in the second week of January and they will probably be coming back here in February.”
Matters are further complicated, however, by in-fighting among the local GAA community over whether New York needs to move to a new site at all. Some would prefer to see the city’s 42 clubs continue to play their matches at Gaelic Park in the Bronx, the NY GAA’s home since the 1930s but rented from Manhattan College and in bad need of redevelopment.
The divisions came to a head earlier this month when Seamus Dooley was challenged for his position as NY GAA board chairman by RIGS board member John Moore. The way forward for the Randall’s Island project was one of the key dividing issues in a stormy campaign, despite both men being RIGS board members - Dooley as the incumbent NY GAA chairman.
Moore accused his rival of resisting change yet the aggressive nature of his campaign rhetoric is thought to have turned off a number of clubs whose delegates re-elected Dooley by a large majority, 55 votes to 27.
Yet Moloney encouraged headquarters to keep backing the project.
“Sean Kelly, Peter Quinn, Nicky Brennan and Tony Hanahoe have all worked extremely hard to try and put this thing together and it’s really appreciated by me,” he said.
“It’s not easy travelling back and forth and squeezing in meetings here and there while trying to also learn how this whole process evolved over seven or eight years.
“This is the greatest thing to happen to us in New York and people have stop with their private agendas. There’s more to it than the profits that come out of it, we have to be respectful of where the land is and who is going to use it most of all. That’s what we’ve got to think about before we make a decision.”
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