Delaney: Property use rule was always going to bite GAA

One of the leading architects behind the opening of Croke Park regrets it took the Liam Miller charity game for the GAA to change their property use rule.

Twenty years on from proposing Central Council be allowed make GAA grounds available to other sports, Anthony Delaney wishes the decision had been made by the organisation when it had the opportunity to do so at previous Congresses.

In 1999, Delaney submitted the motion via his club Shanahoe before it was passed at Laois convention.

It was put forward at Congress in Galway in April 2000 but was referred to Central Council and wasn’t debated.

However, the following year Longford recommended a similar rule change, which lost by a single vote in a ballot that had been influenced by €60 million worth of Government funding in support of the ill-fated Bertiebowl.

Delaney, Noel Walsh, Tommy Kenoy, and former GAA president Seán Kelly among others battled for Rule 42 to be amended before it eventually was in 2005, although it pertained to Croke Park and on a temporary basis as Lansdowne Road was being reconstructed.

The GAA’s attitude to other sports using their facilities has since relaxed with the Leinster-Munster European Cup semi-final taking place in Croke Park in 2009, a year later Central Council being empowered to make Croke Park available to other sports indefinitely and the decision by Congress in 2013 to make GAA stadia available for Ireland’s Rugby World Cup bid in 2023, which was unsuccessful, or 2027.

However, twice this decade, Walsh, through his club Miltown-Malbay and county Clare, had echoed Delaney’s plan with motions calling for GAA grounds to be opened up to other sports pending Central Council approval.

Both, though, were defeated heavily at Congress.

But the news on Wednesday that the GAA’s Management Committee and Central Council have drafted a motion along the lines of the latter having the authority to allow GAA property be used by other sports means the vision of Delaney should be realised 20 years on.

That it has come in the wake of the Miller controversy last summer is unfortunate, former Laois Central Council delegate Delaney believes.

“It was just a question of when it was going to happen,” he said of the difficult predicament the GAA found themselves in.

“It could have been something else but it was that, the GAA being snookered by the rules.

“I think there was a fear last year that there might be requests left, right and centre and rugby would be next with some of the high-profile European Cup games.

“I was surprised they found a way around it because I would believe in the integrity of the rules.

My view would always have been that it would require a motion at Congress and public opinion, no matter how strong, was not going to have any say at Congress. I know from experience that it didn’t matter what was said in newspapers, radio or TV, the only constituency that had to be convinced was the 300-something delegates in Congress.

“The public battles are easy won and you have politicians popping up everywhere saying ‘you have to do this’ and ‘you have to do that’.

“So to say Central Council allowing the game to go-head would be an understatement. What I wanted to do was not open the floodgates but give Central Council the power to say ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ if an application was made to them.

“Central Council could then decide if say you could play cricket in Páirc Uí Chaoimh; they would judge each application on a case-by-case basis and it didn’t have to wait until Congress.

“That way the GAA’s hands wouldn’t be tied by the rulebook like they were last year. But it was judged as too radical at the time.”