GAA and DTTS chiefs fume over claim players will get priority testing

GAA president John Horan said the club game, and not the All-Ireland championships, will take priority when activity is allowed to resume. He also confirmed there will be no return to action until the Government brings an end to two-metre social distancing. Picture: Brendan Moran

Leading officials within the GAA and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport (DTTS) are irate at the solo-run which gave the impression the testing of inter-county players would be prioritised so as to facilitate a return to training.

Speculation across the weekend that the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport was considering the establishment of a player-focused Covid-19 testing regime to enable the resumption of inter-county activity was yesterday described as “irresponsible” and “a nothing story” by GAA president John Horan.

Club Players Association chairman Micheál Briody said suggestions that players would be prioritised for testing was “fake news”.

The weekend reports meant frustrated GAA officials— for the second time in the space of seven days — had to seek clarity from the Government as to the veracity and implications of this latest rumoured development.

The weekend before last, Health Minister Simon Harris’ comments in the Sunday Independent that mass gatherings were “highly unlikely” for the remainder of 2020 looked like bringing closure on this season’s inter-county championships. And while his remarks were subsequently clarified by the announcement that no licences will be issued for events of over 5,000 people until September, the department has since informed Croke Park this crowd-limit does not extend to sporting fixtures.

The relationship between Croke Park and DTTS was yesterday described as good. GAA director general Tom Ryan and senior officials at the department have been in regular contact these past two months. Indeed, since the lockdown came into effect, the GAA has been feeding recommendations into the department’s Covid-19 sports monitoring group.

It is against this backdrop that neither party was at all impressed by the solo-run from within Government circles over the weekend. It cast neither the department nor the GAA in a favourable light given any talk of a return to inter-county activity in the short-term stands completely at odds with Government pleas to stay the course and to continue adhering to the current restrictions. Moreover, 2,000 players being prioritised for testing makes a mockery of the fact the Government is still way off meeting its 100,000 tests a day target. As one Croke Park insider put it: Why would people redouble their efforts if they felt a return to training for county players was just around the corner?

This frustration within the upper echelons of the GAA saw president John Horan take to the national airwaves yesterday.

“I’m quite shocked by this story,” he told RTÉ Radio 1.

“This was very much a nothing story over the weekend and, to be honest with you, somewhat irresponsible.

“It caused a nervousness among membership throughout the country: ‘are we as an organisation putting the inter-county player ahead of the club player’?

“We’re regularly in contact with government departments and at no stage have we discussed the return to training of inter-county players with any government department. I’m kind of aghast at where this story has come from.” Horan said the club game, and not the All-Ireland championships, will take priority when activity is allowed to resume. He also confirmed there will be no return to action until the Government brings an end to two-metre social distancing.

Two weeks ago, the GAA identified July as the earliest possible start date to the All-Ireland Championships. The GAA president has conceded there will be no competition throwing-in in July.

If it is a case that it is late autumn before the health authorities green light a resumption of GAA activity, Croke Park is open to the possibility of the 2020 championships — at both club and inter-county level — spilling into 2021.

“We’re going to act totally responsibly. When social distancing of two metres is a high priority at the moment, I can’t see contact sport coming on board in the short term.

“I know there’s a lot of speculation that professional sports like rugby and soccer may come back here in Ireland and overseas, but that’s probably in the sense that they’ll cocoon their players.

“But our amateur athletes, they go back to their families, they go back to their workplace, and we can’t put any of those people, or those people they come in contact with, at risk just for the sake of playing games. We won’t be making any rushed decision on this.

“We’ve always taken our guidance from the health authorities. Until they declare that contact sport is safe, we won’t be playing games.”

Horan added: “If and when we do return, the club scene will be our priority because 98% of our activity happens at club level. Our return initially will be back to club activity before we engage in the inter-county playing. The greater benefit to the community would be to have club activity first.”

CPA chairman Micheál Briody welcomed the prioritising of club players, but is firmly of the opinion there will be no further GAA activity this year.

“It would make sense that the club game would start back first. I saw that headline over the weekend regarding the testing of county players and I was like, ‘wow, really’. It is good to hear from the president that there is no such plan and it was effectively fake news.”

Briody was complimentary of how the GAA has conducted itself during the pandemic.

“Croke Park is doing it exactly right. They are not making any rash decisions. I know some people are calling for clarity and looking for start dates, but the way the Department of Education handled the Leaving and Junior Cert is the perfect example as to why you shouldn’t rush into decisions. They need to continue to wait and see.

“Until the health authorities say it is safe to go back training and playing, the GAA can’t really make plans.

“If there are games at both club and county level come the end of the year, the competitions will have to be changed to fit the period that is assigned to them, which is the way it should always be. The practice should be that you fit a competition into a certain window, not, here is a competition, now let’s try and find weekends for it.”

Briody is managing director of Monaghan-based food company Silver Hill. He’s keeping a close eye on the Covid-19 response in countries the company exports duck to. It leads him to the conclusion that it will be 2021 before locks are lifted at GAA fields across the country.

“I personally do not think there will be any further games in 2020. There is the potential for a second wave of this which could knock things back and mean that things will get worse before they get better. We are seeing that with our customers in Asia, where the likes of Singapore started to reopen and then you see a second wave. You cannot completely lift the lid and return to full normality until there is a vaccine.”