Rebel football needs 'dangerous ideas' says Cork GAA CEO Kevin O'Donovan
Cork GAA CEO Kevin O'Donovan gave an engaging address at Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Tuesday. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
Cork GAA CEO Kevin O'Donovan says football in the county needs some "dangerous ideas" to rouse it from its slumber. Another disappointing Allianz Football League campaign means Cork will next year play league football outside the top tier for a 10th consecutive season.
"We're having a big emergency county board meeting next month about it," O'Donovan told a Cork Chamber business breakfast at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Tuesday. During his address, O'Donovan ran through an A-Z of Cork GAA, filing football under quandary.
"It needs some dangerous ideas. They are within the county board.
"Should the Cork footballers decouple themselves a little bit from Cork hurling? Does it suffer by comparison? Roscommon play a football match, it's Roscommon footballers. Cork footballers play a match, it's not the Cork hurlers.
"There's a very unfair comparison, and young players are very much entranced - rightly so - by the glory of hurling and the success of our team. It leaves football very much short-changed.
"So, some dangerous ideas for football. Officially, I'm against all of these, just so I can get out of this room alive! Should Cork wear a different football jersey? Should they play their home games in Páirc Uí Rinn?
"Should Cork move to Leinster as a province? Should we ask? That's not a joke - an officer rang me (about it) last week. It's a new idea. Should we go to Leinster for more competitive games?
"Should we ask young players to decide at 15 whether they want to be hurlers or footballers? Very cynical. It's what Dublin are doing in hurling. Cork football is suffering in comparison to Cork hurling.
"I'm officially against them all but they are definitely worth discussing."
O'Donovan said a further €5m will be invested in Páirc Uí Chaoimh over the "next couple of years" through the Immigrant Investor Programme. He added that having a big screen in the stadium is "part of the dream" but there are issues, including it not being designed to accommodate a temporary one.
In an ideal world, O'Donovan believes stadia, like the home of Cork GAA, would be municipal facilities.
"We should be here as tenants," he said.
"It should be owned by the state or the city council, and we should focus on games and they should focus on infrastructure.
"We can't undo that now but retrofitting it, we need to open it for as many activities as possible. I'm an Irishman first and a GAA man second. I think it's obscene to have palaces that no one can get into."
Every time the GAA is called a community-based organisation, O'Donovan feels it should be challenged, not because he does not believe it's the case but because what the term means is in constant flux.
"What do you mean by community? Do you mean the Ukrainians? Do you mean the kids with special needs? Do you mean the girls? What's your community?
"I always assumed I knew what community was. Now, I know it's something I have to look at every day."
O'Donovan's Xanadu is a Cork Centre Centre of Excellence. "I'll be done here if I could see that facility opened," he said. The development of a new training home for Cork's teams is part of the 2025 - 2030 strategic plan which was circulated at the county convention late last year.
"We are engaging with landowners," said O'Donovan.
"We will never have equality for camogie and ladies football until we have 10 pitches out on the South Link Road. We can never deliver on our ideals until we do that.
"It will be a major One Cork project in the near future, and we will need an asset of that scale to have major government support, major fundraising."
It was an engaging address by O'Donovan, one in which he quoted The Catcher in the Rye, The Old Man and the Sea, and Field of Dreams. He recalled marking Seán Óg Ó hAilpín at under-15, his "mini coup" against the county board, and explained his love of amateur drama. "I figured that if I didn't move for the 20 minutes I was on him, he mightn't realise I was there," he said about the day he stood next to Ó hAilpín on the pitch.
O'Donovan believes Holden Caulfield was being ironic when he said "Certain things should stay the way they are".
"Cork GAA is something we want to get every day and shake it," he said.
"Commercially. Financially. On the field. Coaching. Schools. Immigrant culture. Sustainability. Inclusion. Integration. Catch it and shake it, because that's how we can respect our forebears, to just keep everyday pushing the dial as far as we can."
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