Keane and GAA's EIC to assess links between sponsor Allianz and Israel’s war in Gaza

Liam Keane of the GAA rules advisory committee. Pic: Tom Maher/Inpho

A leading GAA committee chairperson is part of the GAA’s Ethics and Integrity Commission (EIC) charged with reviewing the association’s Allianz sponsorship.

Liam Keane, head of the standing playing rules committee, is one of a four-person group who have been asked to assess the links between Allianz and Israel’s war in Gaza. 

A UN report found that the global insurance company have purchased several hundreds of millions of Israeli government bonds.

Keane has served in a number of roles in the GAA including chairman of the rules advisory, central hearings and appeals bodies as well as the secretary of the Disputes Resolution Authority. 

Filling in for Football Review Committee (FRC) chairman Jim Gavin, the state solicitor for Meath presented their motions at Special Congress last Saturday.

As GAA director general Tom Ryan explained this past weekend, the body will not be the group that determines the future of the association’s longest-standing sponsorship. Allianz are National League backers as well as associate sponsors of the All-Ireland senior football championship and earlier this year announced a renewal of their agreement up to 2030.

On foot of a request by Burns, management committee recommended the establishment of the new ethics and integrity body, which was formed earlier this year. 

It is chaired by Justice Adrian Colton and includes Aoife Farrelly, Liam Keane, Con Hogan and Ken Spratt. It was reported on Saturday that Tyrone man Colton has recused himself from the Allianz review.

Leading Barrister at Law, Farrelly previously served as the GAA’s Central Hearing Committee chairperson and the Meath native is currently the chairperson of the Sports Law Association of Ireland.

Tipperary’s Hogan has been chairman of his county and the Semple Stadium management committee as well a member of Central Council and the GAA’s national disciplinary bodies.

Former Dublin footballer Spratt is the secretary general of the Department of Transport and led Erin’s Isle as captain to county and Leinster senior football championship titles in 1997.

The body is distinct from another national GAA ethics committee, which comprises GAA president Jarlath Burns and his seven immediate predecessors going back to Seán Kelly and has yet to meet since its inception last year.

Explaining the rationale for the EIC, GAA director general Tom Ryan said in February: “This body will assess any issue concerning ethical standards or integrity in relation to Association activity, which do not fall within the remit of the standard disciplinary process.” 

Listed among the EIC’s principles are that it “shall engage in education, research, investigation and the provision of advice in relation to matters of ethics and integrity”.

Included in its functions are to “investigate (where necessary) ethical and integrity standards in relation to Association and member activity, other than misconduct at games by players or team officials, either of its own volition or on foot of a referral to it by any unit”.

To inform their Allianz decision, the GAA may also call on the expertise of a couple of management committee members – Moyagh Murdock, chief executive of Insurance Ireland, and Joan Kehoe, founder of Alcheyst, a global fund administrator and outsourcing partner and JP Morgan’s former global head of alternative investment services.

Speaking on Saturday, Ryan said of the EIC: “That body is not the group that will make the (Allianz) decision. What we will have perhaps is a slightly detached perspective, an independent perspective, and one that I think we will give due consideration to and respect for, but they need a little bit of time and a little bit of space to do that work for us.”