Fermanagh the latest to pass motion calling for end to GAA-Allianz commercial relationship 

The latest development comes as the GAA’s Management Committee and Central Council could next week receive the findings of the ethics and integrity committee who they have entrusted to review the relationship with Allianz. Pic: Cillian Sherlock /PA Wire

Fermanagh have become the third county to pass a motion calling for the GAA to end its commercial relationship with Allianz.

Following Offaly and Tyrone, who made similar decisions in recent weeks, according to The Impartial Reporter, Fermanagh GAA on Monday night unanimously backed a recommendation by six clubs that the GAA conclude their arrangement with the global insurance giants arising from their financial ties with Israel and the war in Gaza.

This follows similar calls in Offaly after they endorsed a proposal by Ferbane in October, while earlier this month Tyrone clubs overwhelmingly supported a call for the organisation to cease its association with Allianz.

The latest development comes as the GAA’s Management Committee and Central Council could next week receive the findings of the ethics and integrity committee who they have entrusted to review the relationship with Allianz.

That body had been reduced to three persons – Liam Keane, Con Hogan and Ken Spratt – in the wake of the chairman, Belfast High Court judge Adrian Colton, and barrister Aoife Farrelly recusing themselves.

In early October, the GAA insisted their central bodies and not the ethics and integrity committee will make the final call regarding Allianz. 

In January, the German multinational confirmed a five-year extension to their sponsorship of the National Leagues and are also associate backers of the All-Ireland senior football championship.

GAA director general Tom Ryan said: “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.” 

It is nearly 11 weeks since Central Council agreed for the ethics committee to advise them on Allianz’s links to the human catastrophe in Gaza, which the United Nations have investigated and found Israel to have committed genocide against Palestinians.

GAA president Jarlath Burns said the body were giving careful consideration to all the evidence including the UN report highlighting the insurance firm’s purchase of Israeli government bonds.

“We have to understand the concept of critical theory, that we don't just take everything at face value,” said Burns. “At that meeting where we decided to refer it to the ethics and integrity commission, we also made our second sizeable financial donation to Gaza and to the stricken people there.”