Revealed: GAA ethics review urges audit of all sponsorships after Allianz Gaza concerns

The Ethics and Integrity Commission highlights many units have indirect sponsorship links with Israel and its presence in Palestine

The GAA based the decision to maintain its relationship with Allianz on the Ethics and Integrity Commission's report. Pic: Ray McManus/Sportsfile

The GAA’s ethics and integrity commission’s (EIC) review of its commercial relationship with Allianz has recommended the GAA conduct an ethical audit of all its contractual arrangements.

The Irish Examiner has seen the EIC’s report, which advised the GAA’s Management Committee’s decision last month to retain its links with Allianz despite highlighting a sibling company had links with the war in Gaza.

Another recommendation made by the committee comprising Liam Keane, Con Hogan and Liam Spratt called on the GAA to approach Allianz PLC to use its influence to encourage other companies in the Allianz group to act in accordance with Irish, European and international law.

The body acknowledged Allianz PLC is owned by Allianz SE, which also owns a company implicated as financially profiting from the genocide in Gaza and is a shareholder in the implicated Elbit Systems, an Israel-based international military technology company.

What wasn’t mentioned in the GAA's press release before Christmas was the EIC’s other conclusion that the GAA “should ensure that all contractual arrangements are tested to ensure that parties with whom Association units are doing business are not themselves directly engaging in unethical activities.” 

The report claimed “many GAA units” have sponsorship deals “with companies which are indirectly linked to Israeli economic activity in the Occupied Palestine Territories or to the Israeli Defence Forces.” They advise the GAA should “avoid sponsors who are directly involved in activities which conflict with the ethical standards to which the Association adheres e.g. violation of human rights, promotion of products which cause obesity, abuse of labour rights, environmental destruction.” 

The commission stressed “it would be wholly unreasonable to expect every unit to forensically audit and interrogate every company or individual with whom they propose to do business to ensure their practices are ethical”.

However, they also point out that this “does not absolve GAA units from any obligation to act ethically in business arrangements in general and sponsorship agreements in particular.” The height of the ethical watermark GAA units are expected to reach is a concern for the EIC. They listed a number of commercial agreements counties and clubs currently have with companies that could be questioned on such grounds.

“It is not the role of the GAA to be the moral guardians of the world and a sense of perspective must be maintained,” they stated. “It is nigh impossible to engage in business without engaging with entities which have some kind of connection with activities which are morally questionable.

“This is true of clubs, counties, provinces and the GAA centrally. Even a cursory examination of county team sponsors discloses agreements with corporate entities associated with: providing insurance cover to companies involved in the Gaza war, and in causing pollution and climate destruction; construction products which have been associated with major disasters; serious pollution incidents; and the obesity crisis.

“At club level there are similar links, e.g. with companies selling products for companies who supply equipment to the Israeli Defence Forces and to settlers in the West Bank; with technology corporations who supply products which are essential in the operation of weapons of war; and with e-commerce platforms which support the economies of illegal settlements, to name but a few.” 

The EIC noted UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestine Territories Francesca Albanese’s call for countries to “suspend all military, trade and diplomatic relations with Israel” and to “suspend Israel from the United Nations". However, they added “this is not the policy of either Government in Ireland”.

They also pointed out Microsoft and Google, which were cited in Albanese’s report as being directly complicit in Israel’s military efforts in Gaza, “are in daily use throughout the GAA”.