Let’s be real about the Páirc Uí Chaoimh renaming controversy: money has always been part of the GAA

––Like many in Cork and well beyond, I would not like to see Páirc Uí Chaoimh rebranded to meet the requirements of funding from SuperValu. But I do wonder why we tend to be very selective in our attitudes towards commercialism and the GAA. Various businesses – Ethiad, Ulster Bank, Guinness, Toyota, Vodafone and (for ladies’ football) Lidl, for example – have coursed through the financial veins of the GAA.

I do not for a moment doubt the earnestness of Pádraig Ó Caoimh’s grandson Dónal who has decried the mooted rebranding of the stadium named after his grandfather. There is widespread support for his contention that Pádraig embodied the “empathy, hospitality and community spirit that is the essence of the GAA”. He also maintained that under the stewardship of Ó Caoimh, who was general secretary of the GAA from 1929-64, “it became the biggest amateur association of its kind in the world”.

Ó Caoimh ticked many of the boxes associated with Irish patriotism during the early 20th century: teacher, republican, IRA volunteer and prisoner; he was hostile to “foreign” games, a devout Catholic and promoter of native industry. But it was also his job to secure the financial viability of the GAA and that required a hard-nosed business head. An appreciation in this newspaper at the time of his death suggested “he felt that he was serving a national movement rather than filling the post of chief executive of a sporting organisation... he could, one felt, have had a distinguished career in business.”

Yet, in many respects, he did have that career, because for all the focus on amateurism and community, the GAA was also a business and was, in building on Ó Caoimh’s work, to became even more so. Ó Caoimh’s final report to the GAA in 1964 reminded it to respect the past but not regard it as a “living truth”, and that was to be relevant to the attitude of finance and the challenges of increased urbanisation and commercialism as well as cultural nationalism and politics. As it had always done, the GAA continued to adapt – to television and later globalisation – with ratings higher than for other sports and the redevelopment and modernisation of stadiums and other facilities. Croke Park, with a capacity of over 82,000, looks like much more than the jewel of an amateur organisation.

Themes in McGahern’s That They May Face The Rising Sun have never been more relevant

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Former Mayo footballer and GAA president Mick Loftus was a staunch opponent of the Guinness sponsorship of the hurling championship from 1995 and refused to attend All-Ireland finals until 2012, by which stage the company was no longer the title sponsor

The permitting of sponsorship was a crucial part of this journey from the 1990s, not just in relation to jerseys, but also grounds – just consider Kingspan Breffni Park in Cavan or Elvery’s McHale Park in Mayo. These developments were not without controversy. Former Mayo footballer and GAA president Mick Loftus was a staunch opponent of the Guinness sponsorship of the hurling championship from 1995 and refused to attend All-Ireland finals until 2012, by which stage the company was no longer the title sponsor. Loftus declared it an “organisation of ordinary people who, with unbelievable unity of purpose, display a commitment which no money could ever buy”.

[ Ciarán Murphy: Maybe the SuperValu Páirc furore is part of Cork GAA’s cunning plan, but I have my suspicions ]

But that definition was often under strain: despite its amateur status and its rule stating “No player, team, official or member shall accept payment in cash or in kind in conjunction with the playing of Gaelic games”, money always changed hands within the GAA. The title of sports journalist Michael Moynihan’s 2013 book was GAAconomics: the Secret Life of Money in the GAA.

Former Down player Colm Kearney insisted: ‘The GAA could do well to acknowledge that the brown envelope syndrome already exists. It has been a feature of GAA life for decades’

A report of the GAA’s amateur status committee in 1997 acknowledged concerns that “the original vision of the GAA has been diluted for many of our members; at the same time, equal concerns have grown about the implications of breaches of the association’s amateur ethos”. It recommended players be permitted to benefit from some activities associated with their public profile, principally through endorsements. There was controversy in 2007 when an agreement between the Government and the GAA and the Gaelic Players Association sought to recognise “the contribution of Senior Inter County Players and additional costs associated with enhancing team performance”. The aim was to “introduce schemes to recognise the outstanding contribution of Gaelic inter-county players to our indigenous sport, to meet additional costs associated with elite team performance and to encourage aspiring teams and players to reach the highest levels of sporting endeavour”.

[ SuperValu Páirc has a ring to it all right, the ring of desperation in Cork GAA ]

Euphemisms were employed to avoid use of the word “payment”, and some critics saw it as an attempt to copperfasten a two-tiered GAA. At the time, former Down player Colm Kearney insisted: “The GAA could do well to acknowledge that the brown envelope syndrome already exists. It has been a feature of GAA life for decades in terms of payment, perhaps through intermediaries, of certain coaches and managers and other support staff.”

The Páirc Uí Chaoimh park controversy is part of a much longer and layered story of how the GAA has attempted to square circles when it comes to funding and payments.