Doors to stay shut after open debate

Saturday's big debate on the opening of Croke Park ended in defeat for the reformers. At 176-89, it was stunningly close: one switched vote would have swung the two-thirds majority. There were heated exchanges when GAA president Sean McCague refused to authorise a recount, but the result stood.

Delegates - on both sides - whom commented on the result afterwards seemed a little dazed by it. Proponents of the motion to modify Rule 42 - which is used to prohibit soccer and rugby being played in Croke Park - could hardly believe how close they had come. The conservatives who had stymied the reform were delighted but shaken by how close the congress had come to accepting the Roscommon motion.

Central to any consideration of the debate was the likely impact of the previous night's announcement of £60 million in Government assistance to the Croke Park redevelopment. In the end, it didn't appear to have a major influence. The financial benefits of leasing Croke Park for soccer and rugby internationals weren't laboured but then again, they had been marginalised by the exchequer largesse.

Tommy Kenoy (Roscommon) proposed motion six on the clar. He emphasised the thrust of his county's proposal: "This refers to Croke Park and Croke Park only. There is no attempt to amend Rule 42 in respect of provincial, county or club grounds. It authorises Central Council to consider leasing Croke Park to other games."

Laois and Longford were sponsoring similar motions with a wider remit - to open all GAA grounds. Given that the Roscommon motion was so obviously the focus of the debate, the other two counties withdrew their proposals and swung in behind motion six.

Liam O'Neill (Laois) made the case: "We support this in a spirit of inclusion rather than exclusivity. Exclusivity is not as justifiable as it was in the past. We want to be generous and open, to put the Failte Isteach sign up at Croke Park."

Anthony Delaney (Laois), the chairman of the Shanahoe club that had originally tabled its motion on Rule 42 nearly 18 months ago, took the opportunity to ask a fundamental question. "Is everyone in this room comfortable with the fact that we're prepared to use the property of other sports and not let those other sports use ours?"

There were a number of speeches reinforcing this point, pointing out the number of rugby clubs who, frequently at short notice, make their facilities available to GAA teams.

Most strikingly, Cathal Lynch from Brussels (by way of Leitrim) spoke about the activities of the European Board. "We will be playing our competitions on a cricket pitch in Guernsey, a soccer ground in Luxembourg and at a rugby club in The Hague.

"If this motion is defeated today, will we follow the logic and not avail of these venues? The world is changing, becoming multi-cultural. We should have the self-confidence to go ahead as the biggest sports organisation in the country."

The main opposition argument was based on the Roscommon motion being the "thin end of the wedge" which would result in pressure being exerted on all units of the GAA to let out their grounds.

Eamonn O'Toole (Down) echoed this point: "There is a fear that we won't be able to resist the pressure which comes on. We can't have one rule for one ground and another for another."

Con Hogan (Tipperary) seized on Liam O'Neill's reference to his county's decision to withdraw its motion and take the issue "one step at a time". That was, according to Hogan, "a telling comment".

Michael O'Brien (Meath) said: "If we pass this, we become the laughing stock of the country. We'll be opening our ground to sports who don't need it and haven't asked for it. If we do that, we won't be masters of our own destiny. It will be a triumph of fear for the future."

Gary Carville (Monaghan), however, took the opposite view. "We see this as an expression of maturity and confidence."

Past presidents Pat Fanning (Waterford), Con Murphy (Cork) and John Dowling (Offaly) all spoke - predictably against the motion.

Not everything was predictable, though. Eamonn Grieve (Antrim) put his case in favour of the motion with the help of some self-deprecating humour. "We're not a county," he said, "who'd be known as radical thinkers."

Frank Murphy (Cork) said that supporting the motion would mean that the GAA would not be sincere in its support for the national stadium. He also produced a document which he said proved that Central Council knew that "it would be untenable for the association to give Croke Park and not to have a knock-on effect at club and county level".

The other matter of major interest on the clar was the proposal to implement the Hurling Development Committee's plans for championship reform. These were accepted by a comfortable margin and will be implemented on an experimental basis for 2002 and 2003.

This means that next year, the hurling championship will reflect the football with second matches for teams eliminated up to provincial final stage.

According to Frank Murphy (Cork), in the light of the football reforms adopted for this year's championship, "we cannot be inconsistent by voting now against giving hurling teams a second chance".

After the conclusion of congress, Saturday's Central Council meeting heard that the Games Administration Committee would examine Louth's case to reschedule their Allianz Football League fixtures after the expiry of the foot-and-mouth exclusion period. This followed representations from the county.

It was also announced that scoring averages at the time of the break would apply in determining final places in the National Leagues - although this clearly places some teams at a disadvantage. In Division 2A, for instance, the withdrawal of London means that some teams have had the opportunity to trim them and bolster their averages but others have not.