Riverdance pulls future sponsorship of Irish dancing competition in light of fixing allegations

Irish dancing show Riverdance has said it will no longer be sponsoring competitions run by An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG) until an internal investigation into allegations of judges fixing competitions was completed.

CLRG, which governs Irish dancing in Ireland, has been at the centre of a controversy in the last week over alleged cheating in competitions.

The allegations, first reported in the Irish Independent, are due to be investigated by Michael Peart, a former judge of the Court of the Appeal.

On Monday, a spokeswoman for Riverdance, the world-famous Irish dancing show, said it would not be sponsoring any further CLRG dancing competition events until the inquiry was complete.

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The show had previously committed to taking out an advertisement in an upcoming competition, the Great British Championships, later this month prior to the recent allegations becoming public, a spokeswoman for Riverdance said.

“When you take an ad you are then linked to a particular age group in the competition,” the spokeswoman said.

Riverdance confirmed “that they will not be considering placing any further ads with CLRG in the future until they know the outcome of the internal investigation,” she said.

CLRG has said its ethics committee first received allegations in July along with supporting documentation.

In a statement last week, the organisation said the allegations of “several grievous breaches” of the Irish Dancing Commission’s code of conduct would be investigated.

“Due to the potential extent of such allegations — and to ensure fairness, transparency and thoroughness — the services of an independent former judge of the Court of Appeal have been engaged to oversee and supervise the immediate investigation into these matters,” it said.

“They will have full and open access to the resources and records of CLRG. The process will no doubt be difficult and arduous, but this grossly unethical behaviour must be eliminated from our competitions, dance schools and governing organisations.”

The organisation said it would consider such breaches “to be gross misconduct”.

“Any registered member found to be engaged in such practices will be subject to due and full process under our published Disciplinary Procedures as can be found here,” it said.

“This process has already started and the principles of natural justice apply. To ensure the integrity of the process and until it is complete, no further comments will be made,” it said.