To leave anybody behind is against everything the GAA stands for

The Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, was not expecting a Dail question about cashless tickets in the GAA, but his expert juggling of hot potatoes has been honed on far graver affairs of state. Still, every ball must be played on its merits.

The Taoiseach confessed that he was not “fully across the issue”, and that ticketing was a matter for “the organisations concerned”, but just like water he had a politician’s instinct for the path of least resistance.

“I do think there should be some provision for cash,” he said. “Cash is still legal tender.”

For some TDs on the other side of the house, grandstanding on an issue such as this was a simple pose. The Aontú leader Peader Tóibín said that his party was “campaigning north and south for the reintroduction of cash in at least one turnstile at each match”.

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Mattie McGrath, the independent TD for Tipperary, said that he had been writing to the GAA about this matter for the last year, and described the policy as “despicable”.

“Elderly people who played and gave their life to the GAA and worked in the clubs and did everything in support of the GAA, and they can’t get into a match if they haven’t pre-booked a ticket,” Deputy McGrath said in the Dàil.

Sinn Féin, master harvesters of low-hanging fruit, were late to the party, but they eventually issued a statement through Chris Andrews, their spokesperson on sport. He described the GAA’s policy as “disappointing,” and highlighted its “disproportionate impact on some of most marginalised and vulnerable groups in our society”. He said he had written to the Minister for Sport, and Sport Ireland, pleading with them to bring pressure to bear on the GAA over the matter.

Even though it is more than 12 months since the GAA brought in this policy, there has been a resurgence of push-back in recent weeks, not just in the Dàil, but on local radio phone-in shows around country, and in various other places in the media.

Widespread cashless ticketing was one of the day-to-day outcomes of the pandemic that was always going to outlast homemade banana bread and conscientious hand-washing. It wasn’t a fad; it followed a cultural shift in how trade would be conducted.

The trickle-down to sports events was bound to involve some adjustment. In the GAA, ticketing had been the domain of intercounty championship matches, and in that sphere it was accepted. For the National Leagues, and club games, though, cash was king, right up until the start of the pandemic. That changed as, during Covid, cash was unseated in a palace coup.

For most people, it made no material difference. Buying a pack of chewing gum in the shop is no longer beneath the dignity of a credit card. For some older people, though, who still had no truck with credit cards or debit cards, or a working relationship with technology, buying a ticket for a GAA match was now far more troublesome than before. Not everybody in that section of society had sons or daughters or grandchildren who could navigate the process for them.

Celine Clarke, Age Action’s head of advocacy and communications, said recently that “about two-thirds of people over the age of 65 either don’t use the internet, or have below basic skills”.

In the administrative ranks of the GAA, though, the move away from cash was embraced enthusiastically. Dealing in cash created a twitchiness about security, it involved higher bank charges than digital transactions, and there were issues around accountability.

At the beginning of last year, when the GAA rolled out this policy shift, Peter McKenna, the GAA’s commercial director, pointed out that there was “leakage when money was involved”.

Anybody who is involved in the GAA at club level will know exactly what that used to mean. All over the country the early rounds of club championships are played at club venues, where the host club used to look after the sale of tickets at the gate.

In that scenario there was a certain, commonly understood, code of conduct; club members and sundry other locals were never charged; well-known GAA stalwarts from neighbouring clubs were waived through, unless there had been a bad falling-out; a car of four was never charged the full whack, and you were desperately unlucky to be caught for the full admission price in a car of three.

On top of that was the practice of “double-selling,” where tickets would be recycled, and the proceeds diverted to the club’s coffers – as back-channel compensation for the hassle of staging the match. It wasn’t skimming on the scale that would get you shot in parts of Sicily, but it was certainly “leakage”. Everyone knew what went on and a blind eye was turned.

Michael Duignan, the former Offaly hurler and now chair of their county board, heartily welcomed the crossover to cashless ticketing recently, pointing out that the income from club championships had increased in every county in Ireland last year. The figures bear him out.

Every mainstream sport has gone down this road – although there were no questions in the Dàil about cashless ticketing in the League of Ireland or the United Rugby Championship. The reason why the GAA is a lightning rod for such an issue, however, is because it occupies a different status in the life of the nation. It has always been, and still remains, one of the most powerful community organisations in the State.

During the pandemic, the social conscience of GAA clubs all over the country was demonstrated again, with shopping runs for older people, and organised house calls, and general thoughtfulness. If the GAA was only about matches, or winning and losing, or income, it would just be a sports organisation; miraculously, that has never been the case.

The counter-argument from the GAA is that tickets can be bought for cash at over 300 Centra and Supervalu shops. It pointed out last week that there is at least one of those retail outlets within two miles of 27 county grounds. It is also understood that Croke Park wrote to every county board last week, reiterating its policy: no cash.

What would a compromise look like? One designated stile where pensioners, with their credentials, could pay cash if they wished. That’s all. Would that be unmanageable?

To leave anybody behind is against everything the GAA stands for.