The GAA’s Annual Report is a ‘State of the Union’ style review of issues that are facing sport in 2022 and how the challenges they present are being met.
It covers a wide range of issues facing the Association and is one of the most important documents outlining the importance of sport that is published through the year.
So far this week we have covered the social impacts, the governance issues and the integration of the men’s and women’s governing bodies.
Today we take a look at the references to how the games are played and the Championships run and then over the next two days we will complete our look under the hood of the GAA with an analysis of the revenue and expenditure during the second year of Covid impact.
Fighting the Virus
One of the six key priorities outlined in the Annual Report was “to try to provide, within whatever scope we were permitted, the best playing opportunities we could for as many people as possible.”
The devastation on the schedule for 2020 meant that we only got to see the All Ireland Finals being played at a time when the normal focus would have been on Christmas shopping. The idea would have been surreal enough without the added deviation from the norm that they were played in front of empty stands. The mute faces of children drawn as part of a Centra promotion and positioned in the Cusack Stand were the only ones to catch the eye of players from Dublin and Limerick as they raised aloft the Sam Maguire and Liam McCarthy Cups.
A far cry from the bedlam of excitement that had greeted Dublin’s five in a row in the floodlit stadia of a Saturday evening in 2019.
But at least the games were played and then to catch up with some of the club tournaments that had also been held over, and to give players a rest, it was decided to shorten the inter-county season and start in March.
No sooner though had Christmas come than we were plunged into lockdown again. What’s that they say about how to make God laugh by showing him your plans.
It would be the end of March before permission was given for the resumption of inter-county training in April and the end of May before games could be put back on the timetable.
Shortened Allianz Leagues meant shared titles and the Football Championship became a straight knock out affair. There was as the report describes “the odd blip along the way”, not least the threat to withdraw from the semi-final by eventual winners Tyrone but the games were played and Tyrone and Limerick crowned as Champions.
Tom Ryan summed it up well saying “The inter-county season that resulted was one of the most unique in our long and storied history. It was a story of endurance and perseverance, of finding a way despite myriad challenges and of triumph in the face of adversity.”
Games Development
In March while games were off the agenda, the GAA, LGFA and Camogie Association launched a common player pathway. There will be a relaunch this year of the Go Games concept that has served the games well at up to U13 level, providing opportunities to play and learn with greater emphasis than just on winning.
The area of funding for Games Development was to the fore again and we can shortly expect the publication of a new formula which will break down the criteria into a number of key variables, benefitting all but a very few counties, but likely reducing the amount given to Dublin. That will present a challenge for the largest county, with the largest number of schools to work with and children to inspire but that way will doubtless be found.
It can only be hoped that the criteria for player development does not go too far in terms of the number of players coming out of the development system as opposed to the number going in.
The future for children coming into the sports remains bright, as evidenced by the fact that even in a disrupted year, no fewer than 137,000 children took part in the Summer Kelloggs Cúl Camps.
2022
This will be the first full season of the split season model between County and Club.
It will mean the conclusion of the All Ireland Finals before the end of July and the rest of the year given over to Club activity, serving games to the largest number of potential players at a time of year when the pitches are at their best but which was traditionally reserved only for the handful of inter-county players still in the Championship.
The Tailteann Cup will make its delayed arrival on the calendar.
Broadcast agreements are in place and the tournament is being maintained as part of the existing partnership agreements with Football Championship sponsors. This will allow AIB, SuperValu and eir (for now) to get behind a Championship that most counties would never have had an opportunity to contend in.
No one can say with certainty how it will be received, what bloom of publicity it will generate at a national level and what excitement it will bring at a local one, but if a change was only possible with guaranteed success it would likely never happen at all.
Reform of the Football Championship
The potential changes to the Football Championship that were presented to Congress in October were both defeated, meaning that meaningful change would be delayed a year at least.
But the debate they generated, and the softening of reactions against change mean that new proposals will be brought back to delegates at the end of this month and voted on once again.
Smart Sliotar
The last area we are looking at today is the development of a new ‘smart sliotar’ which will have an electronic chip and will be used on a trial basis in the Bord Gáis U20 Championship.
The presence of a chip will confirm that the ball meets the regulation size and weight and also that it has been ethically sourced. It may lead to new ways in which the game can be analysed and refereed and is an exciting development of technology enhancing what is perhaps the single most important piece of kit in the game, yet one which has largely been left to its own devices down the years.
