GAA President John Horan steps down after his three-year term this weekend. It has been a final year that he could never have imagined when he joined us on stage at the Sport for Business Sporting Year Ahead in the Aviva Stadium in January 2020.

Covid-19 meant that every plan was thrown up in the year but it is to his credit and those around him that so many of them were put back together in one shape or another.

The Championships were played, Bloody Sunday was remembered, most Club Championships played through to their conclusion and kids got back to training on pitches for six of the nine months that were otherwise lost to the virus.

He never professed to have all the answers but when he appeared in set-piece interviews he gave a sense of calm authority that things were being done in the interests of our communities as well as the Association.

Yesterday morning he appeared on the Claire Byrne Live show on RTÉ Radio 1 in a wide-ranging interview looking at the challenges we face as he prepares to hand over the reins to incoming President Larry McCarthy.

You can listen back to the interview in full below but here are some of the highlight moments.

On the return of children to training

“We’d be really pleased if we could get the juveniles back but the Government is bringing back children to schools in a phased basis and we have to respect that.”

“We have made representation to Government and we are happy that the engagement with Minister Jack Chambers has been good.”

“145,000 children completed our ‘Return to Play’ app for each training session last year and we believe that we can do it safely, but we recognise that is a lot of movement of people and we need to ensure we are doing the right thing at the right time.”

The Timing of the 2021 Season

“We are confident that we can get a full games programme into a window of return to training in April and matches in May.”

Last year we did it starting in July so yes we are confident we can do this in the timeframe that we are looking like at the moment.

Club Vs County

“We have to look at getting County back first because that is what will be allowed first. We do not know yet when club activity might be back but it will be later. Club Championships are key for us. The club is the heart of communities and the Association.”

“98 per cent of our players play with their clubs and only two per cent with Counties so the club is key to this organisation.”

Spectators

“I think towards the latter part of the year we will see some crowds coming back. We have run numbers taking social distance into account so we have a good sense of how we can do things safely.”

Finance

“We’ve been stretched financially but we are strong and robust. If we need to borrow money in the short term our record is good but once crowds return we will get back to a stable position financially.”

Northern Ireland

The overlap between the North and the South is largely at the County level and if we get back to training as groups in early April then there will be very little overlap, even if the North is ahead in terms of vaccinations at the moment.

If a bigger gap emerges then we will have to get our thinking caps on and be flexible. We are a 32 County organisation and we are proud of that so will work closely to ensure that neither one side nor the other is left behind.

Media Rights

“Our Commercial Director Peter McKenna reference media rights at the publication of our Annual report last week and he will be negotiating our media rights in the next twelve months. All the options will be explored but it is not for me to talk about that on the national airwaves.”

“There will be a strong continuum of free to air games but there are advantages to creating a greater return that comes back into the Association. It is not our intention though to put a whole lot more games behind a paywall.”

Grassroots

“We have redistributed Government funding back to the clubs and they are resilient. They have been imaginative in maintaining their place at the heart of communities and they will bounce back.”

Listen back to the interview in full here.

We wish John well for the next Chapter.

Sport for Business Partners