Does Rovers spat reek of anti-soccer prejudice?

In the wake of last year’s historic decision by GAA Congress to open Croke Park to the once-despised ‘foreign games’ of soccer and rugby, the hope was widely expressed that small-minded factional rivalries between the followers and administrators of different sporting codes were, finally, a thing of the past. Such idealistic assumptions have been shattered by the ugly spat now developing over the future of the proposed Tallaght Stadium.

For tenuous political reasons, GAA enthusiasts used to feel that those who took an interest in rugby and soccer were somehow being ‘un-Irish’, a position which in retrospect seems petty, ridiculous and faintly fascist.
Undoubtedly, an equally knee-jerk anti-GAA reaction can be seen to have prevailed among soccer and rugby enthusiasts of a certain age.
Ireland has changed beyond recognition in the last 20 years – in most respects for the better – and one of the positive side-effects has been the virtual disappearance of such sentiments on either side of the old divide.
Today’s average Irish sports fan takes an unabashed interest in all four of the main codes. The current Taoiseach, devoted equally to Manchester United and the Dubs, would be a good example. Sport, after all, should be about bringing people together, not dividing them.
Or so you’d think. The Tallaght saga appears to suggest that in certain quarters, sporting bigotry is alive and well. The as-yet-unfinished, 6,000 capacity stadium is intended to house Shamrock Rovers and, possibly, St. Patrick’s Athletic. The Government are happy to fund its construction, provided the stadium is used only for soccer.
Six GAA clubs in the south-west Dublin area (Thomas Davis, St.Anne’s, St. Mark’s, St. Jude’s, Faughs and Croi Ro Naofa) have challenged this edict, requesting that the stadium be ‘re-designated as a community facility’ and available for Gaelic games.
The request sounds reasonable, until you bear in mind that the GAA receives government grants in the region of e17million every year for the upkeep of stadia which it steadfastly refuses to share with other sporting codes.
From the moment its proposed existence was announced in 1996, the stadium has been besieged by planning problems and financial difficulties: this latest row threatens its very future. The Sports Minister, John O’Donoghue (himself a staunch Kerry GAA man) has stuck to his guns and made it clear that he will withdraw funding from the project unless it is a soccer-only stadium. If Government funding is indeed withdrawn, it is highly unlikely that the stadium will be built at all.
Most GAA clubs are thriving very well as it is: nationwide, its clubs have received a whopping e135m of public funding since 1998. An official list detailing the distribution of funding for 2005 reveals allocations that range from the modest (e20,000 for County Carlow’s Fighting Cocks GFC) to the extravagantly lavish (e380,000 for St. Brigid’s GAA Club in Dublin). In contrast, only two Eircom League teams (Bray Wanderers and Cork City) received any funding at all, the latter for refurbishment at Turner’s Cross.
Rovers’ position is perilous. On the pitch last year, they suffered relegation from the Premier League: off it, they were forced into examinership by debts of over e3million.
A supporters’ consortium, the 400 Club, successfully forced out the old regime, but without the municipal stadium in place, their future is a bleak one.
St. Pat’s would also benefit enormously from leaving their aging home in Inchicore. The Genesis report recommended ground-sharing (with Shelbourne and Bohemians sharing Phibsborough’s Dalymount Park) as the obvious way forward if soccer in this country is ever to thrive.
A proper, publicly-funded stadium for two of Dublin’s four main clubs doesn’t seem too much to ask, nor would it pose any threat to anyone in the GAA. The six protesting clubs would appear to be motivated entirely by a fear that soccer would establish a greater foothold in the Tallaght area.
In truth, that happened a long time ago and certainly hasn’t been to the GAA’s detriment. They own 26 acres of land in Rathcoole, on which it would surely be possible to build a stadium of their own.
The impasse continues, and the protesting clubs must now either back off or carry out their threat to seek a judicial review. The former option would enable the Tallaght Stadium to be completed, probably before the end of 2006. The latter, and much likelier, scenario will delay any further work on the stadium for two years.
Despite suspicions that ‘Bull’ O’Donoghue’s GAA background would cloud his impartiality on the issue, he has acted with appropriate firmness, going so far as to hint that the GAA would be wise not to bite the hand that feeds.
“If the GAA want to seek a judicial review that’s their business,” the Minister states, “but I would remind them of one thing. Under the Sports Council Programme, since 1998, I have allocated over e135m to the GAA. I have recently allocated over e1.7m (to three of the protesting clubs), and I would be prepared obviously to assist them in relation to their development at Rathcoole, but what I won’t do is give in to blackmail.” 
Certainly, we’ve come a long way from the days when Stasi-styled ‘Vigilance Committees’ would send spies and informers to monitor attendances at soccer and rugby matches, report any GAA members they happened to spot, and end their careers.
However, many Rovers fans remain convinced that the clubs’ behaviour is a textbook example of anti-soccer mean-spiritedness, designed to drive Rovers to financial extinction, and that it has the tacit approval of the GAA itself.
We can only judge them on their words and actions in the months to come. In the meantime, an outbreak of tolerance and generosity (i.e. scrap the judicial review) might not go amiss.