Ciarán Murphy: Ending league sponsorship deal would at least stop Allianz from cashing in on the GAA’s virtues
Last Friday, the GAA’s relationship with Allianz was discussed at a Coiste Bainistíochta meeting. Allianz have sponsored the National Leagues for the last 30 years. They are also a sponsor of the senior football championship, the Camogie Association and Cumann na mBunscol. That meeting was presented with a report from the GAA’s Ethics and Integrity Commission, which recommended maintaining the sponsorship. The report was prompted by an open letter, signed by about 800 current and former players, delivered to Croke Park last August calling on the association to end its relationship with Allianz. It came on foot of a report released by Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which named the asset management firm Pimco as one of a number of firms that had purchased Israeli treasury bonds. Pimco is owned by Allianz. I have written here previously that I thought the sponsorship agreement should be ended, but I am not a moral absolutist. There were great challenges in ending a sponsorship agreement of that nature, and the GAA decided not to. A few hours after the decision was announced, Jarlath Burns outlined the reasons on RTÉ’s Radio 1 show, Saturday Sport. READ MORE‘It felt like every football fan in the world saw the goal’: Ken Early on the late, late Troy showBoost for Dingle as Mark O’Connor set to return for All-Ireland semi-final against BallybodenOne victory from Paradise: Loughrea can re-establish Galway supremacy with final winSecond-half surge sees Ballygunner to All-Ireland decider against Loughrea“I think it’s important to realise that Allianz Ireland is not involved in the war in Gaza, and it is fully compliant with the law. That came out very strongly in the report. The company that we do our deals with, and Allianz can call themselves whatever they want, is Allianz Ireland, Allianz plc. That company is not directly involved in any way in the war [in] Gaza.” Burns spoke about the facts contained within the report about the difference between Allianz worldwide and Allianz Ireland, and you can accept that justification or not. But sponsorships exist in the world of perception, and many current and former players expressed their unease, as he was asked about.Colm O' Rourke speaks outside Croke Park during a protest in August over the GAA's links to Allianz. Photograph: Bryan Meade/The Irish Times “I know that we got a petition of 800 players and ex-players. Remember, 800 might seem a lot. In the vast scheme of things, it’s 0.13 per cent of our membership.”He knows full well that the issue is one that far more than 0.13 per cent of the membership of the GAA feels very strongly about. Nine county boards, over a quarter of the county boards in the country, passed motions calling on the GAA to end this sponsorship. Club delegates and county boards act on the wishes of their members – that is a cornerstone of the GAA. He was asked about the criticism this decision has already received. “I think as the president of the GAA, it would be wrong for me to do what a lot of people do – and I’m not saying that any of the people who have given us representation have done that – a lot of what passes for discourse in the modern era is just you read something on Facebook and it becomes your embedded viewpoint. I think that would be folly for the GAA to go down that road. We didn’t. We went into it in great detail.”He may have heard the question asked in a specific context, but the criticism of this decision will be far wider than Facebook posts or Twitter replies. People who disagreed with this, nine county boards and all the clubs and members of those counties, over and above the 800 signatories of that letter in August, do not deserve to have their concerns minimised in this way.Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho Allianz provide cover for all the GAA’s clubs and grounds. The GAA say they wouldn’t be able to find another insurance company that didn’t have similar links, and that is quite possibly true, grim and all as that may be. But using their products and accepting them as sponsors are two very different things, and should be treated as such. GAA sponsors pay their money for a very specific reason. Many moons ago I spoke to a PR representative for one of the GAA’s biggest sponsors, who told me that their client would happily bin every other sponsorship they had to maintain their GAA link because it gave them a chance to talk about community leadership, volunteer spirit, and other nebulous ideas that – in their opinion – other sports just couldn’t reach. You are far likelier to see an unknown and unnamed volunteer hanging a net in a GAA sponsor’s ad than you are a star player, daft as that may sound. That’s what the sponsors are paying for, and it is not an act of charity. If using their products but not accepting their sponsorship money strikes you as an unsatisfactory compromise, or even a cop-out, then maybe that is fair criticism. Nevertheless, Allianz aren’t insuring the GAA for the good of their health. They would continue to get paid for providing the GAA with an essential service. There is a clear difference between that, and wrapping the GAA around themselves as a key sponsor. Nuance might not make for great column copy, but of course there’s nuance here. I’m not going to be boycotting the league, and I don’t know that players are going to boycott the league. Even so, I would expect there will be a reaction. Jarlath Burns has done a lot right in the last 12 months, but minimising the size of the disquiet on this issue will have done nothing to dull people’s intention to make their opinions heard on this issue when the league begins in January.
