It was going to be SuperValu Páirc, right until it wasn’t. It was an announcement, and then it wasn’t. It was a sad but unavoidable reality, until it wasn’t.
The recent furore around the naming rights for Páirc Uí Chaoimh in Cork added another chapter to an ever-growing frustration with how the GAA now tackles unpopular issues.
As we saw with the idea that five counties be taken out of the National Hurling League last November, no decision ever really seems to be taken any more. There is an announcement, then the decision-makers wait for the backlash. If it gets a little too hot in the kitchen, everyone rows back and acts like it was just a kite being flown.
And so we get the worst of both worlds. We realise what the GAA wanted to do, which seems thoughtless and rushed. The people involved feel insulted and demeaned, but we also see a profound lack of leadership, or a willingness to stand up and defend an unpopular decision. All you’re left with is a bad taste in your mouth, and the status quo.
There were reasons for taking five teams out of the National Hurling League. You might not have agreed with those reasons, but it behoved those who suggested it to really liaise with the counties involved (the players and management, not just their Central Council delegates), and then to come out and rigorously defend it and put forth their position.
It happened again this week. The Irish Examiner had a big splash on Monday night with their exclusive – that Páirc Uí Chaoimh would be renamed SuperValu Páirc as part of a deal which, with ancillary business support, would bring in about €1 million for Cork GAA over three years.
It was even suggested by Cork GAA sources that it was imperative that this deal be signed off in time for the start of the National Leagues, 13 days from when that story was written.
[ Páirc Uí Chaoimh Q&A: All you need to know about naming rights controversyOpens in new window ]
It was leaked 24 hours before a Cork county board meeting, which leads one to ask – if you were going to leak this, and not be strong enough to withstand the backlash, why have a county board meeting scheduled for just a day later, when that backlash would still be at its most intense?
In a statement on Tuesday, Pádraig Ó Caoimh’s grandson, Dónal, said: “My grandfather embodied the empathy, hospitality, and community spirit that is the essence of the GAA. It is galling to me that SuperValu would consider making the eradication of my grandfather’s legacy a condition of sponsorship. The gateway is open for the sale of our heritage and narrative for profit.”
So are you in favour of a supermarket eradicating a great GAA man’s legacy, or against it? Over to you, club delegates. The issue, of course, is rather more complex than that. And Cork GAA might have stood a better chance if they’d talked it through with club delegates first, let the Liveline callers have their fun for a day, and then addressed the issue again a couple of weeks later, after the initial heat had dissipated.
Unpopular decisions are not always wrong decisions. Waiting to see how intense the backlash is before acting is no way to do business. But maybe Cork GAA are playing the long game.
Maybe they felt the only way to get a decision to rename the ground SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh over the line was to present the nation with an even-less popular alternative that took Pádraig Ó Caoimh out of the equation altogether. If that was their plan all along, I take my hat off to them. But I have my suspicions.
There’s a reason SuperValu wanted it to be called SuperValu Páirc. Seventeen county boards are currently taking naming rights money off companies, but how many of those collaborations have stuck in the public consciousness? I’ve attended plenty of games in Hastings Insurance MacHale Park over the last few years, and I’ve heard the square root of zero people call it that. Could Hastings be said to be getting adequate bang for their buck? Only they will know.
I hope that you were one of the many people who got A Place To Play by Humphrey Kelleher in their Christmas book pile. It’s a beautiful production, which tells the history of 100 GAA grounds around the country, full of titbits of information – including the provenance of each ground’s name. Flicking through each of those pages today, it becomes clear this issue isn’t going anywhere.
It has been reported that Dexcom, a new multinational based in Athenry, wanted to partner with Galway GAA, but Galway insisted that Pádraig Pearse continue to be commemorated at their grounds in Salthill. So Connacht rugby will be the beneficiaries of their largesse, the Sportsground becoming Dexcom Park.
And looming above all that, of course, is Casement Park, another potential GAA white elephant, only this time with added northern political spice. If I was involved in Antrim GAA, I’d be intensely lobbying Westminster to make renaming the ground the Belfast Stadium a precondition of UK government funding. Getting a chance to blame it on them ‘uns across the water might make Antrim’s life a lot less complicated.
I’m sure we would all love to be able to hold on to the original names of these grounds. But bills are stubborn things. They tend not to do sentiment. And Cork GAA still has 30 million reasons to say yes to SuperValu Páirc.
