A peasant must stand on a hillside with his mouth open for many, many years before a roast duck will fly in? Think again, Confucius. On Friday the peasant hit paydirt. Or payduck. The slack-jawed mouth-breathers of the Football Association of Ireland suddenly found themselves chewing on cash a l'orange.
For those of us who love soccer this is a good thing. The game will rake in £165 million over the next 13 years, £87 million more than it had counted on. It would be a national tragedy, though, if the FAI were to become the national role models for how to get things done. It would be a serious injustice if other sports not so crucial to the life of the Bertie-Bowl were not to be rewarded by Irish taxpayers in the same manner as the world's greatest professional sport has been.
No one will begrudge soccer its good fortune. Comical administration, the mismanagement of what was originally quite a good idea, splits and schisms - these are par for the course in Irish soccer. No one looks at the windfall coming the FAI's way and pens one of those letters to the editor which the self-hate community like to compose about the GAA. Yet, love it or loath it, the GAA has husbanded its resources brilliantly, done an incredible job in keeping the cultural artefacts that are the national games alive and healthy. And it has been done for love of the game.
Soccer? The Taoiseach need only look back on the demise of his beloved Drums to see the withering on the vine. Where is that lost civilisation? Did we learn anything from its vanishing? Nope. The money from a golden era which brought appearances at three major finals has gone up in smoke. Before it began raining cash on Friday, the FAI were almost broke, and there was nothing but dark clouds on the horizon.
Soccer brings unique advantages to the competition to stay alive as a sport in Ireland. It is possible to consume soccer twenty-four-seven. The bombardment is relentless and the game is as simple as it is lovely. Two jumpers and a ball gets you going. Play well enough and you will be richer than a king and a spice girl shall be your queen.
The GAA, in particular, has had to find another approach: it beds itself in communities. The notion of one life, one club, as propagated by AIB in their current ad campaign, has validity still. People grow up in a place, and whether they leave or stay their club is still their club, and usually it is a vital and thriving part of the community.
The GAA has to work harder than anyone to get kids through the door to play. Rugby somehow still has its traditional schools, while soccer has its beckoning idols. Gaelic games depended more than either of their rival sports on the goodwill of teachers and Christian brothers. That's gone. So GAA clubs (not just GAA clubs, but they are the leaders in the field by a long chalk) are having to employ people to go into schools and spread the word.
It hardly seems fair, therefore, that for propping up the Taoiseach's vanity project the FAI should make out like bandits while everyone else struggles on. And struggle they will.
The GAA has received £25 million for Croke Park. The rest will be generated by itself, as will the costs of the county grounds. That means levies and lottos and race nights and draws and subscription drives. While soccer gets £87 million EXTRA! PLUS A FREE STADIUM!
Rugby, traditionally a cash-rich sport, isn't in the pink either. Professionalism has hurt clubs. The new glamour in Irish rugby is right at the top tier, the provinces go tilting at the European Cup, the country plays Six Nations - farm animals permitting. The AIL has lost out badly, the provincial cups seem quaint.
For a lot of people, those who give their lives to keeping other sports alive (most of whom have nothing but goodwill to soccer), Friday's announcement of the FAI's lucky lotto win was just bewildering. The FAI has been handed the resources to annex the country. There is a fundamental unfairness in that.
It's two-and-half years exactly since Bertie announced his Bowl and Bernard O'Byrne responded by bursting into the press tent at an under-21 game in Arklow to tell startled hacks that there would also be a Stade Saint Bernard. He was sitting on the feasibility study committee for the Bertie-Bowl at the time. That's how comical and ego-driven the whole affair has remained.
Now is the natural time for a pause to re-examine the scale, the location, the trimmings and the fairness of the Government's plan. Face it. Most of the flaws that killed Stade Saint Bernard are built into the Bertie-Bowl. And now several sports are going to be traipsing to Government Buildings feeling entitled to the deal which soccer has just got. The bottom line changes by the day.
Rugby and GAA still have bottom line leverage. Suppose this: the GAA changes its rules next month; Ireland's remaining Six Nations business doesn't get done till autumn - in Croke Park! Rugby people discover what they already know: lunch, a few drinks in town, a dander to the game and then drinks nearby, well, it's a far more convivial way to spend the day than sitting on the M50 with blood pressure making your head throb. Let's not make them use that leverage. There is a hippy dippy loveliness to Bertie's aspirations that his stadium shall be for everyone. It won't. Friday proved that when Bertie tickled the belly of the richest sport in the world with a taxpayers' wad. The Bowl shall be for big-time sport and those who wish to pay money to see it. And it shall be for big-time pols and their pals who paid for it.
If we as a nation are to get any bang for our buck, the discussion as to location and scale and fairness to all sports should be reopened. It is our buck after all.
