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GAA president John Horan has said that he is confident that the intercounty season will proceed as planned if Gaelic games is allowed to return to play on April 5th when the next stage of managing Covid is scheduled to be announced.
He also expressed the hope that juveniles might be allowed to resume recreational activities at the same time at intercounty returned.
“We’ve made strong representations that we could safely bring the juveniles back. We did it safely before Christmas with Level 5. The numbers we had back then were considerable – 145,000 young people did our WhatsApp return to play questionnaire. That would be a large movement of people if that happened and I think Government are taking that into account.
“. . . we have to work within the guidelines that the Government have laid out. NPHET have looked at this and I’d be hopeful come April 5th that if we get the intercounty back we’ll get the juvenile back and schools will be in full operation.”
Horan was speaking on RTÉ Radio 1’s Today with Claire Byrne programme in the context of the Government’s Path Ahead document, launched on Monday as the latest phase of the plan to manage the pandemic and said that the lack of any go-ahead for activities until April at the earliest had been expected.
“We’re confident that we can get a full games programme into that timeframe. You saw last year that we were very flexible in how we got it through but we got through a full club programme and completed the leagues and got the intercounty championship played. If we got going in May in comparison with last year when it was towards the end of July I’d be confident that we will get a games programme in place and that we will get all the activities completed.”
Asked did that include the league, he said that it did, as tweaks to the competition’s structure would reduce the usual fixture schedule from eight to five.
“As I said, we’ve that extra time period from May to July, which we didn’t have last year. I’m confident that the games programme will be able to do national league, a full club programme and intercounty championships.”
Last year, however, it was club activities that returned first with intercounty held back until September. It was also the case that the bulk of intercounty league fixtures had been completed by the time of the first lockdown in March.
The president, who after three years leaves office at this weekend’s annual congress, appeared to leave open the idea of shuffling the club and county seasons.
“What will influence that is how we move down the levels. Obviously the first level that will come back for us is intercounty and it’s then how long will it be before the actual club gets back to full flow?
“It would be a bit presumptuous of me at the moment to give a definite on that but there is flexibility. There is movement within the actual arrangement but people can be confident and positive that the GAA will be back and will get through all of our programmes.”
He was careful though to emphasise that the club programme would remain paramount.
“Club championships in the counties are key. I think last year everyone realised how important they were and we made the decision to bring the clubs back first before the intercounty and that gave the clubs the opportunity during the good weather in the summer to be out on the pitches.
“If you were to push the club too late into the year you possibly would have difficulties with pitches and floodlighting. Club is key to it all - 98 per cent of our players are club and only two per cent are intercounty and those actually play with their clubs.”
On the issue of a return of spectators, Horan was upbeat about the prospects.
“I think towards the latter end of the year we will see crowds returning. We won’t be packing Croke Park with 82,000 but we have done it in terms of working out numbers, social distancing – one metre and two metres – as to how many spectators we can get into Croke Park.



The Allianz League meeting between Dublin and Wexford last February was the last match with crowds at Croke Park. Photo: Bryan Keane/Inpho


“We’re also capable of doing that for our other big stadia so what would happen is the bigger games would be played in the bigger stadia that can actually facilitate bringing back spectators.”
The question of finance also arose, as the GAA showed a 60 per cent fall in central revenues last year because of the impact on gate receipts. He expressed optimism about the broader picture, saying that short-term problems wouldn’t have a long-term impact.
“We’ve been stretched but we’re big and robust and strong. In the short term if we’ve to go and borrow money from the Government or whatever, we’re strong enough and our record would be good and I think once the crowds are back we’ll be able to get ourselves back up on a strong footing financially so whereas finance is important I don’t think it should be an impediment to us.”
On the matter of finance, he commented on GAA commercial director Peter McKenna’s reference to Amazon as further competition in the media rights market with Croke Park’s deals due for renewal in 2022.
“I’m quite sure everything will be explored but people don’t have to get worried. There will be a continuum and plenty of games going out on the normal free-to-air channels.”
It was disclosed over the weekend that the president had written to Catherine Martin, the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, asking that the Government not extend the number of Gaelic games fixtures protected for terrestrial broadcast. Again Horan sought to reassure.
“The reason for that is we don’t want to be restricted. We got great cooperation this year in fairness from Sky, RTÉ and TG4 in actually distributing the games but there are benefits to the media rights of our games and those benefits are fed back into the organisation through the membership. Over 80 per cent of our funds generated in a year are redistributed through the organisation . . .
“. . . so it’s not a case of us trying to exclude people but it is a case of putting reasonable and correct value on what we actually have and no, people don’t have to get worried out there. Headlines will always have to carry in a certain way. It’s not our intention to start putting a whole load more games behind a paywall.”