'It's a disaster' - county board stunned by ban on spectators

'We are absolutely horrified by the decision' - PRO

The GAA community has been rocked by the unexpected news that no spectators are to be permitted at any sporting events until at least September 13, which the PRO of Cavan county board, Susan Brady, has described as “a disaster”.

The government announced the bombshell, which has provoked uproar among the association’s membership, last evening (Tuesday).

“We are absolutely horrified about it. We were expecting numbers to go to 500, not to be reduced,” Ballyhaise clubwoman Brady told The Anglo-Celt.

“We don’t understand how the government has made this decision, restaurants and pubs which serve food have been allowed to open for an extra half an hour but people cannot go to a match and relieve some stress in the open air.

“Anybody associated with the GAA was caught completely unawares. Croke Park were caught unawares. There was no communication from the government.”

The PRO stated that county boards had been holding out hope for an increase in capacity to be introduced but that had seemed to be dashed by the recent spike in numbers of new cases of Covid-19. However, the move to actually reduce attendances caught them completely by surprise.

“The big increase in numbers that were generated out of meat factories put paid to an increase but we did not expect a reduction.

“It’s going to have a massive impact on clubs. The level of impact it’s going to have is very hard to tell at the moment. We had very small crowds because we only had a capacity of 200 but it was still a couple of thousand coming into the coffers every week.

“Now we have nothing coming in. It’s a disaster, in every way.”

Cavan county board took in in the region of €400,000 in local gate receipts last season. Revenue forecasts had already predicted a severe hit, with treasurer Martin Cahill telling the June county board meeting that the board could see a loss recorded of anything from €400-€500,000 for the year, with income possibly down as much as €1.2m.

Tuesday’s news piles more misery on county GAA boards whose only current revenue stream, limited local gate receipts, has now been completely cut off.

In an unusually brusque statement, the GAA last night called on Acting CMO Dr Ronan Glynn to “present the empirical evidence which informed the requirement for the Association to curtail its activities.”

The Cavan PRO believes that there is no evidence proving that allowing limited crowds to attend GAA matches has in any way contributed to the recent increase in cases.

“There is absolutely no evidence. The GAA have called on NPHET to produce evidence. Most of it is coming from factory settings,” she said.

“To make a joke about it, we could have six masses in Kingspan Breffni and have 50 people at them. You can have 50 people in a chapel but you can’t have 200 people outside at a game.”

Croke Park have contacted county boards with instructions on how the new rules must be implemented.

“allocation of 40 people from each club can go, including players, backroom staff, chairperson, secretary or whatever. That is 80 people and then you have your match officials so that’s another eight and then whatever media we can allow in and whatever stewards it takes to run the event, that’s it.

“It’s a logistical nightmare, especially this weekend with the six senior games running at the same time, which they have to be because it’s round four. From a PR point of view, how do we get these games covered?

“We are working on a media plan at the moment. We will try to stream as many games as we can and have deferred coverage of others and Twitter updates on some games. That’s all we can do.”

It is believed that Croke Park are still hopeful that the All-Ireland senior championships will go ahead as planned, commencing in October. While it appears impossible that county boards will have the financial means to prepare teams, former GAA President Nickey Brennan, an influential voice in the association, yesterday called on the government to provide financial aid to allow the association to fund this.