The President of the GAA Jarlath Burns was on the Claire Burn show on Monday morning defending GAA Go and called out former Tyrone footballer Sean Cavanagh for his comments on The Saturday night game. Sean Cavanagh was on the RTE pod Monday evening and responded to the GAA president calling him out .. see his comments below thanks to RTE.ie
Cost isn't really the issue, its the accessibility of it.
And delighted to hear him call out Sean Kavanagh, it was a crazy statement https://t.co/e6MPIeNdzP
— Derrick Lynch (@DLynchSport) May 13, 2024
"There is a growing disconnect between the association and the people at the grassroots…" – The Saturday Game panel discuss the GAAGO platform and ponder what might be done to improve the service and make it more accessible. pic.twitter.com/gXFLbVcCsv
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) May 11, 2024
“I maybe left out the word ‘amateur’,” said Cavanagh, when asked about his assertion that the GAA is one of the richest organisations in the world.
“I haven’t pulled out the recent accounts but I remember seeing a couple of years ago 40, 50, 60million of cash reserves and a balance sheet of €100million. I’m an accountant, I know this stuff.
“For an amateur organisation owned by the members, owned by the people that are lining pitches, by people in every club up and down the country, for me that looks like a very healthy position.
“I previously worked with a lot of soccer organisations, a lot of them go bust all the time and haven’t got 2p to rub together. For me, the GAA is in a very healthy financial position, they’re acquiring lots of strategic assets all over the country.
“I think it was just the anger on Saturday night, the fallout of the Cork-Limerick thing and ordinary GAA people losing out. Let’s call a spade a game, that game should have been on TV somewhere free to air, I think everyone recognises that.
“I remember GAAGO being sold to me as ‘this is going to provide games to the world, outside of Ireland’ but for me Saturday night was us punishing people within Ireland who should be seeing that game because this organisation, which is owned by RTÉ and the GAA.
“There’s definitely a strong suspicion that there has been tactical picking of the games to generate revenue and profit.
“Why does it have to turn a profit? Why can’t those games, whether it’s subsidised by the Government, why can’t you show the bigger games free to air to the Irish public.
“There’s a bigger picture here of trying to promote our game and trying to not punish the people who run our games. I think that’s where a lot of the anger lies, where it felt like it was a little bit sneaky of the GAA on Saturday to put that game behind a paywall and punish the ordinary supporters who really needed to see that.
“Equally, that game should be flaunted because that’s the game that everyone’s going to remember, that’s going to get kids into hurling. It just felt wrong for me.”