February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Malachy Clerkin
DUBLIN — Ireland’s joint bid with Scotland to host the 2008 European Championships was is now in serious doubt after GAA Congress voted comprehensively against opening up Croke Park to soccer and rugby.
Last Saturday’s overwhelming rejection of the proposal to repeal Rule 42 means that, with just seven weeks to go before the UEFA deadline for bids to stage the finals, the FAI is still not in a position to guarantee it will have a single stadium.
GAA president Sean McCague and secretary general Liam Mulvihill had promised that consideration would be given to opening up the stadium in an effort to rescue the Euro 2008 bid, with the Progressive Democrats refusing to sanction the building of the controversial Stadium Ireland.
Most observers had thought the Clare motion would be deferred until a possible Special Congress in the autumn, but former Clare and Munster chairman Noel Walsh, who withdrew from the presidential race last week, felt that the debate had to take place at Congress. And so it did. And so it was defeated, 197-106.
It was a turnaround from last year, when the motion to give Central Council the power to authorize the use of Croke Park for other sports came within a single vote of the two-thirds majority required.
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McCague suggested that the turnaround may have been because clubs feared that a relaxation of the rule would put pressure on grassroots units to open their grounds to other sports.
“A lot of delegates voted last year without a mandate,” McCague said. “This time, they did, and found that the clubs were not in favor of change. Maybe it will come up again if someone can come with a formula of words that reassures people that the club grounds are totally protected.”
Certainly, that view was expressed by several speakers against the motion, most notably Pat Fizgerald of Limerick. However, it is likely the main reason — and one that was not articulated by McCague — was that “the time was not right” to open up Croke Park.
The FAI are putting a brave face on the matter, insisting that the bid would go ahead, despite the news coming from the meeting at the Burlington Hotel in Dublin.
“Today’s decision was of absolutely no consequence,” insisted treasurer John Delaney. “It is a myth that we have to go to UEFA with two stadiums next month. We can tell them it’s any two from three, either Croke Park, Abbotstown or Lansdowne Road.”
The taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, will interpret a return to power in next month’s general election as a mandate to proceed with the Abbotstown project. However, in the event of Fianna Fail forming another coalition with the PDs, it is likely that it will be a downsized project, with a 50,000 capacity, meaning the GAA could yet host internationals that would command attendances of 70,000-plus.
McCague himself accepted that the issue could be raised again, even though it came within six votes on Saturday of being unable to be on a Congress agenda for another three years. Neither did he rule out the possibility that Croke Park could yet host games in Euro 2008.
“When we talked to the government in February we did spell out clearly to them that as long as our rules are not changed, there was no possibility of us accommodating them,” he said.
Meanwhile, debate on the Strategy Review Committee was deferred to a further debate as Mayo withdrew their motion that a Special Congress be held within two months. Instead, Central Council will have the power to decide a date when the issue will be discussed. And the other outstanding issue from Congress was the decision that Kerry’s Sean Kelly will succeed McCague as the president of the GAA next year. Kelly won 195 of a possible 324 votes.