Croke Park Versus Zionism: Why the GAA Can’t Decouple From Allianz

In a recent article titled “The Corporate Capture of the GAA“, the Communist Party of Ireland’s Socialist Voice magazine informed us that Allianz’s massive sponsorship of the GAA must be ended to “save the soul of the GAA”.

Their excuse for destroying the GAA by depriving it of essential funding is because Allianz is also active in Israel and the CPI, like the rest of our local chapter of the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) alliance, see destroying the GAA as a necessary downpayment to bring peace, love and joy to the Holy Land.

Whereas the CPI highlighted former Donegal player Brendan Devenney to bolster their BDS case, their chums in the Irish Times wheeled out Antrim’s Neil McManus to do the same, and former Dublin and Raheny GAA star Dr David Hickey is one of a large number of former players, who can be depended on to lend their voices to such “Gaels against Genocide” virtue signalling calls.

All well and good, except in this case, these serial malcontents mistakenly believe that either Allianz can be replaced by Axa, Aviva, Zurich or some other major insurer or, as former GAA President Dr Mick Loftus believed with respect to alcohol sponsors, that such funding sources should be scrapped altogether.

But, as Axa, Aviva and Zurich are all also heavily involved in Israel, all of them would be as unacceptable to the BDS purists as is Allianz, which is not only Ireland’s biggest insurer but is also the world’s biggest insurer, where its total Irish holdings are a drop in the ocean of its worldwide assets of €1,044,578 mn.

All things considered, the GAA are lucky to have Allianz as partners, not least because the IRFU and the FAI have other sources of funding sewn up in what is a relatively small and very competitive Irish market.

If we glance eastwards at our neighbouring island, we see that struggling Wolverhampton Wanderers, whose £177.7 million in annual revenues easily outstrips the GAA’s €133 million, depends largely on DEBET, a Vietnamese online betting company, as their principal and front-of-shirt sponsor.

You can talk about the soul of the GAA till Resurrection Day but I hope there is a cold day in Hell before the GAA, the IRFU or the FAI have to depend on sketchy outfits like DEBET to fund them. But as the FA (but not FIFA) want to ban online gambling companies from sponsoring clubs, Wolves might well be forced to look elsewhere for a new sponsor and would undoubtedly be delighted to snag Allianz should Gaels against Genocide and their fellow travellers get their privileged way.

Whereas Wolves, like all major British soccer clubs, has to give the bulk of its revenue to its players to stay in the game, the GAA has been more than generous to its affiliated clubs, with David Hickey’s Raheny GAA club fielding over 50 different teams across all codes. As their club’s history makes plain, this is a far cry from their inaugural match when two bunches of altar boys, infused with “the soul of the GAA,” engaged in a 7-a-side kick around. And what applies to Raheny GAA applies to every other GAA club who may have lost their mythical souls but who have warm showers, club houses and very much more to show for it.

Although elements in Gaels against Genocide would no doubt be delighted if the GAA was again reduced to 7-a-side kickabouts between transgender altar boys (to preserve its soul, don’t you know?), should the GAA lose Allianz, that might very well happen. That is because AIB, Electric Ireland, UPMC, Vodafone, Supermac’s, Staycity, Guinness, Lidl, Aldi, SuperValu, Bord Gáis Energy, Centra, Harvey Norman and other stalwarts cannot pick up the void Allianz’s exit would leave in its wake, not least because they would have to factor in the reputational risk to their own well-being should the purists subsequently target them.

None of this is pie in the sky “soul of the GAA” waffle. The recent financial turmoil of the FAI, the IRFU and various English top tier soccer clubs show that sport is a very competitive industry, where bankruptcy is a real and present risk. And, whereas the GAA could contain the fallout from the recent bankruptcy of Parnell’s GAA, its leaders know they might not survive the wider contagion Allianz’s exit would trigger.

And, though former GAA Presidents Seán Kelly and Peter Quinn might be accused of selling the soul of the GAA by transforming 7-a-side altar boy kick arounds into the wonderful social empire it has recently evolved into, those who founded the GAA in 1884 would really have to take their hats off to them and all, Allianz included, who enabled that unlikely caterpillar to evolve into such a beautiful butterfly from such humble and unpromising beginnings.