This will cause plenty of controversy
GAA’s annual Congress usually throws up a few curve balls for delegates to discuss, to try and make sense of over the years, and the latest big talking point ahead of February 28th could be a motion from Clare.
Miltown St Joseph”s club have proposed that all county grounds be treated like Croke Park and that they should be allowed rent out their facilities to rugby and football.
Croker of course was famously used by the Ireland football and rugby sides for a number of years, while redevelopment work at Landsdowne road was ongoing, but no so called ‘foreign games’ have been played there since 2009.
Croke Park still has the option of renting out the stadium if it so wishes and now it seems that the north Clare club want to see football and rugby played in the heart of Ennis at Cusack Park ,and other grounds such as Pearse stadium in galway, and maybe even at the home of hurling itself Semple Stadium.
Former Munster Council Chairman Noel Walsh is leading the calls for the change from Central Council in the rule preventing county grounds being opened up for special occasions,
‘Congress is the only body that can legislate for other grounds and since it meets only once a year, there’s no provision for making a quick decision at any other time, irrespective of how solid the case might be to open up a particular county ground for a special event.
The GAA agreed in principle at least to support an Irish bid for the Rugby World cup in 2023, with a number of GAA grounds earmarked as host stadiums.
Walsh is acutely aware that their neighbours in Limerick have Thomond Park and the Gaelic Grounds within just a few miles of each other and hr thinks that the day may come when you could see Munster being led out onto the pitch for a Champion’s cup game on the Ennis Road venue.
‘The day might come too when it would make sense for Munster to switch from Thomond Park to the much larger Gaelic Grounds for a particular game. Of course it’s possible that there would be no demand for any county ground but I don’t think we should have our hands tied by a rule that doesn’t apply to Croke Park and which won’t apply to several other grounds if the 2023 rugby World Cup comes to Ireland.
We think this could be a pretty hot topic but if there is to be any change it will of course have to receive the infamous tw0-thirds majority from voters next month and history shows that’s never too easy to get at GAA level.
H/T to the Irish Independent
