Leagues and Championships should be scrapped – An Appeal To G.A.A. Chiefs

Baile na Golcaí

Beal na Molt

Co. Port Lairge

  16 Deireadh Fómhair 2020  

A Chara

As a G.A.A. supporter all my life, I would appeal to G.A.A. Chiefs to cancel the remaining fixtures in this year’s National Football League and at the same time declare that this year’s championships at all levels will not go ahead as planned in the coming weeks.

I fully accept that the G.A.A. at present will make every effort that no stone remains unturned when it comes to the Covid Virus and the staging of games, but for me my biggest fear is not what happens inside the stadiums where games are to be played, but elsewhere within the country.

I know that the G.A.A. will claim that what happens outside of the venues which it has an interest in is not of a concern to them, but I doubt very much that G.A.A. Chiefs at Croke Park and Provincial Levels, at County Board Level, players and those over the different teams want to hear reports on a Monday or Tuesday after a game takes place that the numbers testing positive for the virus are on the up.

While no supporters will be attending games this year and to the best of my knowledge as a non drinker and someone that does not frequent pubs, most if not all are closed, meaning that supporters this year will be watching games from the comfort of their own living rooms.

Here to me will be the problem. While all with a television will have RTE to watch the games that they will be showing, not everyone will have Sky Sports or the means to watch even the basic Sky packages, which means that we will have people making their ways to the homes of friends and neighbours who have a sky package to see the games. I have a feeling that this will happen even with the games that are on TV. People that might normally watch the games on a Sunday afternoon in their local pub will gather and watch games as they would normally, maybe having some drinks together in the house.

When this happens will we have Paddy or Johnny who attended Mickey’s house on Sunday afternoon to see a game test positive for the virus and maybe others that were also present also testing positive admit that they watched the game at Mickey’s house and name those that who else might be watching the games on television that day? I doubt that many will admit freely that they visited someone in their house, something we are asked not to do from midnight last night, and I doubt that others will admit they left others into their house. There are so many people who all along are in denial of the numbers visiting them, so I hate to admit they will admit it now when people are not supposed to be visiting.

The G.A.A. should this weekend do the right thing and suspend all competitions that are due to take place in the coming weeks. I know that there are so many people, be they be supporters, players, coaches, officers, referee’s etc who are looking forward to eventually seeing action in the coming weeks, but do we want to see it happen at a cost.

Does anyone in the G.A.A. want to hear that maybe someone well known in a particular community or on a more wider seen had contracted the Covid-19 virus and is seriously sick in hospital or worst still have lost their life after contracting the virus after they attended someone’s house to see a game or had someone in their house to see a game. As I said, the G.A.A. will and rightly so claim that they have no control of where people will watch games and with whom they watch them, but why take the chance of seeing the virus spread.

Is mise

Tomás Ó Catháin