"A Commitment Is a Commitment" | GAA Integration Crisis Deepens as Mary McAleese Steps Down | OFF THE BALL

0:00The Off the Ball rugby Roach show is coming to your province. Join some of the biggest stars from Lenscher, Monster, Ulster and Connacht as we travel around the country to preview the 2026-27 rugby season. Don't miss your chance to be there. Get your tickets now at offtheball.com-for-slash-events. Off the Ball Breakfast With Viagra Connect 50-mg film-coded tablet, contain, still-dened, Phil Peradil, man with a rectile dysfunction, maximum dosage, 150mg tablet per day. Always read the label. Viagra Connect.i, subject to suitability, following Farms' consultation. I do want to return to this Mary-Makley story, though. So just in terms of this story itself, if you missed it last night, it broke late last night and there were a couple of developments. It's going to continue to develop throughout the day as well. A little bit of a timeline of events here before we touch on this, we're Rachel Sheehan, who has joined us in Shiroo. So what I essentially happened was Mary-Makley's stepped on as chairperson

1:00of a group that was overseeing the integration of GAA, LGFA, and the Komogia Association. So those three bodies had committed to integration by 2027, and a special congress was due to Tech Place in October this year to enable the creation of one membership of one association by April next year. And the GA wrote to the group requesting time to pause and reflect on the process, saying it could not commit to a definitive timeline for integration. So we're almost three and a half years down the road now, and the GAA has decided now is the time that they want to press pause on integration. There was also reporting suggesting that GAA is looking at a new approach now of integration, looking at it from an equity standpoint, as opposed to equality. So Mary-Makley's then joined inside sport on RT last night, and she was pretty scathing, but she said that it essentially boils down to, in their view, finances, which incidentally we had taken great trouble to meet their concerns and to have answers to their concerns that were more than credible and more than workable.

2:01She also said that she was shocked to hear the current president of the GAA say, in fact, that he did not really support the idea, having supported it up until now at all of our meetings, but that he was in favor of a federation. And she also said that she suspected that there are people in the GA that are not entirely happy about the idea of including women in decision making at the top level of Gillick's sport. So that's really scathing stuff from Mary-Makley's last night on inside sport. The LGFA and Kamugi associations both then released statements about this. They both thanked Mary-Makley's for her work up until now. Brian Maloy from the Kamugi association said that he too was disappointed with the decision to step back from an agreed goal of one association by 2027s, and he believes that while the significance concerns, there were significant concerns. None of them were insurmountable. The LGFA echoed some of those sentiments. They said that while challenges are inevitable in a project of the scale and significance,

3:03the progress made to demonstrate a goodwill and commitment that we believe exists among all three organizations to achieve a successful outcome. Then Tom Parsons, he appeared on off the ball night last night, he is the CEO of the GPA. So Tom Parsons was on with on last night, and he expressed his frustration with the situation, given the public statements from the GAA that they were committed to integration. This is Tom Parsons on the off the ball last night. Well, I know this hasn't came from the democratically elected central council, or it would have been brought up at the August meeting. So it's a number of people in the GAA who's made this decision to pull out of the ISG and pause and reflect and not commit to a definitive timeline. But I want to just think about this. I mean, at the weekend, I just witnessed 82,000 people fill out pro-paracate and solidarity for one female athlete.

4:03And in the same week, the message that has went out, the message that we've heard from Mary McElise about that she believes women in our sport aren't wanted. Like some of the language that Mary said is just frightening. This sends out a terrible, terrible message. And I served the players, and I have never said to our National Executive Committee, or at our RepStay, that I do not believe 2020-27 will not happen. I always believed it would happen because they have committed to it in the public forum room. They've committed to it in an arctic committee. They've committed to it in a statement by the GAA President in 2024. In February of 2024, the statement is we know a roadmap, and the GAA would be committed to its development and its success. And the commitment is the commitment. And just this week, given the significant of Irish sport,

5:04given that we heard Katie Taylor say that in the north of the country, does she feel that 82,000 people would show such solidarity for one female athlete? It's such a terrible week for this to happen. And to the last, I'm just got utterly disappointed. So that was Tom Parsons speaking on last night's off the ball. Following that, the GAA did release a statement last night, and thanking Mary McElise for her role. They also said that the next phase of the project will be to distill the substantial and constructive feedback received from wide range of stakeholders into a fine set of key principles and structures to derive a detailed and sequential work plan, all of which will be advanced in 2027. So a lot of big words, including in the GAA statement released last night. Part of Godanaven, the Minister for Culture Communications and Sport, he told us that they are looking to see what they can do and outline their concerns with what they've heard. Integration is really important for the government and remains an absolute

6:04priority for me as a minister. I've spoken to Mary McElise and heard her concerns. I'm looking forward to the discussion with the GAA Association tomorrow. So that was last night, a Patigold Donovan is meeting the GAA today. And then just finally, the last bit of breaking news on this as of last night was that Labour TD and Arrakta's committee, head Alan Kelly, has called all three organisations to an Arrakta's meeting. And he is looking to find out what has gone on here and what has happened. So there's a potential for an Arrakta's committee meeting to happen between the GAA, LGFA and Kamogi Association. So that is where we're at with the story. As I said, there will be developing elements to the story as the day goes on. So it's worth keeping an eye on Rachel Sheehan, has joined us in the studio now to discuss all of that. Rachel, I realise that's a lot of information to digest. But what were your initial reactions to the story last night when it was breaking? Well, it was mad. I was actually at training. At the four and a half, I came in,

7:06that's getting the dinner ready, turned my four and a half aeroplane board, it's like, what is after happening? What's up teams, everything popping off? So it was a lot to take in that era of the nice. It was obviously so disappointing to hear the way Mary McLeese spoke, like the language she used was so strong, it was tough to listen to, to think that that might be the case at the top level of the GAA. But in terms of integration, not being put into place by 2027, I'm not surprised. A lot of the time, we've heard it, when you go around clubs and they're like, oh, that's probably not going to happen. A lot of clubs have the one club place in the model. One club, Madeline Place, which is great. But when you talk about the full integration of the GAA, people were just so unclear about what that meant. And communications seemed to be a little bit of a problem there.

8:08Listening to Mary McLeese last night, it seemed that they had everything in place for this rollout in April. Not for full integration, but just for a one GAA and a one membership model. But maybe that that hadn't been communicated to the ground level on the clubs very well. And I know that's what these three special congresses in October were due to be far, which she mentioned, where there was going to be a meeting of the El Jaffé de Kmoge and the GAA to discuss the rollout in April. So it could happen. I think there was probably just different viewpoints from what was happening at the board and the top level as to what the clubs might have felt on the ground. Yeah, so I think that's a key issue. And it's something that Tom Parsons mentioned. And it's a very important aspect of the story is that if this is concerns from one or two people within the committee and the high level of the GAA, it's not really up to them to make sweep

9:09into decisions like this. This has to go in front of committees and in front of the Congress as well, who have already agreed to integration and rolling this side by 2027. So everybody has concerns. But those concerns shouldn't supersede the actual democratic process that the GAA has to go through here. Oh, yeah. This isn't just something that they said might happen. Like, all integration would be a nice thing to have. You know, they went up in two or act as committees and said, this is the roadmap. This is what's happening. So if Anne Equilin talked about it last night as well on News Talk, and when you take a lot of the emotion out of the whole situation, the facts are that governance needs to be looked at here because this isn't a tick-tax normal back situation. You know, you've discussed this in an arctic that you can't just say, oh, no, no, we don't really

10:10mean that anymore. And especially just even if they comment and said, oh, we don't think 2027 is realistic. Maybe we could get one more year to work on it. But the fact that they said, this could take up to another five years. But as an idea, I don't think is completely shocking. If you asked a lot of people on the ground, they would say, yes, something of this scale is going to take that long to get fully embedded because there's three big organizations coming together. But it's the fact that the language around it just seems to be almost not that we don't think it's a, you know, we don't think it's possible about 2027, but no, we don't want it. When the facts are there, the members have been surveyed and they want it. You know, the members want it. I think that's, yeah, that's a key point in all of this because, look, there's several sites of this story. And it's not just people within the GA that have concerns over this. I'm sure there's people within the LGFA and the Kamogay associations that have concerns with this. There's a lot to

11:13consider from financing the team's hard as it work, from fixturilist, how do they work, how do they integrate that. And I'm sure as well on the women's side of things from the players perspectives, there's considerations to be made around, well, am I about to become a very small voice within a large pond within the GA if we're amalgamated here. Do we lose some of the power that we have within our own structure? So there are several parts of this story. But I think from what Mary McElise was saying at least last night was that all of these things have been considered. And they have been worked upon and there will be issues and she's not saying that they've come up with a perfect structure or a perfect plan. But she feels a little bit like they've pulled the rug out under her because they're now four years down the road. She said she's not getting any younger. They're pushing it out potentially for another five years and they've changed, they've moved the goalpost to use a Gabriel Bannigan phrase in the sense of they're now looking at potentially talking about equity as opposed to equality here. And that's the key issue for her. Is that they have actually, it's not that they're moving the timeline. It's that they're changing

12:17what they said they were going to do in the first place. Exactly. And what they said and agrees, which is just so important in front of the arctic twice. And up until recently as well, they all seemed aligned and she said that yeah, I've gotten the GA and the GA management committees 100% backing on this. So I think that's probably what's one of the most disappointing disappointing aspects of it. Nobody thinks or nobody ever taught that integration was going to be an easy process. It's so complex. From finances, which is probably the easy one to go what's going to happen there just down to like the the real and easy gritty of pitches and bookings. And if you've got three organizations coming together, there's salaries at the top that you know, do you still need those do you still need that amount of jobs. And but from what we've heard from Mary McLeese and the Steering Group committee that they had like you said plans in place for all of that. But maybe the problem is that none of us knew what those plans were. Yeah. And asked for more money as well, like 10 to 11 million euro, some reports and

13:23papers this morning. Could you imagine if this is the FBI or the IRFU or you know what to support Ireland have to say about this? The G is obviously the largest volunteer organization or so it tells us in the country. And this is a real slapping face, slapping the face to the volunteers and for the people and the members that actually voted for this integration model. Yeah. And that's something that Tom Parsons mentioned last night. We'll bring you that clip in just one second in terms of the money and how we actually how this works from a financial perspective because this is dead in the water if it doesn't. But one thing that he did mention and it's a very important thing to note is that it's something that we touched on with any last week when we're talking about the FBI and football and developing football is that when you're looking at sports grants, you can only get grants for facilities that are across multiple genders. You cannot apply for grants if it's not going to serve multiple teams across multiple genders and across multiple sports. So

14:25the GA who have been so good at those sports Ireland grants and getting money from the government they're going to run into trouble in the future if they can't show that they're willing to integrate which it definitely seems from a governmental perspective. We'll see what the reaction is today. But if if they're already being called upon a rock-dust committee meeting, like they're clearly not happy with the news about Mary McLease this morning. Just before we finish up on this Rachel then just from like a like a players perspective because I know you're involved in it so playing like what do you expect the overriding feeling will be within women GA players or Kamogi players? It's discussed it like you can tell already I've been anter a been anter a couple of players and just take one look online and you'll see that people are so disappointed and like you said and I think it's been used it feels like a slap in the face for a lot of people and especially with all the talk you've had recently of what a great moment that is for women in sport and Ireland with the athletics and the swimming and obviously the

15:29rowing and KD Taylor the weekend and Cropack and I think they just feel a bit blindsided because we've been talking about it like you said Mary McLease been working on this for four years and but yet you're just really really disappointed maybe a lot of people saying also not hugely surprised either which is disappointing in itself and but yeah like personally it was disappointed to hear everything yesterday but I don't think it's a bad thing now that it's so open because now this has to be addressed everyone is it's not mumbling about integration anymore being like what's not you know that might not happen on this and that it's like it's out on the national stage now so everything that's going to be communicated about integration from now on it's going to be scrutinized from a media lens from everyone else from a government lens so to me that can't be too much of a bad thing either because because if they've made these agreements

16:30then by law and by policy they probably have to stick to them yeah and so look it's it's an unfortunate way for it to happen but if it's going to it's going to show more light on it then maybe a little bit of a silver lining as the GA head here in off the ball there was a quite a substantial GA story in the last 24 hours Tommy and that Mary McElise has stepped aside I stepped down from the steering committee for the integration of the GA LGFA and Kamogi quite a number of statements coming from the LGFA and the Kamogi Association the GA Association and the GA and Tom Ryan director general was on Morning Ireland this morning talking about timelines and you know it's not dead in the water all these different sort of loose ideas based on this integration process but I guess to kick off what's your thoughts over the last 24 hours since the stories are developed? Yeah listen another huge amount has changed from my perspective since it broke yesterday

17:34even I was on my own very shortly after it it was just off the back of a seismic interview really from Mary McElise like she did not mean so words and on one hand I'd say we don't have enough of that in this country and with somebody with such a legal background unsure if she knew what ground she was on when she was delivering those statements it's worse pointed out when the accusations of misogyny were put to Tom Ryan this morning director general of the GA he said I can't accept that and I'm very furious in the strongest possible terms but Mary McElise was intimating that the GA were blocking our progress and they blocked our plans for integration last night at interview at Marie Kroll like it was so strong and she hammered the management committee really you know she she really did hammer it there's 19 people on the GA management committee Charlotte Burns and Tom Ryan are obviously mainstays in at the president director general but there's 19 people on it also so it's a really

18:35complicated story on one hand but on the underhand it's it's pretty straightforward too and I'll go back to what I said last night it feels like this is the culmination of attention between the vision that Mary McElise had when she was appointed as role as chairman of the steering group and integration and possibly the vision that the GA themselves had as you could arguably say and very easily say the strongest head of three between the LJFA and the Camoguio Association so the vision that the GA themselves have for integration and the vision that maybe Mary McElise has put forward seemed to be at longer heads and that's why this has happened and it's been a little bit of a slow burner lots in the sense that these tensions have been obvious they've been evident when you've been covering the story and trying to dig into any updates or progress on it on one hand after record you're being brief that kings can't happen this quickly and then publicly you're here in 2027 is the date that we're going to see integration and

19:40when you were trying to figure it out it never really looked like 2027 was it was going to happen certainly on a on a grand scale but I haven't even really seen plans for how things were going to progress you know McElise made the point last night that special congresses were due to happen this October between the three associations but as far as I was concerned they'd been dead in the water for a long time like they weren't happening and perhaps the GA held that carried in terms of requesting extra time they held it back as long as they possibly could but like you know I really didn't expect a special congress to be called in October this week so maybe this was the only solution to the weirdest was had it yeah and as you mentioned that management committee it's 19 people but there's nine women on that as well so it's almost a 50 50 split in terms of that management committee so it is interesting to it would be interesting to find out who within that committee held these views and why potentially their voices are being held in more higher

20:42regard than some of the other members in the committee that may disagree with this in terms of the special congress and you're hearing that it was dead in the water a long time ago in the GA and the timelines of all of this it seems like the GA have left this to the last possible moment that they could but that seems to have made things worse because now Mary McElise is in this position where she's like well I'm four years into this process I don't have another five years in me like she's she even said in her initial statement when she stepped on that she's not getting any younger here that this is something that like at some point she just need to do as opposed to kicking the can down the road and another element of the story has been not even so much the timeline but the changing of the ideas behind what integration might mean because initially it was integration means equality within the game but it signs now that the GA or some members of that management committee are leaning more towards an anacuity situation as well so it's quite the it's quite the

21:47the sweep of the carpet from underneath the the steering groups feet here yeah I don't all if I'd use the term you know sweep under the carpet like I will say that these tensions have existed throughout the rain like so I mean it's like sweeping under the carpet like pulling the rug underneath them that's what I mean pulling the rug I get you but again I I would counter that as well and in the sand start um the word privately has been that the GA have raised these concerns and even publicly like Derek Kent the incoming president like the thing I'm trying to say here is that they haven't hidden really from what they've been saying that 2020 seven is not going to happen and they're looking for an extension like Derek Kent it made it as much time Ryan said as much I think around the annual report back in February um as far as I'm aware Macaillies had been briefed in December at the GA were were going to request an extension but as I said enough to boil last night the tension that

22:48existed between what Mary Macaillies was saying as chair of the steering group and integration and what was being brief privately in the background was always different and the words I used last night was Macaillies was was bullish and dogmatic throughout the 2027 was going to happen and I believe maybe she was told at the time that this is something that will be achievable but it it seemed to change very quickly that 2027 wasn't going to happen and a lot of people on the ground felt as much and like Tom Ryan it's worth saying this morning Tom Ryan speaking this morning said that the commitment to integration for the the GA perspective remains firm and absolute we would be stronger together as one association um we missed our own deadline we have to learn and move forward he couldn't offer a precise timetable for when integration might happen because if this is kicked out of the hand for 20 year for 20 years like it's going to be no good to anybody um but you can see next steps being proposed next year and it's worth saying as well like 30% of clubs now um are operating on a one club model like steps have been made in the background

23:51these are three big complex organizations there's clubs there's underage structures there's county boards there's provincial counties there is the GA the IGF and the Kamoji themselves on the top level down and as before you even get to the things like the costs of intercounty teams which personally I feel like as a little bit of a red herring I don't think we should be thinking about that sort of stuff right from the off like on one hand some men's intercounty teams are spending crazy amounts of money and on the other hand I'm sure um teams on an LGF and Kamoji perspective could do with spending more money themselves and there's a middle ground there somewhere and it could take time to get there but um look it's definitely a blow in one sense but at the same time the manner in which Maccalaise has lit a fire under this maybe it could turn into a positive if action is taken over the next couple of weeks and months. Jan we will see some uh some more developments in the story across the day as well as I mentioned there will be a meeting between the government and the GA today with Pataco Donovan

24:55uh due to meet the GA to talk about this and Alan Kelly TD for Labour and head of the roctor's committee is looking to call in a roctor's committee hearing about this as well so it is a story that though the Irish nation are watching this now and maybe everybody's eyes weren't on this integration story maybe more a lot of people weren't aware that this was supposed to happen in October so there's very much that in the open uh I think so in one sense now it's still a devastating blow for people many people who have done a lot of work in this regard and tried to move this forward and progress forward but I would say it's been a frustrating story to cover because it was very hard to get any definitive details over the last little while about how the steering group and visage just taking place like there was talk about the one membership model coming into play in 2027 but again that's a step in the road like um that was never going to be full integration in 2027 from my perspective from what I was hearing anyway on the ground and again Tom Ryan said it again

25:56this morning uh we want this to happen on a key phase implementation process not a big bang so if this is going to happen it's probably going to be on the GA's turns and that's possibly where the tension came from McElise, Tachy had one brief the GA wanted another brief and her vision was not compatible with theirs and that's a pity because when she was appointed I was like if anyone can get this done it could possibly be Mary McElise the timeline was always ambitious but the word is that the tree associations are going to have to work towards it but they're going to need something they're going to need something in them to light a fire on them to make a keep the to keep the the momentum going here yeah like Mary McElise was president of the country in uh you know she became president 97 you know the good Friday agreement signed the 98 the fact that she you know obviously she was involved you know she was there as more of a figurehead back then but the fact that she's the head of this committee and she can't see a path forward to true

26:57integration is a really concern concerning and kind of damning indictment of the GA and where they're at at the moment I just don't know how this moves forward like what do you think Tommy is there any like how does this get kicked in the road and moves forward in a positive sense you just can imagine there you might turn this negative into a positive how does that actually happen and maybe what does that look like like she was the independent chair trying to bring the tree heads of the G.A. the Kamogi Association and the L.A. the GFA together like there's no getting away from the lives like there there's a lot of complex issues to sort out and possibly the best way of doing this is the way that it's been started which is starting with the clubs and bringing that 30% number of to 60% starting with county boards maybe starting in possibly monster and and they isn't around the country after that monster is just an example but like you think of the amount of jobs that are in Karl Park that are in the G.A. that are in the L.A. the Kamogi Association are they all going to

28:00last if you're combining these tree companies together into one are all those jobs going to be there like they're going to have to figure out a way of making this happen going forward I don't I don't know exactly what the answer is it might need a couple of the different independent chairs I don't know exactly what way they're going to keep this going forward David but I I think it's going to be imperative to keep it going forward yeah when we talk about equality I think the most important thing when it comes to equality is that when a kid walks in to address the room whether they're a boy or a girl in this country that they have an equal opportunity to play gay against whether it be L.A. Faye Kamogi her little football and that's what we should be aspiring to get then and getting to that stage across the board is going to take a lot of time yeah as I mentioned we will be covering this across the show and across our channels over the course today as the story of the ball breakfast with Viagra Connect 50 milligram film coated tablet contain sildena filferadil man with erectile dysfunction maximum dosage 150 milligram tablet per day always read the label by online the Viagra Connector ii subject to suitability following farm's consultation

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