Former Waterford hurler John Mullane believes that GAA President Jarlath Burns is out of touch with core members of the GAA.
Burns, the GAA boss, has become embroiled in a war of words with Taoiseach Simon Harris, Tánaiste Michael Martin, and former Tyrone footballer Sean Cavanagh over the GAA's finances and GAAGO, the much-maligned streaming service.
Certain games have only been accessible on the streaming platform through a paywall, which has angered many.
Cavanagh, speaking last week, claimed that it looked like the GAA was handpicking games and putting them behind the paywall to maximise cost and profit.
“I remember GAAGO being sold to me as ‘this is going to provide games to the world, outside of Ireland,’ but for me, Saturday night was us punishing people within Ireland who should be seeing that game because of this organisation, which is owned by RTÉ and the GAA," said Cavanagh last week.
“There’s definitely a strong suspicion that there has been tactical picking of the games to generate revenue and profit."
John Mullane thinks there needs to be a major rethink around what games are shown on GAAGO https://t.co/NVMCmS07dZ pic.twitter.com/I1GXnaCN5B
— Irish Independent Sport (@IndoSport) May 13, 2024
Jarlath Burns has since responded to that claim in an attempt to debunk the comments made by the Tyrone legend, saying they were superficial and emotional.
"That’s a superficial, emotional comment that doesn’t take into consideration the complexities of the logistics that we have to deal with in the real world," said Burns
This week, another former GAA star and former Waterford hurler, Mullane, has supported Cavanagh's view in the debate.
"I'm 100% behind Seán Cavanagh," Mullane told the presenter. "He was right on the button. Sometimes the big boys up in Croke Park don't like to be taken on. This is not an attack on Jarlath; in the first couple of months, I've been very impressed by him, but I think he's out of touch with some of the GAA members," said Mullane on Today with Claire Byrne this week.
"If you did a poll in the morning and asked people on the ground, 'are you in favour of GAAGO or not,' you'd be surprised by the numbers."
It seems there is no end to the debate, and this will rumble on for some time.
