Dara Ó Cinnéide says the GAA should have extricated itself from its relationship with Allianz following last year’s United Nations-commissioned report that found a subsidiary of the group were complicit in the genocide in Gaza.
The three-time All-Ireland SFC winner believed the analysis by UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese provided enough grounds for the organisation to sever its ties with the global insurance company, who sponsor the National League and the All-Ireland senior football championship.
In December, the GAA’s ethics and integrity commission stated Allianz PLC had no involvement with the war in the Palestinian region. The GAA accepted their findings and the relationship has been retained.
Since then, Tyrone’s footballers have agreed not to give interviews with Allianz signage in the background. Ó Cinnéide had hoped Kerry’s footballers would have followed suit.
“I really do wish the Kerry lads would not align themselves in any way with Allianz. It’s not an issue that they concern themselves with and I probably would have been the same myself if I was 23 or 24, but, Jesus Christ, I would have thought it’s a no-brainer.
“It’s not anti-Semitism or anything else. Kids are being killed from the word ‘go’. I have been very careful in what I tweet about the war because you don’t want to be drawing on these pile-ons. But sometimes right is right and wrong is wrong. It’s that simple.
“It seems blindingly obvious to anybody with any reasonable sense of reasoning that this is grave, grave injustice and we will not be judged kindly for it in the years to come. And it’s too late now. The damage is done.
“Albanese’s list and reasoning were fairly solid. And I said, ‘Okay, let’s not align ourselves with Allianz. The GAA is bigger than that, we should always be bigger than that.’
“Nobody’s going to hear the GAA voice on the international scene, but a small bit helps like the Dunnes Stores workers highlighting apartheid. These things are eventually judged well by history.”
Ó Cinnéide is full of admiration for former Dublin and Meath footballers David Hickey and Colm O’Rourke who have taken prominent roles in the campaign against the GAA’s relationship with Allianz.
A protest march from Gill’s pub on the North Circular Road to Croke Park is due to take place on Saturday morning as Annual Congress takes place in the stadium.
“I just think David Hickey is a great human being, and he’s been proven right on many humanitarian issues. I have liked him from the minute I saw him out on the pitch in 1999 (Dublin’s jubilee team) protesting against the Cuban blockade.
“I would have disagreed fundamentally with some of the things he has said about Kerry football, but I remember talking to him down in Kenmare last year. I never met the man before, but I just went over to give him a big hug.
“He said, ‘I never knew you were a fucking Dub (Ó Cinnéide was born in Dublin). I said, ‘Yeah, we all want to be Dubs.’”
