The Godfather trilogies are considered by me to be the greatest films of all time.
So much so, I took a holiday in Sicily a number of years ago with my wife, taking in the region and taking a tour of the towns, villages and countryside featured in all the movies.
There is a scene in Godfather II when a corrupt Senator, Pat Geary, visits with Michael seeking to extort money from their Family’s interests in the Casinos of Nevada.
He wants his cut for his co-operation.
Geary was very blunt in conversation and you could see the contempt he had for ‘the young Godfather’.
Interestingly Corleone rebuked and stated that Geary would end up gifting any licence to the Corleone family for ‘nothing’.
‘Senator, we are both part of the same hypocrisy. But never think that this applies to my family’ said Michael.
I loved Corleone’s response.
They are both lawbreakers, one perceived to be respectable, the other not so much.
With Qatar hosting the World Cup, the latest attempt at sports-washing the image of a country that outlaws any recognition of LGBTQ+ people and severely limits women’s rights has cast a long shadow over the ‘people’s game’.
Football and FIFA, with its history of corruption, continues to speak from both sides of their mouth and the ‘One Love’ campaign advocated by England among other nations, was abandoned in order to placate a country that shows little intention of modernising its thinking.
If teams such as England do stand for equality and inclusivity, why would they be pressurized into dropping their support for such campaigns for One Love?
Why not call the Qataris' bluff?
Sport and politics have always been intertwined and to deny this is akin to living in fantasy.
The Olympic Games of 1936 in Germany was a dangerous precedent to the horrors unleashed thereafter during the Second World War.
The Black Power salute at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics was an iconic and brave display of resistance to racial inequality in the USA and the world – and this photo of clenched fisted salutes on the podium is still celebrated today by many people who remain victim to racism.
Many athletes or teams who chose to protest or boycott such huge sports events were pariahs.
Muhammad Ali, the greatest athlete of all time, was stripped of his title and expelled from boxing in his prime, for refusing the draft and going to war against the ‘Viet Cong’.
This was not a popular protest, at a time when many still remembered the Second World War. Ali was vilified for it.
His principles hold up to everything inherently decent, good, and human in any person but this is only fully appreciated in the passage of time – sometimes with the benefit of hindsight.
Staying silent was and is much easier.
Principles are hard to come by and few are not prepared to bend them in self-interest.
The GAA have had to change over the years. Pressure from members, Governments and society have all enforced change.
We need little education on how sport, the GAA, and politics are wed together and rightly or wrongly, the very foundation of our Association was established and embedded in maintaining a sense of Irish nationalism and promotion of our Irish culture and identity.
Whether Ireland was politically governed by the British parliament or not, this unique Gaelic Association was an All-Ireland movement that did not recognise borders.
Increasingly modernising and moving with the times has been a fundamental part of their modus operandi.
In the past, the GAA, as a body, has been slow to enact change.
However, with an increasingly diverse and younger generation emerging, the GAA have been increasingly to the forefront in society.
We have become increasingly contemptuous toward politics and politicians, when at one time, as a profession, politics was once viewed as respectable.
It is hard to be anything other than cynical when you see the many injustices in society.
Homelessness, food banks, poverty, the health crisis, the list is endless.
I do not believe that individuals go into politics for wrong reasons, it is rather the case that the ‘system’ inevitably drags any person down.
Fundamentally, from my perspective, the GAA is a force for good – a place that can transport us away from other injustices prevalent out there.
The club championships demonstrate it best of all during this time of the year.
‘The club’ is always a home for a GAA member, a place for a volunteer and somewhere were a job can always be found for those willing.
The acknowledge and integration of the many facets of our society from LGBTQ+, to those with learning difficulties and challenges, has to continue to be at the forefront of our clubrooms and association.
Prejudices cannot be allowed to fester nor be facilitated.
Where society, commercialism and perhaps politics fail people, the GAA must not.
The promotion of our ‘Irishness’ and culture need not be eroded through integration but enhanced.
This is not as big an issue in the 26 counties, however integration of other faiths, including Protestants and Muslims are certainly applicable in the north.
I do think the importance one places on religious faith, no matter what that happens to be, is being eroded in these modern times.
Shared interests appear to be more binding nowadays – not religion.
This places the GAA at a distinct advantage in terms of attracting more players to the game.
The beauty about our Association as opposed to the FA or those operating under the direction of a larger, more corruptible and less principled organisation like FIFA, is the ability to adopt and, were needed, drive change.
We have the capability to not be directed by money, state force or indirect threats as many nations were at the World Cup in their ‘One Love’ stance.
We can choose to be directed by sheer decency and a sense of right and wrong.
We can adopt our own societal and political stance if we so wish.
We, in the GAA, can take a principled stance and not cower to pressure or threats.
Unique – absolutely – thank goodness for the GAA.
Sometimes we are all part of the same hypocrisy, the GAA is not perfect – but in the words of Michael Corleone ‘never think that it applies to our family’.
