In attendance, from left, GAA international manager Charlie Harrison, Ard Stiúrthóir of the Camogie Association Sinéad McNulty, LGFA Chief Executive Officer Helen O'Rourke, Camogie Association President Hilda Breslin, Uachtarán Chumann Lúthchleas Gael Larry McCarthy and GAA World council chairperson Niall Erskine at the launch of the World GAA Strategy at Canal Court Hotel in Newry, Down. Photo by Ben McShane/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
The launch of World GAA’s first ever Strategic Plan last week threw into sharp relief just how much the Association has blossomed outside of Ireland in recent years.
The seven international units now boast a total of 475 clubs and that number is ticking upwards steadily year on year.
Which is why this strategic plan is both timely and necessary. It lays out a road map for the further growth ahead, and identifies four key pillars that international units will prioritise in the next three years – Coaching and Games, Health and Wellbeing, PR and Communications, and Officer Training.
According to the GAA’s International Manager, Charlie Harrison, the overall objective of the Strategic Plan is to enable each International unit to become more self-sufficient in all aspects of Gaelic games.
“The units have done unbelievably well to cater for everybody internationally playing our games,” Harrison told GAA.ie.
“But we thought it was time that we had a structured plan that outlined those four key pillars that are in the document that will cater for the numbers that are going abroad and also the numbers of non-Irish-born people that want to take up our games.
“The growth is exciting and so too has been where we're popping up, all over the world in non-traditional international GAA hot-spots.
“You would have always considered cities like New York, Chicago, London, and Sydney as the big ones, but we're popping up all over the World now in places like Argentina, Africa, all parts of Europe. And it's not just the expats anymore.
“It's well-documented the numbers that are leaving the Irish shores but there's a lot of non-Irish-born people taking up the game as well.”
International units get a lot of support from initiatives such as the Global Games Development Fund and the twinning programme with the four provinces in Ireland who provide help with a range of activities such as coaching, refereeing, and administrative development.
That assistance will always be invaluable, but the main thrust of the Strategic Plan is to help overseas units become more self-sufficient in such vital areas.
France ladies football squad during day four of the FRS Recruitment GAA World Games 2023 at the Owenbeg Centre of Excellence in Dungiven, Derry. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile.
“What we're trying to do is stop the reliance on the island of Ireland, really,” says Harrison. “In the next five years we want to be able to arm the units so they can cater for themselves in so many senses, but particularly in terms of Games Development.”
“We’ll be focusing on things such as getting Coach Developers trained up in the countries themselves. There's a target there of getting two new coach developers each year in each of the units.
“That would stop us flying people over and trying to do a quick fix. Instead, we'd have people in places like Australia who would be able to deliver coaching courses there.
“Even by just putting out an email we've discovered some Coach Developers that are already in New Zealand, Asia, and other parts of the World. So that will help us in that regard.”
The Strategic Plan is also a timely document because of the rapidly increasing numbers of children and youths playing Gaelic games outside of Ireland.
The Gaelico Escolas Project has coached thousands of Galician children how to play football in the last three years.
In order to become more sustainable in the long-term, many clubs have focused on underage development with great results, particularly in places like Galicia in the north of Spain where over 10,000 children have been coached how to play Gaelic games in the last three years.
“Traditionally in World GAA it would have been from adult level that things would stem,” says Harrison.
“But what we're seeing now is a big emphasis on child and youth development. Especially in the likes of Galicia, but also all around the World.
“In Dubai you have a massive juvenile only club there where they have two to three hundred kids who train every week.
“That wouldn't have traditionally been seen in the Middle East where the playing cohort has generally been teachers that go over there, you have around two and a half thousand teachers going over there every year. There seems to be a trend now where people are staying over there and they want their kids to play.
“The Strategic Plan is designed to help international units complete the player pathway from child to youth to adult level and to provide enough meaningful games all along the pathway.
“Even this year we see USGAA joining the Junior All-Ireland championship for the first time and that's the end goal for all of these units where they would have a pathway whereby their kids could play the whole way up from Go Games, Cúl Camps, tournaments, Féile, senior club, and then to have an opportunity if they wanted or were good enough to play in a senior All-Ireland competition.”
Pictured are the Brussels team who won the first ever European Féile in 2022.
The challenge for World GAA is that with new units being formed all the time and with many others established in their local communities for decades, a one size fits all approach to development doesn’t work.
The Strategic Plan takes this into account but doesn’t shy away either from laying out a blueprint that, if followed, will significantly strengthen those units who hit the targets within it regardless of their starting point.
“It's probably a really ambitious plan but I think strategic plans by their nature have to be that,” says Harrison. “You have to set out goals, you have to try to put some numbers on things.
“It's going to take a lot of hard work and dedication to try to hit some of those numbers but I think they're useful to have as targets.
“We're really developed in some parts of the world like the traditional hot-spots I mentioned such as Chicago, New York, London, Sydney. Units really developed in those places with really good Leagues and Championships.
“It's up to the other units now to be able to establish their Leagues and Championships and try to be able to cater for what the other units who have been there longer are already catering for.
“Some of the units are only starting up and I suppose it's up to us in Croke Park and their twinning provincial partners who play a vital role in that as well to support them along the way.
“Not just in a Games Development sense but in a policy procedure sense as well to make sure that everything is being run correctly in terms of governance. It's just a learning curve for everyone.”
Cáirde Khmer GAA club members pictured at Independence Monument in Phnom Penh.
The beauty of bringing people into the GAA from other countries and with no background in the game is that they usually bring new ideas with them.
Necessity is the mother of invention for many international units and one of the reasons why the growth in their numbers has been rapid despite the logistical challenges of setting up a GAA club outside of Ireland.
“That's the way it works and it has to work like that,” says Harrison. “I can't get around to every corner of the World where Gaelic games is played. Different jurisdictions have different laws and different ways of working.
“That's why we have to listen to the people on the ground so when they come to us with ideas we say, okay, well that could fit or maybe we could tweak it a bit to fit this way.
“Facilities is the major thing. Working with other NGBs like rugby union clubs, soccer clubs, you name it, we're trying to get involved with other sports so we can collaborate with them in some way and even use their players to play our games in our season and then our players can play their game in their season.
“There's a lot of that going on as well that you wouldn't see on the island of Ireland and it's very much a community-based event when you go to a World GAA event abroad.
“Not saying that it's not here in Ireland, but it seems to be more of what the GAA traditionally was years ago where everything revolves around the GAA club. You meet up early on a Saturday or Sunday and every sort of lunch or barbecue or whatever seems to be done together and that connection to home is very important to people who are living abroad.
“Even people who aren't from Ireland like the cultural element that we bring to it as well. The women’s side of the house and the men's side of the house seems to get on really well abroad because that's what a GAA club looks like there. World GAA is already fully integrated, it's all the One Club model.”
A vibrant social scene is a big part of the culture for international units such as the Darmstadt hurlers in Germany.
It’s going to be very interesting to see just how big World GAA becomes over the next number of years and decades.
The increasing number of children playing Gaelic games in places like Galicia and France as well as the in more established international units around the globe suggests it’s only going in one direction.
This first Strategic Plan and those that will surely follow it should mitigate any potential growing pains and help ensure the growth is a sustainable one.
“You mentioned Galicia and parts of France...we're on the school sporting curriculum in those countries which is really exciting,” says Harrison.
“Four and a half thousand kids participating in schools coaching in Galicia year on year, that's huge, and France is not too far behind.
“What we want to do is try to get other international units to where USGAA is. To have meaningful games the whole way across the player pathway.
“The IOC (International Olympic Committee) recognition piece is a long-term goal as well, because that will give us better access to facilities abroad.
“There's quite a few little targets within that document and if they can be reached then World GAA will be in a really good place.”