Dublin’s David Byrne urges GAA to respond to calls to drop Allianz

DUBLIN FOOTBALLER DAVID Byrne has urged the GAA to respond to a letter signed by 800 current and former players calling for the association to end its sponsorship arrangements with insurance company Allianz.

The open letter was presented to the GAA last week at a protest outside Croke Park.

“We haven’t heard anything yet,” Dublin defender and letter signatory Byrne tells The 42.

“I was in touch with David Hickey this morning (Tuesday, 26 August), and as of yet there’s still no word from the GAA. Our confidence levels in terms of getting a response are very difficult to say at the moment, but I’d strongly urge them to dignify the letter with a response.”

A report published on the website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the UN listed Allianz among companies and corporations that was buying Israeli treasury bonds, which, the report argues, play a “critical role in funding the ongoing assault on Gaza”.

The report was written by UN special rapporteur (independent human rights expert) on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese.

“I believe that the GAA continuing a sponsorship with Allianz, which has been named by the UN as financially complicit in war crimes and genocide in Gaza, goes against the values of the organisation and as players we can’t ignore that,” Byrne, the eight-time Sam Maguire winner says. “We have to try and hold the association to account.”

Byrne adds: “The connection that Allianz has towards funding the genocide by buying Israeli bonds and giving Israel money to spend on the genocide that they’re committing in Gaza at the moment is not something that the GAA should want to be associated with in the slightest.

“I do understand that it’s Allianz’s Irish arm that the GAA does business with, not the holding company in Germany, or PIMCO who has poured the money into the Israeli bonds. But by making the decision to drop the partnership with Allianz’ Irish arm, it will have a ripple effect on their holding company which I think is important.

“I understand and sympathise with the decision makers in the GAA that there will be financial repercussions through making a decision to drop Allianz, but I think we all know that finance and money isn’t the primary motivator for the GAA and it’s not what the GAA is about.”

A petition for members of the public to join the 800 past and current intercounty players in encouraging the GAA to end the sponsorship with Allianz has been signed by more than 2,000 people in the past week.

“The GAA represents Irish culture, history and resilience. We don’t want our values to be linked with genocide and oppression and unfortunately through the association with Allianz, there is a small link there now, so hopefully the GAA will consider the letter in full and make the decision to drop Allianz,” Byrne says.

“Community and a sense of pride in where you’re from is such an integral value of the GAA and I think when you look at everything that’s happening in Gaza at the moment, in the context of that value, it really rings through how terrible it is.

“I spoke [at a Dublin Footballers for Palestine rally] a week after we had just been knocked out of the Championship, and you know, it gives you context. If you think things are bad because you got knocked out of a championship, there’s far bigger things and issues going on in the world.

“Football is just football at the end of the day. I think the GAA has always stood for more than just football, so I think it’s important that they stay true to that now.”

Allianz, in a statement to The 42 last week, said: “Our long-standing partnership with the GAA is about supporting Irish sport and communities.

“Allianz Ireland is part of a global group, and while the wider group operates internationally across insurance and investment, as a matter of principle we do not comment on individual customers or business matters.

“What we can say is that all Allianz business decisions are guided by strict legal standards and world-leading ESG principles.”