Ireland’s main sporting body keeps genocide funder Allianz as sponsor

The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) has chosen to maintain its insurance and sponsorship agreement with Allianz, despite the company being part of so-called Israel’s economy of genocide, outlined in a landmark UN report. The GAA is the main administrator of traditional Irish sports such as Gaelic football and hurling, with over 2,200 clubs registered as members.

Gaelic Athletic Association

The sporting body had assigned a review of the deal with the German financial services monstrosity to its Ethics and Integrity Commission (EIC). The Gaelic Athletic Association set up the EIC in the wake of pressure from members demanding that the association drop Allianz, citing its appearance in a report by the brilliant UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. In that report, entitled From economy of occupation to economy of genocide, Albanese outlined how Allianz have been ploughing money into the illegitimate Zionist pseudo-state, saying:

Global insurance companies, including Allianz and AXA, also invest large sums in shares and bonds implicated in the occupation and genocide, partly as capital reserves for policyholder claims but primarily to generate returns. Allianz holds at least $7.3 billion and AXA, despite some divestment decisions, still invests at least $4.09 billion in tracked companies named in this report.

She went on to detail how they fund the high-risk work of companies that operate as part of ‘Israel’s’ ongoing land theft project, enabling them to continue their criminality knowing they have an insurance behemoth at their back:

Their insurance policies also underwrite the risks other companies necessarily take when operating in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, thus enabling the commission of human rights abuses and “de-risking” their operational environment.

GAA’s ‘Ethics and Integrity’ Commission doesn’t understand its own name

Nonetheless, the authors of the Ethics and Integrity Commission report determined that the genocide funding company should be kept. A Gaelic Athletic Association statement gives the reasons, including:

• If the GAA was to terminate its contracts with Allianz it would be impossible to secure an alternative insurer that would not have similar links.
• The unilateral termination of the contract with Allianz plc by the GAA could expose the Association to legal consequences apart from loss of sponsorship.
• The GAA is ethically and legally bound to honour its contracts and a failure to do so has the potential to damage its reputation and undermine its ability to do business with commercial entities.
• Allianz plc has no involvement with the IDF or corporate entities involved in the war in Gaza. Any such relationship is with a ‘sibling or cousin company’.

Now, this might be linguistic pedantry, but one might think an ‘Ethics and Integrity’ Commission might want to focus on – just as a starting point – ethics and integrity. Instead, the reasons cited focus on the practicalities of securing alternative insurance, legal consequences and potential reputation damage. The moments where they get close to honouring their own name still manage to find a means of falling short.

In terms of alternate insurance providers, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement do not have a policy of finding a perfect, spotless option when dealing with complicity companies. An emphasis is placed on avoiding the primary targets of the movement, and other companies that egregiously fail, as Albanese’s report proves Allianz do.

That Allianz supposedly have “no involvement with the IDF” is a red herring; again the UN findings are clear on Allianz’s criminality. The fact that the GAA report refers to “the war in Gaza” rather than the Zionist holocaust in Gaza, tells the reader all they need to know about the useless commission’s starting point for examining these issues.

Decision condemned by activist groups

Activist group Gaels Against Genocide have condemned the Gaelic Athletic Association decision, saying:

It was important to give the GAA an opportunity to show us where they stand. The content, tone and utter lack of human empathy in the press release is telling. The GAA executive has adopted a ‘business as usual’ approach in a time of genocide.

The ethics that the Executive concerned itself with was not the genocide rather, the ethics of ending a commercial contract. It is now up to the grassroots of the GAA to make their position known at Congress.

They concluded by saying:

Given the history and values of the GAA, it should adopt a human rights based approach in its commercial dealings. This requires contracts to be screened for human rights violations in times of conflict.

System change is vital and we remain dedicated to our aim. We have faith in the great goodness and decency of the people of our Association.

The Gaelic Athletic Association has historically characterised itself as not being politically neutral. It has claimed to act as a vessel for the preservation of Irish culture, and as a vehicle for anti-imperialism.

This pretence now appears to have evaporated. Business concerns now appear to trump doing the bare minimum during a modern-day holocaust. As musician Nodlaig Ní Bhrollaigh put it:

For the GAA, it’s ‘business as usual’ – the banality of evil.

Featured image via the Canary