{"id":12427,"date":"2025-08-20T21:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T21:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/12427\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T21:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T21:48:08","slug":"gaa-players-protest-over-organisations-sponsorship-deal-with-allianz-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/12427\/","title":{"rendered":"GAA players protest over organisation\u2019s sponsorship deal with Allianz \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost 800 football, hurling and camogie players have signed an open letter asking the GAA<\/a> to end its relationship with Allianz,<\/a> an insurance company, claiming its financial ties are \u201cenabling the genocide of the Palestinian people\u201d.<\/p>\n

The letter was delivered to Tom Ryan, the director general of the GAA, at a protest outside Croke Park on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

Allianz is a sponsor of the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship, the Allianz Leagues, the Camogie Association and Cumann na mBunscol.<\/p>\n

A United Nations<\/a> report published in June this year, led by special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese, found that asset management firms including Pimco<\/a>, which is owned by German-based financial services company Allianz, was a significant buyer of Israeli treasury bonds. These bonds, the report argues, play a \u201ccritical role in funding the ongoing assault on Gaza\u201d.<\/p>\n

Signatory Nodlaig N\u00ed Bhrollaigh, a barrister and former Derry footballer, said: \u201cWe are putting it up to the GAA, if you are committed to international humanitarian law and human rights then you cannot ignore this. They must cease their relationship with Allianz.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms N\u00ed Bhrollaigh sees the hundreds of signatures as a sense of \u201chow deeply people feel about\u201d the issue. \u201cThis is something we can actually do; we are not powerless. We can hold them to account now. What use is that information if we don\u2019t do something about it?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not saying anything that isn\u2019t in the public domain; we\u2019re saying we must act on it … We cannot adopt a business as usual approach,\u201d said Ms N\u00ed Bhrollaigh.<\/p>\n

She believes Allianz should not be allowed to \u201csocially-wash\u201d its brand in Ireland through the GAA. \u201cWe as a GAA community, and certainly corporate GAA, should be doing heightened human rights due diligence,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The signatories of the letter include GAA stars Dr David Hickey, Neil McManus, Peter Canavan, Tom\u00e1s \u00d3 S\u00e9, Joe Brolly, Shane McGuigan, Niall Cahalane, Terence \u2018Sambo\u2019 McNaughton, Michael Darragh McAuley, Aoife N\u00ed Chas\u00e1ide, Jane Adams, Brendan Devenney, Greg McCartan, Sorcha Gormley and Danny Sutcliffe.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Allianz said: \u201cOur long-standing partnership with the GAA is about supporting Irish sport and communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cAllianz 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost 800 football, hurling and camogie players have signed an open letter asking the GAA to end its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[7926,11795,18,5286,3761,19,17,71,3857,11796,132,2863],"class_list":{"0":"post-12427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-allianz","9":"tag-derry-gaa","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-gaa","12":"tag-gaza-strip","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-israel-hamas-conflict","17":"tag-pimco","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-united-nations-un"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}