Am I the only person who thinks to build a Centre of Excellence in Bohola is utter madness?

If the ears of Kevin McStay and Stephen Rochford were burning last week, it wasn’t just because of the dawn to dusk sunshine. As their predecessor James Horan explained, the “jungle drums” were beating loudly across the Plain of the Yews. And while the rain has now come, the heat has remained.

You’d have thought 70,000 and not 7,000 had been in MacHale Park to see Mayo lose to Cavan such was the outpouring of opinions – on the street and on social media – about the defeat. Just think about that though; only 7,387 (and not all of them Mayo fans), on a perfect day for spectating, saw fit to pay into a game of senior championship football that no matter how smart your device, wasn’t available for viewing anywhere other than at the ground itself. To put that into context, 12,291 – almost 5,000 more – were recorded as paying into MacHale Park on a cold and hard first Sunday of February this year, to watch Mayo and Galway play a league game that was broadcast live on national television.

James Horan, in his role as football analyst for the Irish Examiner, spoke very little last week about the shortcomings in Mayo’s performance, other than that the home side were the opposite of Cavan’s ‘energy, enthusiasm and innovation’. But after a weekend that also saw Mayo beaten by Louth at U20 level, he did speak at length about the root causes – as he sees them – behind Mayo’s continuous struggle “to be one of the best in the country”.

“Mayo’s structures are farcical for an intercounty setup,” declared Horan.

“We haven’t built structures or laid down foundations like we should have over the last decade. We are behind so many other counties, what they have done and how they have progressed. Their structures, their coaching, their pitches, their academies, I think that is where so much needs to be looked at,” said the Ballintubber man, claiming that for the last two years of his second tenure in charge, he was “scrambling and scraping off clubs to try to get venues to train,” because Mulvey Park, the pitch behind MacHale Park, was in no fit state.

“How many counties have CEOs or performance directors?” he continued. “Mayo, in terms of GAA, is a big brand. It’s a big business. We just don’t have the structures to support it. I think that is where a lot of the ire and the focus should be. Not just on what people see at the tail end of it, which is an intercounty manager or the players. To me, it is incredible and there isn’t that much heat about it.” 

Later in the week I took a dip into the waters of the Mayo GAA Blog, wondering might the atmosphere among supporters have cooled any since that initial raw emotion of seeing their team lose a game they had been 1/6 favourites to win. But like how a marine heatwave has been declared off the west coast of Ireland, the temperature in Willie Joe’s room had risen several degrees above normal too. James Horan might have said he was not making "a direct correlation" between absent structures and the Mayo team’s performance against Cavan, but plenty more were prepared to.

“Horan is just saying what lots of us have been saying for years,” wrote the creatively named Mayonaze.

“No COE. F**k all training facilities. A financial shambles/debt. No coherent plan or structure. Zero leadership. Bad decision making in terms of managerial decisions… Until the right people are at the top of Mayo GAA we will continue to fail,” reckoned the sauce man (or woman), adding, for extra flavour, that these points were all far more important to discuss than what Mayo team may or may not line out against Tyrone next Saturday.

Mind the House described the lack of training facilities for Mayo’s inter-county teams as “scandalous” and that having to, as James Horan had put it, scratch around for pitches, was “ridiculous”.

And while Bonni Boyler hadn’t ruled out altogether the possibility of a firm response by the Mayo team in this championship – “We may have a kick in the mule yet” – overall, they reckoned Mayo GAA was not headed in the right direction.

“The infrastructure should be the focus to ensure we have a Centre of Excellence and constant improvement to MacHale Park and grassroots facilities. It’s a conversation that needs to be had after the season ends. If nothing changes, nothing changes.” 

GlasagusDearg was in agreement with Bonni Boyler that, ultimately, the county board was the most answerable and responsible for the woes of Mayo football, and said it was a nettle that had to be grasped since Mayo had now fallen “way behind a lot of other counties” in terms of both player development and facilities.

“I would love to see the appointment of a Strategic Executive, Guru, Tsar or any other title, who would be given overall responsibility for the future improvement and development of Mayo football, including facilities, structure, organisation, coaching and player development,” opined GlasagusDearg, adding: “I think that James Horan, if he was interested, would be ideal – a meticulous, forensic man with vision, who would probably relish the challenge and meet it full on. One can only hope and pray.” 

All hail Tsar Horan, anyone?

But just as James Horan had hinted that Mayo’s display against Cavan was no excuse for whatever off-field shortcomings may exist, JoeG (one of the few to give even a hint of what might be their christened name and even then, they could be Brendan or Bridie for all we know) took serious issue with the few on the Mayo GAA Blog who had tried to mount some sort of defence of those in charge of the team.

“Looking at our performances this year and concluding that we just don’t have the tools is accepting that all the selections were correct and the issue with style of play has nothing to do with management and coaching.” 

No free pass for McStay, Rochford and co there then. (The news since that Kevin McStay has stepped aside from his role as manager because of health issues is a sharp reminder of the unimportance of football in the grander scheme of things. We wish him a swift and full recovery.)

But facilities – or more to the point, a lack of – have all of a sudden come into sharp focus here in Co Mayo.

It seems every county wants its own Centre of Excellence these days, which begs the question what advantage will that give anyone when every county gets their way? Roscommon are further down the road than Mayo in joining with Galway, Sligo and Leitrim as the Connacht counties to have a training base to call their own. But what then? Better players across the province yet the same old order?

One thing I do know is that the year Galway became one of the first counties in the country to move into their own Centre of Excellence in Loughgeorge, outside Claregalway, is also the year Galway won their last All-Ireland SFC title. I know too that the present Limerick hurling team has been labelled as arguably the greatest ever to have played the game without a sod turned on a proposed Limerick GAA Centre of Excellence at a 20 acre site outside Patrickswell. So what’s more important – developing property or players?

For all that we are immensely proud of the Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence and fully appreciate its benefits, there have been fewer of the main All-Ireland titles won by Connacht counties in the twelve seasons since its opening in December 2012 than there were in the twelve seasons prior: 2001-2012 – one senior, four U20/21, two minor; 2013-2024 – no senior, three U20, two minor.

So by what yardstick would a Mayo GAA Centre of Excellence, for example, be deemed a success? Because to blame the absence of one for our losing of multiple All-Ireland senior finals heretofore only deflects from some terrible managerial decisions and selections (insert your own ‘favourite’ here) and some plain bad mistakes by players along the way.

To be clear, I am wholeheartedly in favour of investing in the development of new training and playing facilities that will benefit Mayo GAA inter-county teams. It’s easy to imagine what access would do for clubs and schools systems too, and for the LGFA and Camogie Association whose planned integration with the GAA is due in 2027. But am I the only person who thinks it’s utter madness, irresponsible even, that Mayo GAA might develop a Centre of Excellence in Bohola?

It’s a question I first asked myself when initial details of the project were unveiled at the annual Mayo GAA convention last December and again last week, after the debate sparked by James Horan.

The suitability of the 26 acres of land that has been generously gifted to Mayo GAA by construction tycoon and Bohola native, Bill Durkan, is being assessed at present by engineers. But has anyone stopped for one moment to consider seriously the suitability of the location?

There’s a little over twelve miles between the proposed Mayo GAA Centre of Excellence and the existing Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence near Bekan. A leisurely pace and you’d still comfortably drive from one to the other in less than 20 minutes.

A ballpark figure of €15.5 million plus VAT has been presented as the cost of developing the new CoE but that may be a conservative estimate as it was based on a four pitch development whereas Mayo County Board has already looked towards developing a fifth pitch. Factor in that Connacht GAA spent more than €10 million to construct its own Centre of Excellence – and that was before the addition of the €3.1 million Air Dome (which is now being replaced at a potential cost of €4 million), spectator stands and several other improvements – and if the Mayo CoE was to proceed, the GAA would have spent an approximate €35 million on developing two facilities not even a half-marathon apart. I’m surprised Croke Park is even allowing Mayo officials to entertain the idea because it just doesn’t feel right that a supposed amateur organisation could spend so much on two projects of such size and in such close proximity.

All the while Blacksod sits 68 miles away from Bohola.

To put that into context, it would be like asking a Mayo player from Bohola to travel 68 miles north to Ballyshannon or 68 miles east to Edgeworthstown or 68 miles south to Gort, multiple times a week to train and to play. Not only that, it’s the parents who would often have to drive them, given that Mayo GAA is as much about underage and academy teams as it is the flagship senior. Are the boys and girls of Achill and Louisburgh supposed to be grateful they’d only have to make round trips of 100 and 72 miles respectively if called for duty to a new Centre of Excellence in Bohola?

If Mayo GAA really believes it can raise the required €15.5 million through large capital grants, Croke Park funding, new and existing partnerships, and through fundraising, as delegates were told last December, would it really be the wisest idea to plough all that into one single project? In Bohola?

Imagine if Mayo GAA instead entered into some sort of anchor tenant arrangement with Connacht GAA at the superb Centre of Excellence which, very fortunately, already exists within the county, where they would have exclusive access to a couple of pitches and all the other on-site facilities. (It’s my understanding there may already be scope to develop extra pitches in Bekan.) 

I don’t know what the market rate for such an arrangement might be but do have some idea about pitch rental per game, so let’s say Connacht GAA decided it could make two pitches exclusively available to Mayo GAA, and let’s also say Mayo GAA offered to pay Connacht GAA €500 a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year, for the next 25 years. Generous? That arrangement would amount to just over €4.5million – about a third of what it’s likely to cost Mayo GAA to build their own Centre of Excellence, even allowing for a touch of inflation along the way.

And if we haven’t landed Sam Maguire by then, it would be the least we deserved if the small print allowed John Prenty to double our rent. He’ll still be provincial secretary surely?

But seriously, with those immediate savings, what then if Mayo GAA was to look at developing a couple more modest two-pitch centres, at other strategic locations across the county. My guess is you could still be a tidy sum below what is currently being proposed to spend – and that’s not to forget you already have everything that MacHale Park offers in terms of its own playing, training and administrative facilities.

Speaking of which, if Mayo GAA really believes it can raise €15.5 million, then why the hell is there one big argument ongoing about an outstanding debt on MacHale Park? Ask every club would they rather a Centre or Excellence or be unburdened of the thousands of euro they are having to pour into Mayo County Board’s coffers annually, to help service monthly loan repayments of €25,000, and I’d hazard the answer.

This is a county board, don’t forget, as was reported here in the Western People last week, that managed to get approval from delegates to develop a full length 4G astroturf pitch behind MacHale Park, but failed to point out that it won’t be wide enough to play an official match on. Nor could the board say how much money it expected to receive from allowing Connacht play Munster in the United Rugby Championship at a sold-out MacHale Park last March. When most assumed a fee would have been pre-determined, an impression was given that Mayo GAA was at the mercy of their guests.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers – mine are mere observations and suggestions that some of you could no doubt find fault with or improve greatly upon – but would you go the expense of building on a site just because it had been gifted to you, knowing the house wasn’t where you needed or wanted to live? At least you can sell a house on.

The Bohola project should not be allowed to proceed unchecked. And then it should be checked again. That much I feel sure of.