Donal Og Cusack has suggested that the GAA are “starving hurling of oxygen” by continuing to show the sport on the GAAGO subscription service.
The former Cork hurling goalkeeper has long been a passionate advocate for increased viewing options for the hurling championship – a “cultural cornerstone” which he believes the Association have neglected.
Action from both the football and hurling championships kicked off last month, with Clare and Limerick’s meeting in the Munster hurling round-robin falling on April 21.
Wexford’s hurlers were also out on that date and suffered defeat to Dublin. The Model followed that up with a disappointing two-point loss against Antrim.
This meant that by the time they faced Galway on May 4 – a game they went on to win by eight points – they were already out of contention in the championship.
Cusack sounded alarm bells over the sheer volume of Gaelic football fixtures compared to those in hurling, with 30 games more in the football championship. The ex-Rebel stopper also noted how hurling games were shoe-horned in wherever possible among what was already established on the football slate.
Speaking on Hurling Nation on RTE’s Morning Ireland, he said: ‘The senior hurling championship involves 34 matches, the football championship is 64 matches. For some reason, those 34 hurling games have to be squeezed into the cracks between the football schedule.
‘The All-Ireland hurling final has to be done and dusted before the football showpiece. Why?’
Cusack then hinted at Croke Park’s hosting of the Champions Cup semi-final between Leinster and Northampton and added the Association ought to “look at that other sport and think about marketing their own game”.
The 47-year-old explained hurling needed the “oxygen” of exposure which football enjoyed before going on to call out the Irish government over what he believed to be a lack of support for the sport.
‘It is commonly acknowledged that hurling needs oxygen,’ he continued. ‘This weekend the people charged with promoting the game have given up that opportunity in order to sell subscriptions for a commercial entity. A commercial entity that does hurling in Ireland very little service.
‘With this evidence of a glaring leadership vacuum and the sport’s visibility at stake, Hurling Nation asks where does the government of Ireland stand when it comes to supporting not just the sport but a cultural cornerstone?’
