By Irishexaminer.com,John Fogarty

Copyright irishexaminer

The rule at present reads: “All jerseys, shorts, stockings, tracksuits (tops and bottoms) and kitbags, worn and/or used for official matches, in pre-match or post-match television or video interviews, player walk-ups and photographs, shall be of Irish manufacture. This requirement shall also apply to replica playing gear.”

Croke Park want to replace “of Irish manufacture” with “manufactured by a GAA licensed kit manufacturer”.

Down, Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Tyrone as well as former GAA president Seán Kelly were among the speakers who queried the proposal and it was withdrawn by GAA president Jarlath Burns with a mind to being revisited at Special Congress next month.

Burns said the GAA risked facing a €10 million fine if it did not amend the rule and in the intervening months both counties and manufacturers have been given commitments that while there will be more competition, multinationals will not be taking over.

Rumours about Croke Park taking a percentage of jersey sales from larger counties have also been dispelled.

As the GAA finalise an updated list of kit manufacturer licensees, companies have been informed that they must be able to provide jerseys within seven to 10 days of the order being made. That requisite lends towards companies having the production means on this island.

Speaking after electing to withdraw the motion in Donegal in February, Burns said: “I actually didn’t anticipate myself that it was going to generate such an amount of comment and such a wide variety of opinions.

“We’re going to revisit that. The first thing we should have done was to reassure our current kit manufacturers that this was not an attack on them. But we have to be Article 102 compliant, and that talks about the abuse of the dominant position.

“We have a dominant position because we are organising the GAA, so we have to be careful we don’t abuse it. That’s really what we’re doing. And then the CCPC (Competition and Consumer Protection Commission), they’re always interested in this sort of thing, and rightly so.”

Burns continued: “We only allow a small number of kit manufacturers into our county set-up to ensure that they get a good run at being able to make a profit. Because Ireland’s a very small market, and if you flood that market with kit manufacturers very quickly, none of them will survive that.”

At the end of the 2025 season, O’Neills had contracts with 28 counties including London and New York. Outside of that, McKeever have deals with Armagh and Westmeath, Azzurri with Waterford and Gaelic Armour with Leitrim.

Other Irish companies producing GAA sports gear include BOF Sportswear (Cork), B&T Sports (Tipperary), Bourke Sports (Tipperary), KC Sport (Westmeath-based), Masita (Meath), MFC (Derry), Bodibro (Wexford), O’Reillys (Donegal) and Intosport (Kilkenny).