GAELIC SPORTS WORLD Issue 21 – March 14, 2015 | Page 7

GAA WORLD GAMES 2015
ABU DHABI, UAE

MARCH 10, 2015
BY DENIS O’BRIEN

The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA)
took a small step towards something
bigger when its Middle East GAA international unit hosted what was a
very successful inaugural GAA World
Games, last weekend March 6-7, in Abu
Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
Though there had been several international GAA tournaments played in Ireland in the 90s and the last one in 2000,
Photo courtesy of Middle East GAA/Tina & Stew Hunt.
drawing world GAA teams, the event
in the UAE broke new ground in scope
as it was more diverse and bigger. But crucially last weekend’s
was main sponsors, the local multinational company Etihad
two day event reflected the modern growing non-Irish GAA
Airways, that was fitting the bill for getting at least one team
player make-up, something previous types were not able to
from each region to the games free and supporting local costs
achieve, and so represented a genuine World Games.
associated with the games.
TRULY GLOBAL
As well as this the fact that an event of this type was taking
place for the first time outside of Ireland, heralded new beginnings defining a more realistic world dynamique. It is understood that the former events of this nature, though much
smaller in team numbers and regions, suffered at the lack of
funding from the GAA in Ireland. But this time around it

The games took place at Zayed Sports City, a vast complex of
multi sports facilities with a 50,000 stadium. The games were
centred on pristine soccer and rugby pitches located around
the stadium with the finals taking place at a 2000 seated stadium.
The World Games focused on Ladies and Men’s Gaelic Football this time and featured two specific competitions. The

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