Dublin up to make their ends meet to improve squash in Ireland

CHENNAI: If you’d entered Indian Squash Academy in Chennai on Friday, you’d probably have noticed a group of people cheering very loudly for players clad in white-and-green jerseys. Though Ireland lost to Switzerland in the team event, their co­ach, David Noone, kept giving out motivational tips to his playe­rs between and during matches.

Apart from beating a higher-ranked team like India in Women’s Hockey World Cup on Thursday, Ireland made headlines a few days ago when their government announced a new policy to double funding for sports from 112 million Euros in 2018 to 220 million  Euros for 2027. Though this looks like a great initiative to improve Irish sports, a racquet-based discipline like squash gets minimal help. Unfortunately, even for a World Championship, Irish Squash (IS) received minimal monetary support. He­nce, they had to raise money through crowdfunding to take part in this year’s World Junior Squash Championships.

“A major obstacle for squash is it is not an Olympic sport. So, funding gets slashed dramatically,” Ireland manager Brian Byrne told Express.“The fact that squash isn’t that popular back home — only in Dublin, mostly — definitely goes against it. We are not a part of Commonwealth (of Nations). So countries like Scotland get better funding.”

In order to raise money, the Ir­ish players took squash classes for children, worked part-time jo­bs, and took to social-media platfo­rms for obtaining support. Ea­ch player had to raise a minimum of 3,000 Euros. “We started our process from the end of this February. For a few months, I was coaching school kids. Then we played some exhibition matches. We also created awareness through social media platforms,” said Scott Gillanders, one of their players.  

The players also resorted to other avenues for ensuring that their expenses for this trip were covered.  “So, the boys also did a fe­w things like quiz nights, wh­ere they’d invite members of the clubs they play for — most of th­em are in Dublin — for raising money. They are very supportive. But it’s hard for a player to ask them again and ag­ain,” explained Bryne.

“But crowdfunding is something that has been used in the last couple of years. When the event is in India and the boys are here for a good two weeks, then the expenses are huge. Plus, they need to play more games to improve.

“The money that pl­a­­yers raise is handed over to our governing bo­dy. They are doing wh­at they can, but their resources are very limited. They would help if they could. Even for the senior men’s event in World Squash Championship last year, each player had to raise nearly 3,500 Euros.”

Courtesy its financial const­r­a­i­nts, squash has now assumed the status of an elite sport in Ireland, restricting the economically-challenged from taking up the sport. “It’s easy to get finances for a tournament like British Junior Open, because flights cost 30 Euros. But when you have to play in India, you need to spend a lot from your pocket,” said Gillanders.

srinidhi@newindianexpres.com