All that’s missing from the Softball Ireland board is the funny hats. The coronation of the next Softball Ireland President is about to happen, as there is only one person running for “election”. Not much of an election; then again, there hasn’t been one of those for at least a dozen years.
The outgoing Softball Ireland President only took the position due to it being vacated by the previous President (I wonder why that was?), and though the position normally carries a 3-year term, since then no one has seriously contested the position, so he’s continued to maintain it. It is my recollection that at one point there was an “election”, where he ran on a re-election platform of “yeah, I’ve been pretty terrible at this, and nothing has been done, but gimme another chance and I’ll do better!”. He did not, as far as I can see. The governing body’s website only sporadically gets updated, it is chock full of outdated and incorrect information, and when requests are made via email regarding resources they say are available, they are either ignored or never responded to at all.
When I filed a complaint to the national governing body against my local league back in 2022, as the local league had suppressed an investigation into a sexual harassment complaint I filed with them, the governing body of softball did conduct an investigation. Sadly, it was incomplete, fundamentally flawed, and the findings remain unpublished to this day.
Today, we are facing a continued run backwards, into another “Dark Ages” – you could also say another “Lost Decade” – where the only person willing to be President of Softball Ireland, does so on a platform taken straight out of the year 2001. “Let’s build a softball diamond!” (The candidate’s provided “manifesto” doesn’t contain much more than that.)
Why is this such a bad idea? After all, wouldn’t it be nice to have a dedicated softball diamond? Sure, but let’s look at this more closely. For instance: who would play there? Not many, certainly not the majority of the grass-roots membership of the Dublin league, who would be the ones mostly paying for it; and certainly none of the “not Dublin” softball membership (Galway, Ulster), who would also be paying for it via their membership fees. Simply put: it begs the question that this would be of any significant benefit to softball, and the cost is not insignificant. If you’re going to put energy into this endeavor, you really need to be able to provide a lot more detail as to why this is a benefit (and to whom), what exactly are the costs, and who pays them. None of those details are forthcoming, only aspirations.
What stands out most to me is the idea of redefining the “corporate structure” of the sport’s governing body. Again, there is zero detail as to why this is necessary, while at the same time it has been floated to define the corporate structure of the national governing body of softball as a charity. If this sounds weird to you, it is – but it is not uncommon. There are literally thousands of registered “charities” in Ireland; there is also no shortage of complaints against charities questioning their legitimacy. How a sports governing body qualifies as a charity needs to be explained.
This reveals the bigger problem: the national governing body of the sport of softball in Ireland continues running backwards into another Lost Decade, into another Dark Ages. Questionable ethics, misguided goals, zero detail or explanation of what they are doing or why, no hint of transparency, and no broader view of the promotion of softball across the whole of Ireland.