Protest Planned for GAA Congress tomorrow (Sat) over Allianz Sponsorship
The Issue
A Chairde Gael,
A letter calling on the GAA to promptly cease its business relationship with Allianz was handed into Croke Park on Wednesday, 20th August 2025. It was supported by four humanitarian groups and signed by almost 800 former and current County players.
We are now calling on Gaels across Ireland and among our diaspora to lend their support to the ‘Drop Allianz’ campaign. It is our GAA and it is vital that we stand up to preserve the ethos and values of our association and ensure that the GAA is a good corporate citizen.
The business activities of Allianz since October 2023 are well documented in both the ‘Ensuring Genocide’ report and the recent UN report, ‘From the economy of occupation to the economy of genocide’
- Allianz is described as a principal shareholder of Elbit Systems and provides insurance cover for Elbit. Elbit Systems is one of the main suppliers of weapons and surveillance systems to the Israeli military.
- Since October 2023, Allianz has purchased almost €1 Billion in Israeli ‘war bonds’ through its asset management agency PIMCO.
- During the course of 2024, Allianz increased its investments in companies arming Israel.
- Allianz holds at least €7.3 Billion in bonds and shares implicated in the genocide.
A key recommendation of the UN report is that corporate entities must promptly cease all business activities and terminate relationships directly linked with, contributing to and causing human rights violations and international crimes against the Palestinian people.
The GAA must not turn a blind eye to the activities of their title sponsor or adopt a ‘business as usual’ approach in this time of genocide. To maintain the relationship is to allow Allianz to socially wash their brand in Ireland while contributing to the gravest of crimes against humanity.
Funded by the economy of genocide and assisted by advancements in technology, the genocide is happening at a scale and pace the world has never seen before. It has shocked the human conscience and we must take conscientious action.
The GAA is the largest sporting organisation in Ireland and the most influential social, cultural and community institution in Irish life. It must end the relationship with Allianz and set a powerful precedent at a time when international humanitarian law and humanity are under attack.
Allianz crossed a red line when it made the business decision to actively support the economy of genocide. The GAA now has a decision to make. If the GAA does not promptly cease the relationship it will have a negative impact on its standing now and into the future.
Ní neart go cur le chéile
Gaels against genocide, Irish Sport for Palestine, Dubs for Palestine, Gaeil ar son Gaza
Other links from the ACP website:
The ACP Leadership Team called on the Irish Bishops to sever their link with Allianz in Aug 2025:
ACP Statement on Allianz
August 21 2025
Association of Catholic Priests
Now that an impressive, possibly comprehensive, list of reputable and credible agencies is lining up to use the difficult word ‘genocide’ to describe what’s happening in Gaza, a new clarity has exposed the frightening possibility of an absolutely catastrophic ending to a tragedy that, despite Israel attempting to block media coverage, the truth is to be seen in the images of dying children on the television screens of the world.
Like an infection, the Gaza reality is now seeping outside itself and engaging the concerns – social, economic, moral – of those caught in the slipstream of that calamity. Like Allianz, the financial services company headquartered in Munich, Germany, the world’s largest insurance company and the largest financial services company in Europe.
Questions are now being asked of Allianz, arising out of its listing in a report published in June this year on the website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the UN of companies and corporations, it is alleged, help to sustain and pay for Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories.
Little wonder that the GAA in whose commercial concerns Allianz has been and continues to be deeply embedded is already under the microscope of public examination. Already a petition for GAA members is being published on Change.org and has created a huge focus on the Allianz-GAA relationship and a demand that it be ended.
A similar demand is likely to emerge when the long and close commercial relationship of Allianz and the Catholic Church in Ireland becomes clear. For decades, Allianz has been the trusted friend of the Catholic Church – even to the extent of enjoying representation on the Allianz Board – with Catholic Church properties in Ireland including places of worship, schools, cars, etc almost all being insured by Allianz as a matter of course.
Coincidentally this Sunday, Archbishop Eamon Martin, the accepted leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, together with his fellow bishops are leading a ‘Day of Prayer and Reflection for Gaza’ in the parishes and dioceses of Ireland and Archbishop Martin has issued a pastoral letter in which he calls for ‘a renewed commitment by the international community for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East’.
In the light of that ‘Reflection’ and because the present sense of outrage in the Irish Catholic Church at what’s happening in Gaza will be increased exponentially by the revelation of the Irish Catholic Church’s connection with Allianz and Allianz’s connection with the state of Israel, we ask that the response of the Irish Catholic Church should be immediate and far-reaching in cutting our links with Allianz.
Nothing less is acceptable as Irish Catholics will now be conscious of the Allianz connection – albeit by extension – and of our connection with the plight of the children we see on our television screens.
The ACP also encourages all Catholic religious Congregations and dioceses to exercise high levels of due diligence in carefully scrutinizing their investment portfolios to determine if any part of their investments is helping to sustain the appalling human rights abuse being inflicted on the Palestinian people.
Link to other articles on Allianz on the ACP website: