All-Ireland Semi Final To See Launch of New GAA Game Changer Event

Sunday’s All-Ireland football semi-final between Meath and Donegal in Croke Park will see the launch of the Game Changer Activation Day.

The programme is a series of events that will spotlight what young men can do to help in the battle against domestic violence, such as active allyship and positive role modelling.

READ HERE: Meath And Donegal Make Unexpected U-Turn On Surprise Jersey Call

The Activation Day is part of the Game Changer initiative, a three-year programme which began in 2024 to try and challenge, through sport, the social norms associated with violence against women.

It hopes to encourage those within the GAA to use the positive influence of sport in Ireland and use that platform to give men within the sport the tools and knowledge to be active in promote alternative behaviours and greater role models, all in the aim to tackle domestic, sexual and gender-based violence.

Be a leader. Be a role model. Ending sexism and harassment through sport can be a Game Changer for women and girls everywhere.

Support our movement #GameChanger@RuhamaAgency @WhiteRibbonIRL @LadiesFootball @OfficialCamogie @DeptJusticeIRL pic.twitter.com/594GFazFsz

— The GAA (@officialgaa) December 13, 2024

The programme has been created in partnership with Ruhama and White Ribbon and is supported by the LGFA and Camogie Associations

As part of the events, Donegal player Oisin Gallen, who is a Game Changer ambassador, will feature in an ad promoting the important work of Game Changer that will be played around the ground.

One guest of the day will be Jason Poole, who will be speaking at a halftime interview pitch side. Jason has been a campaigner for more awareness surrounding the struggle against domestic, sexual and gender-based violence after his sister was murdered in 2021 by her former partner. This interview will be transmitted around the stadium on the big screens.

GAA Community & Health manager Colin Regan is a spokesperson for the Game Changer and has been heavily involved in the project's progress and, as he explained to Balls.ie on Friday, recent tragedies of gender-based violence have spurred people on to fight this issue

The conversation happening now around domestic, sexual and gender based violence is long overdue. I think in the Gaelic Games family, the horrendous murder of Aisling Murphy was a catalyst for a lot of those conversations. At the time we were asked what can the GAA do to help address this societal issue.

So we spent about a year formulating what the Gaelic Games family could do and the end result was Game Changer.

According to figures from Women's Aid, 35% of women in Ireland have experienced psychological, physical and/or sexual abuse from an intimate partner.

On top of that, Garda Síochána responded to over 65,000 domestic abuse incidents in 2024, which translates to an average of 1,250 incidents every week. Regan and the other organisations working on Game Changer want to help push a safer Ireland for women through the GAA.

Our values are built on belonging, that’s what makes the Gaelic games community so strong. Support our movement, be a Game Changer. pic.twitter.com/P7Z8PWV3B8

— Ruhama (@RuhamaAgency) June 27, 2025

At the time of Aisling Murphy's murder a lot of coaches, particularly male coaches were reaching out to the GAA and they were asking, what can we do? What conversations can we have with the young squads that are under our guardianship?

From listening to organisations that we work with, that are active in this space, like Women's Aid and Ruhama, it was clear that there was a lack of male voices in this space. So the first thing we are asking men to do is to take an act of an allyship role in conversations around this topic.

Regan spoke on how the organisers of the project hoped that their new e-learning programme would be would of the main factors in shaping the battle against violence of this nature, "With one of the goals of Game Changers, we are working on e-learning content at the moment that will really drill into the granular into what those sort of conversations will entail."

He continued, "It will hopefully inform and educate men that there is a spectrum here, gender-based violence doesn't just happen, there is a spectrum that leads up to it."

The Minister for Justice will be one of many government delegates to attend the match and support the initiative. This support for the initiative is further highlighted as a notable achievement in a progress report by the Department of Justice published last month on its ‘Zero Tolerance Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence’.

On the Activation Day taking place on Sunday, Regan said he was "grateful" for the player ambassadors who volunteered to support Game Changers. He also praised Jason for being a "phenomenal example of someone taking a stand in the space of gender violence".

The match programme will have a piece in the match programme, postering throughout the stadium and we will also be unfurling a massive Game Changer flag on the pitch just before the game.

Looking to the future, Regan was focused on testing the e-learning as the next step of the project, but said they "Will be continuing to promote the Game Changer programme across all club networks and we have plans for a major public campaign in 2026 but we are hoping to engage other sporting organisations in that, but we are yet to have those conversations".