GAA can take the lead and publish Ryan’s salary
WHEN the GAA decided to launch its manifesto last week, the venue of St Colmcille’s in Meath was chosen for good reason. In the words of president John Horan, here is ‘an example of a club that exemplifies the spirit of the GAA’. One that is accessible to everybody in the community.
The flagship team may be the senior footballers but the junior D team is there as a semi-retirement home for those unwilling to give up on the dream.
The Gaelic4Mothers initiative is seven years on the go, a non-competitive, social outlet that as the promo clip explains, has helped a lot of people through difficult times.
On Saturday mornings, the club caters for a mixed ability group of kids — ‘The Cilles Champs’.
That’s in addition to the everexpanding academy for a club whose population around the seaside location of Bettystown close to the Louth border has expanded from 9,000 to 25,000 in the last decade. Everything from art classes to Irish classes take place on the grounds during the week.
An outreach and mental health programme includes the Men’s Shed, a group of men who meet up twice a week to make things for the local community and socialise.
As an organisation, the modern shift has been towards taking a broader role outside of the playing of games.
The phasing out of alcohol sponsorship was another example, even when rival organisations were happy to cash in — it’s no longer the hurling championship that is linked to Guinness but rugby’s Pro 14 and autumn series. Meanwhile, Carlsberg is the FAI’s ‘Official Beer Sponsor’.
Similarly, the GAA has taken the lead in terms of social responsibility on the issue of gambling with the decision at Congress last year to ban all sponsorship by betting companies, to go with the ban on betting on underage games.
Right now, the biggest story in Irish sport relates to financial transparency and accountability, John Delaney’s tenure as CEO unspooling on the back of revelations by The Sunday Times over a ‘€100,000’ bridging loan, Delaney’s stonewalling of an Oireachtas committee, and the latest credit card detailings that have made for eye-watering reading.
His fall from grace has only served to shine a spotlight on the financial dealings of the country’s top sports organisations, from the top down.
Put a spotlight on best practice.
On that front, the GAA’s annual report — made public and available to anyone interested at the click of a button — gives a detailed breakdown of the money that comes in and goes out, showing how so much of it is redistributed to units, a trickle-down effect to the grassroots that includes the likes of St Colmcille’s.
The most recent report shows total revenue for 2018 of €63.5 million, of which €52.89 million (83.3 per cent) was redistributed to counties, clubs, and schools. The next logical step? Make public the salary of the director general. Purely in the interests of further transparency and accountability to its own grassroots membership.
Tom Ryan features in the promo clip that went with the manifesto launch. I asked him that very question on his appointment when he succeeded Páraic Duffy in the role last year, in relation to his own position and that of the directors in Croke Park.
‘I don’t dictate that,’ he replied simply, not baulking at the question. ‘The policy is there. I understand what you’re saying.’
The GAA has nothing to fear in again taking a lead, in setting their own bar.
John Delaney’s massive salary of €360,000 has framed the current crisis sweeping through the FAI halls of power and has long been a source of public record.
Ryan is director general of an association with an income which has grown to over €100 million, of a club and community network that has not just a national but an international dimension, taking in over 2,000 clubs.
IT’S a wide-ranging brief. One deserving of the requisite salary. While it has never been made public, no more than that of IRFU CEO Philip Browne, previous speculation has centred on it being roughly half of Delaney’s salary.
It’s 12 years since a motion to GAA Congress was brought on just this issue. Mark Conway, a founding member of Club Tyrone and a former member of the GAA’s National Audit Committee, spoke of its necessity all the way back in 2007 where it was met with stern opposition.
Before Ryan succeeded Duffy, he again made the case for full disclosure.
‘All public sector organisations do it, all big private sector organisations do it so you can go to their annual accounts and you will find
out what their CEO is paid and what their top five/six directors are paid. It is good corporate governance.
‘We proposed for that to be put in place in the GAA and we were hit with a ton of bricks because we did so.
‘But that day has to come. The GAA, like any organisation, needs to publish what its top people are getting paid. Whether we are paying our people a lot of money or whether we are paying them very little, it should be in the public domain because that money is coming out of the pockets of GAA people,’ he insisted.
As a Carlow native and dyed-inthe-wool supporter, not to mention a long-time volunteer at the Faughs club in Dublin, Ryan himself was irked by the notion of any perceived ‘disconnect’ between Croke Park and its ordinary members.
It’s a narrative that took hold throughout the ‘Newbridge or Nowhere’ and Liam Miller benefit game controversies last year.
‘I honestly don’t believe it is the fact of things,’ he said, addressing it last November. ‘But if people feel that, if that’s the perception that people have, I think then equally we have difficulties.
‘So we have a job to do to get over that. That’s partly about communicating our bona fides to people, being open to things with people, and it’s partly about moving things along and changing things in certain directions.’
This idea of Corporate Croke Park again surfaced when a range of ticket price increases were announced earlier this year. Putting a salary out there would stop the constant guessing game or whispering campaigns, the bar stool talk of ‘suits’ and ‘fat cats’ that invariably swirls around contentious issues, such as this year’s ticket price hike.
At a time when the Páirc Uí Chaoimh overspend is still a hot topic, and a Mazars audit of the books of the Galway county board highlighted unsupported expenses, unapproved credit card use and unaccounted for complimentary tickets, financial accountability and transparency have become watchwords for good governance.
Whether in terms of alcohol or betting related sponsorship, or a detailed annual financial report, the GAA has taken the lead in so many areas.
This would merely represent another step along that road.