Leading GAA official insists financial fair play ceiling required

A TOP GAA official has called for a ‘financial fair play’ ceiling to be established to control spending on intercounty teams.

Connacht Council CEO John Prenty has warned in his annual report to convention that the money being spent on the preparation of teams is in danger of going ‘out of control’, while claiming that despite the investment, Gaelic football has regressed as a spectacle.

‘One wonders why the current game of Gaelic football, in particular, needs so much physical conditioning when the game is now designed to keep out of physical contact and recycle the ball backwards, sideways and sometimes forward in a game which is becoming increasingly difficult to watch at inter-county level.

‘It appears that we are locked into a system where we must copy what other teams, including professional outfits, are doing and to hell with the cost,’ blasted Prenty, in reviewing a year in which Connacht’s five counties spent over €6.7million in preparing teams.

And he warned that when the process to have a fully integrated Gaelic sports association is completed, costs for preparing teams could double.

‘All of this, at a time, before the GAA is fully integrated with the LGFA and Camogie Associations which will at least double the costs of preparing inter-county teams without taking into account the infrastructural requirements which will come with being one association.

‘In the past I have suggested that it may be time that a fair play financial ceiling is put in place on how much should be spent on inter-county teams. Maybe now is the time to act before things go out of control,’ added Prenty.

The Connacht chief also turned his guns on the Gaelic Players Association, accusing the players body of not ‘giving respect’ to the GAA by staging protests in their campaign to accelerate the integration process.

‘Recent pronouncements by the GPA show little respect to the GAA in a number of areas,’ declares Prenty.

‘Very little respect for voluntary county and provincial officers or their work in really running the association.

‘Maybe we need a GVA (Gaelic Volunteers Association)! The efforts to involve GAA players in protests, at our games, to support players from our sister associations at a time before we are fully integrated.

‘The involvement of the senior hurling captains in the discussion on the sustainability of hurling in five counties.

‘I am looking forward to their hands-on approach to increase the numbers of players playing club hurling in Leitrim.

‘Obviously inter-county games are the be all and end all of our association and nothing else seems to matter,’ added Prenty.

Meanwhile, the Munster Council have reported record gate receipts of in excess of €5.391million from the 2023 Munster hurling championship, which ensured the body posted a €3.2m profit to funding.