GAA director general explains how coronavirus shutdown may blow €60m hole in Croke coffers

GAA director general Tom Ryan has laid out in stark terms the potential impact of the coronavirus on the Association’s finances.

It’s an impact, as Ryan acknowledges, that is already being felt with pay cuts having been imposed on GAA staff this week.

The worst case scenario is that no games take place for the rest of the year, an outcome that the GAA will resist as much as it possibly can, but Ryan and Co are understandably making contingencies for if and when they can resume this year.

While there is a world of far greater difficulties being visited on people as a result of COVID-19, the financial implications are worrying for the GAA all the same, particularly with the crisis arriving as they are usually about to rake in the cash that fuels the wider organisation all year round.

“It still feels a little bit churlish to be talking about those things,” said Ryan, in an interview with

Sport for Business. “There are great costs being paid by people but I suppose we do have a responsibility to make sure that the place is fit for purpose and able to get going again when the opportunity permits so we have to be very careful with how we navigate ourselves through the next few months.

“It’s already having a really serious impact on things.

“Central Council-wise, there’s probably about €60m at risk.

“All we have is matches. That’s all we have. We don’t have an international organisation that can come to our aid.

“Everything that we generate is generated pretty much on the island of Ireland and it’s all generated within probably a two or three month period which is the period that could be lost to us so income-wise, yeah, we’ll suffer.

“Oddly enough, the tricky thing at the moment is cash but just from talking to other people, even in other spheres altogether, cash is the challenge for everybody at the moment.

“Our model has always really been whatever we generate we try and filter around the organisation.

“This time of the year in general we’re at the bottom of our cash cycle anyway because we’re funding counties now at this time of the year.

“We bring in the cash then thereafter, so in terms of matches, yeah, it’s pretty serious.

“We’ve got to manage things carefully now to make sure that however bad this year is, that we’re not paying for the legacy of 2020 in 2021 and 2022 and beyond.”

In line with the Government’s decision to shut down schools, universities and creches on March 12, the GAA moved to shut down all its activities the same day, one that Ryan says he won’t forget in a hurry.

“Once the Taoiseach and the Chief Medical Officer issued the diktat on mass gatherings then at that point we decided that we would close everything and it was a grim thing to do.

“I’ll remember that day. I didn’t enjoy that. But I think the most important thing really was for us to be clear and to try and be decisive about it because we owed it to the membership and we owed it to the health authorities and so on, number one, to play our part and, number two, it’s easier for all of us to follow something when it’s absolutely clear and there’s no little room for manoeuvre.

“It was as easy for us to pull everything and then hopefully at that time the plan was, bit by bit, as we needed to or as we found we had scope to, we could turn things back on if we found we had overstated it.

“Whereas if we went with a gradual approach and incrementally shut things down, I wasn’t that confident it was going to work.

“I would credit the state authorities with very clear communication because that allowed us a very important couple of weeks to plan for things so when we needed to then, we were able to respond very quickly.”

And while initially fearful that the ban on training would be flouted in places, Ryan was relieved that everyone fell into line. He admitted: “I was nervous over the first weekend that there would be teams or counties that wouldn’t hold the line but people were just fabulous.

“There wasn’t a whisper of anything. Everybody I think understood the gravity of the situation and understood the role they had to play.”