O’Meara role is to alleviate financial burden on clubs

LESS than a week after beginning his appointment to the role, Kerry GAA chairman Tim Murphy confirmed that the appointment of Maurice O’Meara as the county’s Commercial Fundraiser was in conjunction with the goals of the three-year Development Plan set out over the winter months, which included the extension of Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s term as Kerry senior football manager under the end of 2020 and a programme to develop the county’s All-Ireland Minor winning sides for senior level.

Speaking to The Kerryman, Mr Murphy said that the appointment of Mr O’Meara to such a role was also designed to uphold a commitment not to burden the county’s clubs for finance for future De- velopment projects that they intend to undertake.

“This is a holistic [development] plan for our senior teams right down to our development squads and we want to sustain ourselves at county level without having to go to our clubs like they have done in other counties. “Our international fundraising efforts have been very successful in what they have generated, but it’s not an iniative that can be relied upon regularly and our hope with Maurice in this role is that more regular sources of income can be identified closer to home,” Mr Murphy said. Mr O’Meara’s employment with Kerry GAA will be on the basis of a ‘rolling contract’ with a review taking place next May or June when the first year of the new role is complete. Mr Murphy feels that his appointment will ease the burden on the county’s existing officers as well.

“It will be a collaborative efforts between Maurice and the officers and I think it will come as a great benefit particularly to new officers and volunteers in our organisation when as we all know that they tend to come and go as time moves on. There will be a permanent presence now at the head of fundraising which everything can be worked around,” he said.

The County Chairman also clarified his belief that the comments made by County Treasurer Dermot ‘Weeshie’ Lynch last week about the spending costs associated with inter-county teams were more in general terms about the national picture and not related to the county itself.

Mr. Murphy outlined the approach taken by the county to ensure it stays within its means.

“We have a Finance Committee headed up by Michael John Kearney and a Finance Group that meets once a month and does challenge every item of expenditure that we make for our inter-county teams. We met with them as recently as last Thursday night and we are prudent, cautious and careful as a county in what we spend. I’m happy to say we are on budget with our spending like other years at present,” Murphy said.

Kerry will still strive however to give its teams every resource it can to succeed he re-affirmed however.

“I don’t think that we would be doing our jobs if we were not doing that. We’re always conscious of the need to raise money to cover the ongoing costs of our teams and I would like to say that the managers of all our teams are very understanding of the pressures we are under to make ends meet when we sit down to talk to them about the costs of running the teams that they are involved in. I still like to think that we are an example to others in how we spend our money but also generate it as well.”