Mulryan: Recovery to be slow
before, while there was additional money in wage supports and rent waivers.
By comparison, in 2019, the last financial year that wasn’t affected by the pandemic, Government funding to the GAA came in at around €6m.
“I suppose the collective damage is €25.2m in purely financial metrics,” said the GAA’S director of finance, Ger Mulryan. “The intent, I suppose, is to try and manage how we move that forward would be to establish a pattern of retaining a small surplus annually.
“Traditionally our model was to almost redistribute everything we take in back through our organisation. The repair work entails trying to retain a small surplus annually so it could be five, 10, 15 years before we can replenish that €25m.”
In 2019 the GAA reported a record central revenue of €73.9m, which doesn’t include money generated by the four provincial councils, and while the 2021 figure of €68.3m is not far short of it, €29.8m of last year’s funding came from the Government.
But despite raising close to €40m in revenue themselves, GAA director general Tom Ryan said that there was no consideration given to returning any of the Government money, citing the gap that the pandemic has left in the finances even with state support.
“No, is the short answer,” said Ryan. “I’m not being flippant now when I say that. I think if you look at the burden that was suffered by clubs, provinces, counties and at national level over the last two years, I think that’s the metric.
“Oddly enough, the results are a bit distorted because you’re looking at a financial year where we played two Championships.
“It’s difficult to compare and it would be a mistake to assume that all the financial problems that we had have been overcome. We still have a little bit of damage for a while yet.”