Tyrone face €150,000 post-Brexit extra bill for training centre
TYRONE GAA will have to pay an extra £130,000 on their loan for their Centre of Excellence in Garvaghey because of Brexit, it has emerged.
The additional costs come because the loans for the superbly appointed £7m base were taken out in euro, and with the fall in value of sterling against the euro since last June the costs are to rise by €155,000.
Club Tyrone, the fundraising arm which has become a model for how a supporters’ club can help finance a county, reference the additional cost in their latest report.
The Garvaghey loan stands at £1.23m. Club Tyrone generated just over £286,000 for the county in 2016, or 21pc of their overall income, which was £1.38m.
The question of funding in Tyrone has been prevalent over the last few days since it emerged that a former Red Hand footballer sent a letter to Newstalk pointing out that players have been asked for a £15 contribution towards the cost of equipment.
Current player Ronan McNamee confirmed yesterday that such an arrangement was in place to help purchase foam rollers and bands required.
MORALE
The letter suggested that the request was impacting on morale and damaging Tyrone’s prospects of winning an All-Ireland title.
McNamee, speaking at an event to promote Saturday’s Allianz Division 1 match with Monaghan, did not reject that idea.
“There’s constant issues with mileage,” said McNamee. “Some people don’t get paid full amounts of what they would claim.
“If it has been talked about by players, it’s obviously going to affect it in some way. If it wasn’t a problem, they wouldn’t be talking about it.
“I’m sure not all of it (letter) would have been as bad as it came out, but at the same time there are things that could improve.
“The more money that would be pressed into teams, I would imagine, it would benefit them more. It would have to for training weekends, for equipment, for whatever it is. I would agree with it to a certain extent.
“Money is not everything but it would damn help. So if other teams are at the top of the pile, spending €1.6m (Mayo), they’re spending it for a reason. They’re not just flaunting it about.
“Dublin are spending it, the top hurling teams are spending it, it must come to some use.”
When the Irish Independent did a survey on inter-county team outlay among the 32 counties two weeks ago, Tyrone were priced at a modest €484,000 when a £412,000 sterling figure was converted.
That was a decrease of almost £18,000 as Tyrone’s season wrapped up three weeks earlier.
“We had saved money on the year before,” noted McNamee. “Don’t get me wrong, when we go away we’re treated well but I don’t know what Mayo would be doing.”
Tyrone are regularly held up as an example of prudent spend on inter-county teams but that may backfire on top of failing to tie down Mickey Harte with a longer agreement to manage the county team, McNamee suggested.
“Hopefully it doesn’t come to that,” he said. Hopefully we can go and win the All-Ireland with 400-and whatever it is, against the €1.6m, but I’d imagine if €1.6m was being spent on a county team it would be towards something beneficial, it wouldn’t just be blowing money here and there.
“A couple of teams jumped €300,000 in expenditure. Okay, they might have gone further than last year but still, they’re spending it somewhere.”
McNamee said he wouldn’t “begrudge” being asked for a £15 contribution but drew comparisons with the All-Ireland champions.
“I can’t remember who put it up on Twitter but someone said, ‘can you imagine asking Dublin for £15!’ The question would never be asked,” he said.
“But if we got nothing spent on us I would still be playing football because it’s what you want to do.
“You’re not here to get here or to get whatever £400,000 is going to get you, you’re here for the love of the game and because you want to win trophies and because you want to win medals.”
Meanwhile, the Allianz Football League clash between Tyrone and Cavan has been rescheduled for Sunday week, March 12, after being called off last Sunday due to a waterlogged pitch.