Supporters need to know the bottom line
Glossy financial reports fail to address concerns of those who pay at turnstiles
THE numbers are supposed to wow us. Annual revenue in the GAA for 2017 was €65.6 million, an increase of €5 million on 2016. Of this, €14.8 million was put back into counties and clubs, a record figure according to the association.
Over €10 million was spent on coaching and games development, over €9 million, apparently, on capital investment and grants. Player welfare costs were over €6 million, as per the contentious agreement between the GAA and the Gaelic Players’ Association.
Millions poured in and gushed out. So precisely does the GAA now conduct its business that a farm has been purchased in north county Dublin, just to ensure the quality of its pitches.
There are club players around the country entitled to wonder if the leadership now pay more attention to the grass in Croke Park than to them.
Numbers are cold and corporate. Of course an organisation must be properly run, and by the measures contained within the rows and columns of a balance sheet, the GAA is expertly guided.
But figures fixed in black and white are no defence against the problems building in Ireland’s most important sporting and cultural force.
Those numbers won’t impress club players desperate for a match. Long before we reach April, supposedly designated for players in the new GAA dispensation, the plight of these tens of thousands, the silent people, looks as grim as ever.
In Mayo, for instance, officials released their club fixtures proposals at the end of January. The first round of the local championships is set for April 7 and 8, but were Mayo to reach the All-Ireland final, the second round would be played across September 15 and 16.
Clubs will get their chance to discuss the plans at a board meeting this month, and a blizzard of angry protest must be inevitable.
But there is only so much anger the local units can express; the insurmountable problem is that under current structures the club game, and the inter-county game and its attendant demands, are simply incompatible.
Mayo’s case is not an exceptional one, and the frustration buried like mould into the club game there is spread across the island.
A slew of big numbers trumpeted by Croke Park are no use to them.
Nor will they impress the constituency who believe the Sky TV deal was unprincipled and an act of betrayal.
News of rude financial health won’t inspire the volunteers who dedicate a great part of their days to the native sports. The GAA has a meaning in their lives and communities far beyond the lines of the playing field or the rule-making of Congress.
Nothing illustrates the schism in modern Gaelic games better than the annual financial report. In the prevailing climate, where accusations grow that the leadership of the association answers to corporate urges, a glossy celebration of financial might causes unease.
This is less than a fortnight after outgoing director general Páraic Duffy issued his last report, one that made no mention of the Club Players’ Association.
This is despite the CPA attracting a membership of over 25,000, and the fact that their establishment answered a need for representation that the GAA itself has consistently failed to meet.
The search for Duffy’s successor was complicated by a confusing job spec, and while that role is being filled, the leadership position in the GPA has become vacant.
In addressing the questions that have confounded the GAA for years, no two roles will be more important.
The concerns and arguments of the CPA need to be heeded, but these are two jobs funded by the people who attend matches.
Not only is it vital that they are adequately filled, the salaries both positions attract should also be made public.
This demand has been made of director generals in the past and gone unheeded. There are certain numbers the GAA are not so keen to broadcast.
But they should. Supporters are entitled to know where their money goes, and the extent to which it supports the leadership of an association to which most give their time for nothing.
The GPA are receiving millions from the GAA, money that, again, comes from the ceaseless efforts of thousands of volunteers.
Making these salaries public won’t banish the existential problems facing the GAA, but people are entitled to know the cost of leadership that must solve them.