We are all paying for spiralling expenses
Unsustainable costs of running inter-county teams are impacting on GAA core values
‘THE CLUB JUST CAN’T FEATURE AND GOES DOWN THE LIST’
WHEN I highlighted the story of Darach Honan last Sunday, I didn’t expect to receive such a big reaction. Here is a Clare hurler, who has given his career to the cause, left with a chronic hip injury, six grand in medical bills, and a county board who wouldn’t lend financial assistance even though it announced a surplus of €136,000.
This week’s publishing of intercounty training costs highlights to me that a change in priorities is needed. Honan is left on the scrapheap, retired at 27, as that training cost figure tops €25 million for the first time.
To me, it’s not sustainable. When are we going to reach breaking point?
Look at Cork. It’s only a few years ago that counties breaking the €1 million mark made headlines. Now that figure is creeping closer to €2m. You see the increase in one year alone of €369,474.
Cork’s total spend on all teams amounts to €1,747,609. Divide that by 365 and it’s almost five grand a day. Five grand – every day of the year! That includes the closed season – oh sorry, there is no closed season really.
Now I know Cork is a big county where travelling expenses would be a factor. In the bigger picture though, what the increased spend is simply reflecting is a rise in training. At Roscommon’s convention, it was revealed that it was costing €15,000 a week to service the senior football team.
More training means more expenses. It also means that the strength and conditioning trainer, the medical team, the physical trainer, whoever – everyone else who needs to be paid has to be paid.
If you’re going to train six times a week rather than three, then you’re going to double the costs.
Are we happy to stand over that? We seem to be happy to spend millions more year on year, sell Championship games to Sky, embrace commercialism – yet we’re not happy to pay the medical costs of a player like Honan.
Pat Coady from Carlow was in touch with me saying this is just one of hundreds of cases of players who have been treated in this manner. They’re the players I’m thinking of when I see the disparity from county to county in the spend.
Everybody says Dublin is up there with the best football teams of all time. Mayo have pushed them all the way though, and that’s reflected in their spend of over €1.5 million. When you think big, it’s clear you have to spend big. Davy Fitzgerald came in to Wexford and said I’m going to up the ante. I’m sure Seamus McEnaney said the same when he took over the football team last season. Wexford spent €250,000 more than 2016 but generated much more too to leave the accounts looking healthy.
It’s not that certain counties are losing money but where is the GAA going?
Wexford are looking to appoint a commercial manager – all driven by what Davy Fitz is doing, no doubt. He has won an All-Ireland with Clare and knows what is needed to get to the top.
That’s why Wexford are out in America this weekend shaking buckets.
Fitzgerald and Lee Chin were listed among a travelling party to raise finance and do a couple of coaching clinics around some New York clubs. They are just the latest in a line of counties to hit the US for the same reason, counties like Kerry, Cork, Donegal, Meath having already made the trip.
If I was a player in Wexford, I’d be very excited about this. Liam Dunne was very passionate when he was in the job and brought things to a level. Then Davy comes in and raises the profile again, crowds are higher. The figures suggest there is more being spent on the players.
If you don’t win, then what happens? Or when Davy goes? Where is this all going longer-term?
If that’s the way it is with costs hitting €25 million, then no wonder the county becomes everything. The club can’t feature. It inevitably goes way down the list. Because the financial stakes are so high.
Remember, these are only the official figures.
What about the big supporters clubs out there? I remember Babs Keating got such an idea going with Tipperary and Mick O’Dwyer, too, in Kildare.
Imagine what the full figures are when various interested parties are included?
Then you have a GPA player survey that finds 50 per cent of the players polled ‘are often overwhelmed by their commitments’. Or 61 per cent ‘would like more time for family and friends’.
So that’s coming from the players themselves.
Sky is a part of this, the whole question of what is the GAA meant to be? It’s meant to be a community based organisation but I would have to say I’m disillusioned with the decision-making process in the GAA when you see the three motions from Clare, Roscommon and Leitrim against the Sky TV deal and pay-per-view not making it to the floor of Congress, based on a previous vote.
With all due respect to delegates, with the best will in the world, they don’t have all the knowledge or relevant facts on certain issues and are often directed by the top table.
How else do you explain director general Páraic Duffy saying there wouldn’t be the support for Championship games going behind a paywall and then the GAA doing the deal?
No county I know asked their clubs about the Sky deal.
Is it because they were afraid of the answer?