Money

[Mickmack]

Feb 29, 2020 17:02:57 GMT @kingdomexile said:

[Mickmack]

Nov 23, 2020 16:04:49 GMT Annascaultilidie said:

Pool sponsorship money.

Just to be clear, are you saying that the funds the GAA give Dublin as evidenced by the post above should continue at the same level into the future

[Annascaultilidie]

Nov 23, 2020 17:19:39 GMT Mickmack said:

Nov 23, 2020 16:04:49 GMT Annascaultilidie said:

Pool sponsorship money.

Just to be clear, are you saying that the funds the GAA give Dublin as evidenced by the post above should continue at the same level into the future

I am saying exactly what I am saying.

[Ballyfireside]

Nov 23, 2020 15:40:36 GMT mandad said:

From time to time a new influence enters a sport with such a coercive impact that it distorts the entire balance of nature. We’ve seen this play out in the world of soccer, rugby, athletics, boxing, cycling and many other disciplines; typically, benefiting from the benevolence of wealthy Arabs, Russian oligarchs or media moguls. What’s happened with Dublin’s Financial Doping and subsequent dominance of Gaelic football can be similarly measured, all-be-it, on a different scale.

I assume we would agree that Dublin needed to find ways to address the challenges presented by competing sports for playing numbers and membership in general in a rapidly expanding city. The point of difference is how they have been unfairly assisted by Central funding to the detriment of other counties.

Is this acceptable because the perceived need in question is in pursuit of a requirement of a higher order? Convincing you it is in your best interest to not give in to your need now for the greater reward later. Quite brilliant, actually, with no real regard to the fortunes of those less favoured.

The aim of any competition is to achieve a result that comes as close to the truth as possible. In Jim Gavin, Dublin found a man who brought not just ambition and energy but vision and imagination to the plans they laid. The financial firepower helped in no small way to propel them to the top of the tree, where they will most probably remain for a long, long time.

We are now reaping the consequences of the never-ending push for inequality of outcomes rather than equality of opportunity. Not to put too fine a point on it, this is organised, clear and barefaced. People have chosen to wilfully ignore things that defy logic.

At this prolonged and difficult time for everybody, GAA Clubs around the country are hobbled by the loss of their paltry income streams, i.e. Lotto, Church Gate, Raffles, Gate Receipts, etc. Club officials are, in many cases, putting their hands in their own pockets to keep the ship afloat.
We are all programmed to abhor bias. The aim must always be to sustain natural competition across the board over the long term. Anything that systematically influences a result by such means and in such a measurable way as to lead it away from fairness is unacceptable to everyone, except those it benefits. Anyone who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

There is no denying that the investment has made a short term pay off in the Balance sheets of the GAA. However, it now appears that it may have run its course and even reached the point of diminishing returns. The inability to achieve an ideal without distorting is the inevitable consequence of a grossly unfair and flawed policy. New attitudes towards inequality might suggest that traditional forms of fairness are not as important as they once were. Surely, they cannot pretend that it’s fair any longer!

I really enjoyed that, two observations -

1. Easier to fool a man then convince him he has been fooled.

2. Ironically, Dublin could become their own worst enemy, i.e. nobody to compete. From what I sensed Sat evening, Dublin are gone ahead again physically, and probably the rest - no offense to Dessie but they will carry him over the line anyway. Ah we saw miracles the weekend but are Dublin are out of sight?

On a brighter note, it can't be all money, and we will see lots of Dub backroom roam outside the pale, e.g. Paddy Christy.

Ballythefireside quote of the day - It's about the economy stupid, follow the money - take a bow Tadhgeen!

[Mickmack]

Nov 23, 2020 18:53:06 GMT Annascaultilidie said:

Nov 23, 2020 17:19:39 GMT Mickmack said:

Just to be clear, are you saying that the funds the GAA give Dublin as evidenced by the post above should continue at the same level into the future

I am saying exactly what I am saying.

thanks for clarifying that you want the same inequity to continue into the future.

Dublin get 1481k. Cavan get 71k

[Annascaultilidie]

Nov 23, 2020 20:12:43 GMT Mickmack said:

Nov 23, 2020 18:53:06 GMT Annascaultilidie said:

I am saying exactly what I am saying.

thanks for clarifying that you want the same inequity to continue into the future.

Yes that is exactly what I said.

[Mickmack]

Trapped in a legal quagmire: The club volunteers stuck in a heartbreaking situation
John Greene



June 20 2021 02:30 AM


On a Saturday morning in September 2015, a group of men gathered at their local GAA club ready for a day’s work. It was, as one of them recalled last week, a scene which is commonplace every weekend all over the country. They had all happily volunteered their services, 10 or so of them, and many hands would hopefully make light work.


At the time, the St Mary’s club in Meath was improving its facilities and preparing for a major development, a new clubhouse and community centre, and an old building was due to be demolished as part of the work. On this particular day the plan was to dismantle the roof of that building but around two hours into the work there was a terrible accident.

One of the men, Seamus Brady, fell through the roof and landed hard on the concrete floor, around 15 feet below. It’s possible that he may also have struck beams as he fell helplessly to the ground. Brady sustained serious injuries in the fall, including a fractured right shoulder, a fractured left wrist, an open fracture of the right elbow, kidney damage, soft tissue damage and bruising to the face. The injuries were severe and life-changing for Brady and his family.

Brady is aged 58 now and has not been able to work since the accident. He worked for around 25 years with Flogas in Drogheda — indeed there’s a picture on the company’s website from May 2013 with Brady and two other mentors of an under 14 St Mary’s team proudly displaying new jerseys sponsored by the company.

One of the other coaches in the photograph is Paul Scanlon, who is the current chairman. St Mary’s is a junior club in east Meath, near Drogheda, based around the small village of Donore. The club’s ground is a few miles from the village, directly opposite the entrance to the Newgrange interpretive centre. Scanlon was another of the club members who was on the roof that day.

In April 2018, Brady issued proceedings against Peter Moore and Scanlon in their capacity as secretary and chairman of the club seeking compensation for the injuries he had suffered, as well as their lasting consequences.

St Mary’s engaged with Meath County Board and with the GAA at national level, but fairly quickly it became apparent that there was a major problem: the GAA’s insurance did not cover the club in this case, which meant that if there was an award against St Mary’s they would have to find the money themselves.


If that wasn’t bad enough, the club’s executive found itself out in the cold, with no help, advice or support forthcoming from any arm of the GAA, and a growing sense of panic took hold that they were very much on their own. Not being covered by insurance was one thing, being cast into the wilderness was quite another. There was no disputing the extent of the injuries to Seamus Brady, a man held in high regard in the community who had been a lifelong member of St Mary’s, and whose father had been among its founding members.

The club spent around €20,000 on legal fees until a decision was taken late last year that it could not afford to spend another cent on them. In Dundalk high court last December, the case was adjourned for six months to give the club time to look at its options, and to see if it could get any further assistance or advice from the GAA.

The parties reconvened before Judge Bronagh O’Hanlon in court number three in Dundalk last Tuesday. It was a poignant scene, with Seamus Brady and his wife Yvonne on one side of the courtroom, and five members of the St Mary’s club — including Scanlon and Moore — on the other. There was no one from Meath County Board or the GAA present; there was no legal representative for the GAA or for St Mary’s. Brady’s solicitor, Richard McDonnell, was instructing barrister Jonathan Kilfeather, who by a quirk of fate lives close to the St Mary’s grounds.

Kilfeather briefly reminded Judge O’Hanlon of the details of the accident, and he pointed out that St Mary’s members were in court without legal representation. Kilfeather told the court that “the physical sequelae of the injuries are ongoing” and also that “the psychological sequelae are ongoing” and because Brady has not been able to go back to work, “the family have fallen on very hard times”.

“I am here without expert witnesses because things are difficult from a financial perspective so I neither have an engineer, nor do I have the authors of the various medical reports that I have,” said Kilfeather.

He added that Brady didn’t “wish to proceed against the club, it is causing some difficulties from his perspective and the family’s perspective . . . He wishes to proceed with the action, but he’d prefer not to be suing the club. It has caused difficulties between him and members of the club. It’s obviously a close-knit community. His father, I understand, was a founding member but he feels unfortunately he has no option given the financial loss that he has suffered.”

“To be honest Mr Kilfeather,” responded Judge O’Hanlon, “there’s a real difficulty for everyone concerned, on all sides. The club doesn’t appear to have the money, am I right in that?”


“I can’t answer for the club,” said Kilfeather, “but I’d say there certainly doesn’t appear to be any insurance in place.”

“There’s always a difficulty with sports and sports-related activity,” said the judge, referencing a recent case she had presided over when she dismissed a claim by a spectator at a golf tournament who had been hit on the head by a golf ball.


Club treasurer Eugene McLaughlin said they have “been trying to solve this, or come to some solution, because myself and all the committee acknowledge what happened. We recognise and accept what happened Mr Brady, and him being a lifetime member, a personal friend to me and many others, coming from a very reputable family . . . you know, it’s just been a very awkward situation.”

He said the club did not have the funds for the case and that after spending around €20,000 on legal fees they had decided they couldn’t afford to keep legal representation. He said they were told they would need at least another €50,000 to maintain a defence in the action.

“We sought help, we didn’t get it. We even looked into legal aid, we couldn’t get it. We have looked at even a loan for the club but the banks wouldn’t look at us because we had no income.”

He added: “We genuinely have tried. We were liaising with our affiliation body, Meath County Board, but there was no help or guidance. We felt that it was important for us as a small club to respect Mr Brady and the court and that we just had to come up here and tell the truth, that if there was a way, and if we had funds in our club this would be a different situation.”

Questioned by Kilfeather, McLaughlin said the GAA had been of no assistance to the club. “The GAA holds the insurance for St Mary’s. St Mary’s doesn’t have a separate insurance. The GAA has their own policy for insurance and we’ve emailed, met, discussed, [this] with the GAA and they have said it’s not their issue. We have explained that what Mr Brady was doing that day as a volunteer is happening throughout the country every weekend, everywhere.


“I was on the roof that day, Peter Moore was on the roof that day. It could have happened to me; it could have happened to Peter Moore. Paul Scanlon was on the roof that day. I know that Mr Brady would have done what we have done, tried all avenues to come to a solution. But to answer your question, we’ve got no support from the GAA.”

McLaughlin said that the club thought that the GAA’s public liability insurance covered their activities.

He also said that the committee had looked into fundraising ideas, including crowd funding, but the feeling was that this would be restricted by the local nature of their troubles and also because they felt they lacked the capacity and the professionalism to do it at the scale they had been advised would be necessary.

Seamus Brady outlined the devastating impact of the accident as he continues to battle health issues. “It has changed not only my life but my whole family’s . . . trying to provide finance,” he said. He has had to borrow money from family members at different times, and occasionally relied on people dropping in food. He said all their savings are gone. “We’re really living like paupers,” he said.

“Is there any point at all in me joining the head of the GAA because something is going to have to be done for this man,” said Judge O’Hanlon.

Brady would not have got involved if he thought there wasn’t insurance covering them for the work that needed to be done that day. His barrister was clear on that point. This is the dilemma for all clubs and their members — there is always work to be done, and there are always people willing to volunteer their time to do it. But what happens when something goes wrong? What happens when that volunteer’s life is utterly transformed? As the judge asked in the high court last week, “Where is the money to come from?”

Judge O’Hanlon directed that Brady’s legal team should write to the GAA and set out the circumstances of both St Mary’s and Seamus Brady and say that the court is asking that an appropriate representative “meet the matter” in her court this week. “This is a case of genuine and real hardship,” she said. “I expect them to have a representative here.”


A spokesperson for the GAA said yesterday that it would “comply with the directions of the court”. He also confirmed that the activity undertaken on that day “was expressly excluded under the [GAA’s insurance] policy”.

“The unfortunate circumstances are that the executive of St Mary’s GAA permitted club members, including Mr Brady, then serving as club treasurer, to undertake a task which was expressly excluded by the relevant policy of insurance,” he said.

“The executive of St Mary’s, Donore were the sole decision makers in the activity being undertaken and it is very regrettable that the club and their member find themselves in this situation, however it is a situation which arose directly as a consequence of the decisions they made and should serve as a warning to all clubs.”

Meath County Board declined to comment.

The everyday reality here is that Seamus Brady, the other volunteers, and the club executive were doing nothing different that day to what happens in most clubs — that is, trying to do their best for their community with the best of intentions. Yet, here they all were in courtroom number three, with no sign of the organisation they have all worked tirelessly to promote.

Insurance may be a cut and dried business, but amateur sport is not. It is nothing without trust and integrity, and regardless of what the finer points of a policy says, loyal and committed volunteers should not have been left helpless and exposed as they were last week. They sought guidance and got none. It’s not just about the technicalities — it’s about the people too. That’s what the GAA is built on.

If the court finds against the club, then the very existence of St Mary’s is under threat. If the court finds against Seamus Brady, then what sort of future can a man who just wanted to help his local club look forward to?

And what are the implications of this case — whatever its outcome this week — for the thousands of volunteers up and down the country? We’re all in this together, until the day. comes when we’re not all quite in it together.

Sunday Independent

Read More Sport

[kingdomofciar]

Thanks Mick for posting this....
The GAA at national level will have to give clear guidance to the clubs on this issue. Something that is happening on a regular basis in every club. What ever the answer is, be more insurance, extra insurance or whatever, this situation can't be allowed to continue.
Seamus Brady will have to be helped with his situation, i hope this case been highlighted will prompt some funding solution for him.

[Mickmack]

The Secretary and Chairman of clubs around the country will be asking themselves serious questions after reading that. Most will not know whether insurance in place is adequate etc or even if its paid.


The GAA may be on the right side of the law here but this is a human story that needs them to intervene.

[Ballyfireside]

Re the Coaching League above, do Ulster counties get anything from, well any authorities up there?

The reason I ask is that most of 'em are at the very bottom.

What about London and NYC, etc?

[Mickmack]

Premium

JP McManus: From horse racing to Manchester United – profiling the billionaire who bet big on Limerick hurling

Liam Collins profiles the businessman and philanthropist who started from humble farming roots and made a fortune in the high-octane world of financial trading, but whose rise to the top has not been without moments of controversy

4

Liam Collins
August 27 2021 10:45 AM

Unlike every other county’s, Limerick’s hurling jersey does not bear a sponsor’s logo. JP McManus, the billionaire currency trader and gambler who has poured millions into the team over the past decade, doesn’t need or want the exposure.

Like his vast horse-racing empire, it is more of a vanity project than business venture. The real money is made from a relatively small and anonymous dealing room among the ‘financial gnomes’ of Geneva, Switzerland, where he is domiciled for tax purposes.
Instead of promoting himself or his ventures on the jerseys worn in back-to-back All-Ireland hurling victories, the green shirt of Limerick has, in small yellow lettering, the names of every club in the county stitched into the fabric.
Jockey AP McCoy chats with JP McManus at Cheltenham Races. Photo by Frank McGrath
McManus, whose racing colours are the green and yellow hoops of the Co Limerick South Liberties GAA club, was in Croke Park with the legendary jockey AP McCoy when he was thanked from the podium last Sunday by captain Declan Hannon for his “phenomenal” support.
Leaving the stadium, one disgruntled Cork supporter complained that when a Limerick player gets injured, he is taken by helicopter to the Santry Sports Clinic for the best medical treatment money can buy, courtesy of JP’s largesse, and how could any team compete against that kind of backing.
Whether the after-match celebrations took place in JP and Noreen McManus’s palatial Ailesbury Road home in Dublin or Martinstown House, the neo-Palladian mansion they built outside Kilmallock, Co Limerick, it is likely that the teetotal McManus calmly sipped a glass of cranberry juice as the champagne corks popped around him.
It is also likely that the joy of the occasion was tinged with sadness, following the tragic death of his daughter-in-law and mother of three of his young grandchildren, Emma McManus (40) at the family residence in Barbados on December 30.

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In the public imagination, JP McManus is associated with ‘ordinary’ sports, such as national hunt racing and hurling, and with extraordinary philanthropy.
JP McManus and his daughter Sue Ann Foley. Photo by Alan Place
The JP McManus Charitable Foundation has been dispensing millions to good causes in Limerick for years and had funds of more than €164m at the end of 2019. McManus’s wife Noreen and daughter Sue Ann Foley are directors.
At fundraising dinners, wealthy supporters have offered €1m to play a round of golf with his friend Tiger Woods and he moves easily among a coterie of wealthy businessmen between his homes in Ireland, Switzerland and Barbados.
But it is the world of currency speculation and high-octane financial trading that has propelled him from bookie and gambler to billionaire. Only occasionally do mere mortals get a glimpse into JP’s gilded world, a place he could hardly have imagined when he was driving a digger and milking cows for his father, John James McManus, as a young lad in Limerick.
In 2017, it was revealed that during a 72-hour backgammon match in California some years earlier, McManus won a staggering $17.4m from the Israeli-born US tech billionaire Alec Gores. Gores then deducted $5.2m, which he handed over to the US Inland Revenue Service (IRS). McManus sued for the money.

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He claimed that year, 2012, he paid a €200,000 “domicile levy” to the Irish tax authorities. This, he said, qualified him to avail of a 1997 double taxation treaty between the Irish and US governments. It was claimed by McManus’ lawyer during the case that a senior official in the Irish Revenue supplied the IRS with information that the businessman paid no tax in Ireland between 1995 and 2010.
The IRS argued that because he was domiciled in Switzerland, he was not entitled to use the taxation treaty, and the judge agreed with them.

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“I love gambling,” McManus told journalist and former jockey Brough Scott in an interview for the Racing Post in 2010. “Gambling is a gene. It’s not your fault if you gamble. It’s like an addiction, but I had a friend who had a problem and I said I wanted to teach him not to be an addicted gambler but an addicted winner. We don’t bet to gamble; we bet to win. Winning is the addiction, not gambling.”
Back in 1982 after his horse Mister Donovan won the Sun Alliance Hurdle at Cheltenham, his first winner at the Cotswold racecourse, I was standing beside him when Woodrow Wyatt, the cigar-smoking chairman of the UK Tote, introduced him to the Queen Mother. “I’m so glad you have won JP — nobody has put more money on the racecourses of England then you have,” Wyatt said.
At that moment, I realised that the stories I had heard about him weren’t just a figment of journalists’ imaginations. But it was when McManus turned the skills that he learned on the racecourse to high finance that he became unimaginably wealthy.
John Patrick McManus was born in the Roxboro area of Limerick on March 10, 1951. After the local national school, he went to CBS Sexton Street, leaving at 16 to work on his father’s farm at Martinstown six days a week, with Saturday afternoons off to play the horses.
“My father, John, read a lot about horses,” he told the Sunday Independent in 1985. “The smallest bet he had was £1, and that was also the biggest bet he had.”
While still a teenager, JP started gambling in Alf Hogan’s bookie shop in Lower William Street and played cards in the pub at night.
He says he started taking bets himself when the betting tax of 5p in the pound increased significantly in the budget. “Overnight I stopped betting in the shops. I began taking some bets unofficially and then got a board [pitch] at the dogs” in Markets Field, he told Brough Scott. Although his father “wasn’t keen”, he took out a bookmaker’s licence at 21, earning the nickname ‘The Kid’ from the other bookies. The journalist Raymond Smith later added the ‘Sundance’ tag.

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Associates say that while he had a good head for figures, what made him outstanding was his methodical research. McManus himself said he rarely talked to owners or trainers and regarded ‘tips’ as a waste of time. “The cheapest thing to buy and the best value is the form book,” he said.
By the mid-1980s, he was known on the racecourses of England as a formidable gambler with a reputation for taking the bookies to the cleaners.
“The English bookies welcomed me with open arms, champagne and booze, even though I don’t drink,” he recalled with satisfaction in 1985. “Now I don’t even get an entrance ticket.”
Asked about his biggest betting coup, he replied, “the best strokes are the ones no one has ever heard of”.
As well as gambling on almost anything, he always carried a backgammon board with him and was a skilled player.
In the late 1980s, McManus became part of the ‘Sandy Lane set’ staying with his family in the exclusive Barbados hotel and resort, consorting with Coolmore Stud owner John Magnier and his supporters Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith, financier Dermot Desmond and the legendary currency trader Joe Lewis.
The 1992 financial crisis propelled the group from millionaires to billionaires. On Black Wednesday — September 16, 1992 — currency speculators led by Lewis and George Soros recognised that the British pound was overvalued. They bet billions that the Bank of England would devalue and they were right, forcing it out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM).

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In the weeks that followed, currency speculators are believed to have made £150bn betting against the remaining ERM currencies, including the punt. After sustained pressure, Finance Minister Bertie Ahern was forced to devalue the punt in January 1993 and currency dealers pocketed the profits, before moving on to the Mexican peso for further gains.
It was the beginning of an investment splurge that would see the ‘Irish boys’ buy the Sandy Lane resort in the late 1990s, causing consternation with plans to demolish the colonial-style establishment. They eventually rebuilt the hotel to their liking,reopening it with a spectacular party on St Patrick’s Day 2001.
Back home, McManus’s leisure interests include Adare Manor, which will host the Ryder Cup in 2027.

Manchester United Stake

Though his brother Gerry, JP got to know the Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson, who became a regular visitor to Limerick and part of the group’s inner circle. By coincidence or otherwise, Magnier, McManus and — to a lesser extent — Desmond, bought a 6.8pc stake in the football club through a firm called Cubic Expression in 2001.
It emerged that this company was associated with Liberties Strategic Services, a Bermuda-registered company based at 40 Rue du Rhone, Geneva. Given the echo of (South) Liberties, McManus’s GAA team, this was assumed to be his private investment firm, although he is not a director of the company.
It was to turn out to be a lucrative investment. But it also drew the unwelcome spotlight of the British media on the Irishmen and their business dealings. This became especially intense after Magnier and Ferguson fell out over the ownership of ‘wonder horse’ Rock of Gibraltar.
By February 2004, as the row between the two men escalated, and Cubic Expression now owned 28.39pc of Manchester United. Although McManus was not directly involved in the row, he was perceived by Manchester United supporters as a threat to Ferguson and they began threatening to disrupt Cheltenham Races, where JP had enjoyed huge success, including three-consecutive victories in the Champion Hurdle with his horse Istabraq.

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On May 11, 2005, shortly after the Magnier-Ferguson row had been settled out of court, he and JP McManus sold their Manchester United stake to the Florida sports tycoon Malcolm Glazer for an estimated £230m, making a huge profit in the process.
Over the years, the trio of McManus, Magnier and Desmond have had diverse investments together, such as the English pub group Mitchells & Butlers, the Ladbrokes bookie chain and the nursing home group Barchester, as well as any number of private investments that little or nothing is known about.
JP McManus’s neo-Palladian mansion outside Kilmallock, Co Limerick, includes a 200-seater cinema

Lavish reception

Around 2007, JP and his wife Noreen renovated Martinstown House, which they had bought from the McCalmont family in 1982, into a 38,000 sq ft mansion, believed to be the largest private house in Ireland.
The same year, a lavish reception for 1,000 guests was held in the grounds when their only daughter, Sue Ann, married. According to reports at the time, JP paid Limerick County Council an unspecified sum to have all the roads leading to the church and house resurfaced, and refurbished the local church for the occasion.
Apart from its sheer scale, with underground car parking, gym, 200-seater cinema, games rooms and swimming pool, Martinstown House has a full-scale Irish bar, even though JP never took a drink.
“I was lucky in my life,” JP told Brough Scott as the two racing men looked at a picture of JP’s father, dressed in his Sunday best, with his horse Roxboro Jack at the Cappamore Show.

Even his prostate cancer operation in 2009, he claimed, had a silver lining. “You know a lot of good came out of the cancer, you see things in a different light,” he said. “I got more out of it than I lost and there was never a day when I didn’t think I’d make it.”
There probably wasn’t a day he ever doubted that the Limerick hurling team would win the All-Ireland hurling double either. What JP wants, he usually gets.

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[Mickmack]

Does the GAA really need a successful Dublin football team?



THU, 16 SEP, 2021 - 07:00
IAN MALLON


Forget the big sporting question going into last weekend’s All-Ireland football final and whether Mayo could finally rid itself of the serial runners-up tag.

As they once again performed to type, the interesting commercial question for the sponsors, brand owners, and partners was: ‘What would an All-Ireland without a dominant Dublin look like commercially?’

In other words, does the lack of the biggest and most supported team in GAA affect the visibility, revenues, branding, and marketing of the biggest sporting competition in the land?

Judging by television numbers alone, as Mayo-Tyrone hovered just under the 1m viewer figure, the answer is very definitely ‘Yes’.

Despite being one of the most eagerly anticipated finals in years, last weekend’s decider failed to do what only Dublin managed (on three occasions since their the start of their period of dominance) and reach the ‘magic million’.

Saturday’s match in which Tyrone heaped more misery on Mayo was the sixth most-watched All-Ireland final since the year before Dublin’s period of dominance began in 2011, with 944,390 viewers tuning in.

Some sponsorship executives believe that a more open All-Ireland competition will lead to longer-term audience growth, but for now, no Dubs means a small reduced interest, compared to recent finals.

IT’S OBVIOUS, RIGHT — BIGGER TEAM, BIGGER VIEWERSHIP?

The greatest indicator of the popularity of any live sports event is broadcast. Live television figures from 2010 to last Saturday tell an interesting story of market and public interest in the All-Ireland Football final.


Love or loathe Dublin dominance, the general public cannot get enough of it as demonstrated by the viewership figures over the past 12 finals.

As the Nielsen Techedge numbers show, there’s clearly no fatigue factor with Dublin among TV audiences. The capital’s audience is too large to effect a drop-off, even if parts of the country may be bored with serial winners and same old outcomes, year after year. Out of the top five most viewed finals since 2010, Dublin featured in the first four.


While down at the bottom of the last 12 finals chart, the two which were least viewed did not feature Dublin — Kerry v Donegal in 11th, and Cork’s one-point victory over Down in 2010 with just 782k tuning in. Cork is clearly bigger than every other county, population wise — except for Dublin — so it’s perhaps an anomaly explained by the county’s hurling partiality. That number for Cork is almost 350k less than watched Dublin’s dramatic 2017 win over Mayo, when 1.1+m saw Dean Rock’s late free kick seal a third title in a row.

LATE DRAMA–LATE SURGE

A potent mix of Dublin winning an All-Ireland final with high drama thrown in, is demonstrated again by their position in second place when the Dubs fightback in 2011 against Kerry — again a one-point victory margin — pushed television figures over the ‘magic million’.

While the only other final to get more than a million viewers was in 2013 when Dublin beat a highly fancied Mayo by 2-12 to 1-14, another tight decider.

When further interrogated, the numbers show that finals that featured the Dubs averaged at 966k, while finals featuring any two other teams came in at more than 84k less - 882k.

Big teams bring big numbers, big numbers bring stronger advertising revenues and overall investment. There is a good reason why Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Juventus haven’t been thrown out of the Champions League, despite all three continuing to pledge their undying support for a European Super League — namely audience.

While the numbers are still strong for non-Dublin finals, there is nothing that makes a GAA, broadcast or commercial executive more excited, and that’s one million-plus television audiences.

EVEN WHEN THEY’RE LOSING, DUBS ARE BOX OFFICE

While not featuring a Dubs star in the lead role, the image of Diarmuid O’Connor’s last-ditch lunge to keep alive an otherwise dead ball for Mayo, late in the semi-final, received a staggering 2.5m views across online and print media. The photograph was taken by Sportsfile’s Stephen McCarthy, from an unorthodox camera position high in the stand.


Core Sponsorship & Rue Point Media, using media monitoring technology, have approximated that the potential media reach of the shot to be 2.46m people.

The drama and energy from McCarthy’s image was equally fascinating to brand watchers, who noticed a triplicate of SuperValu logos laying out an extraordinary backdrop to a superhuman effort.

The financial value of such branding — on the live broadcast and in highlights packages later on television, and through McCarthy’s picture on social media and sports pages — has been established at €43k for SuperValu, from one single play, lasting a couple of seconds.

While sponsors clearly enjoy brand visibility, SuperValu explained that such branding wins have no real long-term value for it as a GAA Football Championship commercial partner, which does not consider itself a “logo sponsorship”.

“Short-term, the brand exposure is great and sometimes you get lucky with the level of signage around the field,” explained Ray Kelly, marketing director with Musgrave (owner of SuperValu). “But really we’re not a logo sponsorship, it’s not the purpose of our sponsorship.

“Our view, since 2010, is a longer-term view with long-term relationships, where partnerships and support at a local level around the country through our retailers is something we’re more involved in.

“A clear example of this is our announcement this year, working with the GAA, to increase participation among people from diverse backgrounds by 30% by 2025 in GAA sports.”

SO DOES THE SPONSOR NEED A DOMINANT DUBS?

Not always. Dublin being knocked out is not quite the commercial disaster that it might appear from a ready-made mass audience perspective, that a team from the largest population centre brings.

Ray Kelly believes that a final this year without a serial winner may lead to a more open and competitive competition in the long-term, even if this year’s final ended up a little one-sided at the end.


“When Dublin play you certainly get bigger media interest, that’s for sure, and with greater levels of coverage you get higher audience and a lot more eyeballs,” he explained. “However, it is more important in the longer term to have a more exciting Championship.”

WHAT WOULD A DUBLIN RECESSION LOOK LIKE FOR THE GAA?

Don’t ask, the GAA aren’t going there — whether through commercial nervousness or simply from a realistic standpoint.

GAA commercial director Peter McKenna was asked in a recent Irish Examiner interview if an end to Dublin’s dominance would pose a financial effect for the association.

McKenna, who is also Croke Park stadium director, was either in diplomatic or commercial mode when he responded: “It would be way too early to write them off, Dublin are way too strong. They’re still a fantastic team, in fact they’ve lifted everyone else’s standards. I think they will be back strong in 2022.”

For the GAA, a dominant Dublin certainly guarantees larger gate receipts at Croke Park right through from provincial to All Ireland semi-final (the final itself is always a sell-out). But where the GAA’s sponsorship and corporate deals are concerned, along with their television rights partnerships, as well as All-Ireland final stadium revenues, there is little or no effect of having a ‘Dublin’ or ‘non-Dublin’ decider.

So are the Dubs good for the game, commercially? Most certainly. But a more competitive All-Ireland with greater competition possibilities is key for the long-term development of the championship. Just don’t hold your breath.


MORE IN THIS SECTION

[Mickmack]

Championship revamp could bag GAA €10m windfall in extra gate receipts​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Colm Keys
October 13 2021 02:30 AM


A member of the fixtures calendar review task force has estimated the adoption of ‘Proposal B’ at next week’s Special Congress could bring an extra €10m in gate-receipt revenue alone for the GAA.


Conor O’Donoghue, a former Meath minor manager, was part of the committee that devised the proposal for change that has been gaining most traction in recent weeks, switching the league to summer with All-Ireland play-offs involving 10 teams who qualify.

Under the proposal, the provincial championships would no longer be the centrepiece of the season and would be played out as a round-robin through February, March and early April, where the current league schedule sits.

The ‘flip’, as it is known, would involve more games at a better time of year which, in O’Donoghue’s estimation, could generate as much as €7.8m more for Central Council fixtures (league-championship) and €2.2m from the additional provincial championship games.

O’Donoghue’s calculations are based on a number of assumptions, chiefly that average attendances at the 2018 (18,159) and 2019 (18,858) All-Ireland quarter-finals (Super 8s) would equate to Division 1 attendances under the new format.

At a ticket cost of €20, down from €25, he then calculated the revenue from the 28 games to arrive at a figure of €10.1m for 2018 and €10.5m for 2019 for Division 1 games.



To project revenues for the other divisions, O’Donoghue used a ‘step-down’ mechanism based on the difference between attendances in each division in 2018 and 2019.


He found a drop from division to division was 33.9pc in 2018 and 33.3pc in 2019 and applied that accordingly to his Division 1 calculations.

But Division 3 and 4 average attendances using this mechanism dropped so low (1,850 and 691 in 2018, 644 and 1,472) that he revised those upwards to what he felt was a more realistic 4,000/2,000 split.

All-Ireland final, semi-final and quarter-final figures were unchanged from 2018 and 2019 in his projections with the two preliminary quarter-finals taken as an average of the quarter-finals played in both years.

With Tailteann Cup games, 14 at €15 with an average attendance of 4,000 (including the final and based on qualifier attendances involving Division 3 and 4 teams) generating €840,000, O’Donoghue projects that some €29.2m in gate receipts would be taken in for the league-championship competition based on 2019 figures (including the All-Ireland final replay between Dublin and Kerry), some €24m on 2018 figures when there was no All-Ireland final replay. That’s up from €21.7m from the football championship in 2019 and €15.7m in 2018.

O’Donoghue also believes there will be a windfall for provinces because of the volume of round-robin games.

He has laid out a pathway to an extra €2.2m in revenue from the provinces with an average attendance of 5,000 in Ulster, 3,500 in Leinster, 2,000 in Connacht and 1,500 in Munster for the group games, rising to 15,000 for Munster, Connacht and Ulster finals and 30,000 for a Leinster final. The pricing here is €20 for a group game, €23 for a semi-final and €25 for a final.

He accepts his figures are open to scrutiny but intends to submit his document to Croke Park, just as he did with a previous preliminary one.

Such opponents are likely to question if ‘Super 8s’ attendances over three rounds can be applied so equally to a seven-round league division campaign or if a 4,000 average Tailteann Cup crowd, even including the final, is realistic.

Read More

[Mickmack]

Former Westmeath star John Connellan steps up action to end 'disproportionate level of funding' for Dubs
Connellan part of campaign to reform the GAA’s games development funding model



MON, 08 NOV, 2021 - 23:00
JOHN FOGARTY
Former Westmeath footballer John Connellan hopes the GAA’s games development funding model will be reformed as a result of motions going forward from a number of clubs.

Confirming his own club Athlone will be bringing forward a proposal to Westmeath’s forthcoming annual convention, other units across the country are expected to do the same in the coming weeks.

Connellan believes the “disproportionate level of funding” provided to Dublin in games development has to be tackled and is suggesting a new structure be formulated based on the number of registered GAA members per county.

After Connellan and similarly-minded GAA members contacted every club and county board on the island of Ireland, clubs in 20 counties such as Dingle in Kerry and Kildress in Tyrone previously committed to forwarding similar motions to their county conventions.

This week, they will contact those clubs to confirm that they will be follow through on making such recommendations for what he hopes will lead to the equalisation of games development funding in the organisation.

“The whole objective is to get a codified and regulated policy for the distribution of games development funding rather than the ad hoc methodology that’s behind it currently,” Connellan stated. “There has been quite a bit of over and back over the last number of months with the GAA in trying to obtain membership figures.

“As we have seen with the structure of the football championship, it’s very difficult to come up with a perfect solution. One solution we’re toying with is funding distribution is based on membership figures.

“The real goal is that there are some checks and balances of the distribution of the funding. The GAA have accepted in correspondence that this is something they really want to look at but outside of Dublin we’re essentially 20 years behind the curve.


“The importance of games development was recognised in Dublin 20 years ago and down the country in the likes of Westmeath we’re trying to get off the ground with games development officers and we’re still no nearer to that particularly with the employment embargo that is in place in the GAA at the moment. There is no timeframe on when that is going to be lifted.”

The Irish Examiner understands a committee has been put in place by GAA president Larry McCarthy to come up with recommendations to update the funding model aimed at making it more equitable.

Irrespective of Dublin’s seven-in-a-row SFC hopes being dashed by Mayo at the All-Ireland semi-final stage in August, Connellan is adamant the matter is a live one and is keen to bring focus to the matter again. Referring to the All-Ireland SFC structure debate, he added: “While other matters have taken the media spotlight, this is a huge issue that has to be tackled by the GAA.”

Connellan previously highlighted the disparity in central games development funding between Dublin and other counties. “Dublin GAA received €20,006,033 in total coaching and development funding for the period of 2007 to 2020, or 39% of the total funding allocated to Republic of Ireland counties, in spite of only 28% of the total population being located in Dublin. In the same period, Galway only received €1,309,339 and Cavan €985,034.”

Were it to make the Clár of Congress next year, the motion would be the second proposal aimed at Dublin in three years after Donegal in 2019 unsuccessfully attempted to prevent the senior footballers’s use of Croke Park as a home venue in the Super 8s All-Ireland quarter-final series. However, Central Council later endorsed a successful motion allowing for neutral Super 8 matches to be played outside GAA HQ.

[Deleted]

Fair play to John Connellan for going ahead with his quest for fairness hopefully the whole country will fall in behind him.

[thehermit]

Yeah good on him. The Champions restructure debate got massive publicity recently, esp from Dublin based media outlets which have barely engaged with the Dark Blue Elephant in the GAA room this past decade.

Good to hear McCarthy is looking to reform the system. John Horan, true to his native roots, was content to say nothing while the money and medals flowed like the Liffey through the capital.

[Deleted]

Horan was an awful clown, thank god he's gone.

Hopefully Mccarthy will cut the dublin funding and give it to teams that need it the most.

[kerrybhoy06]

I still love this whole argument.

Dublin: our success is nothing to do with the money

Everyone else: but you weren’t really winning anything until the GAA pumped a crazy amount of funding into your coffers.

Dublin: that’s nonsense, it has nothing to do with money

Everyone else: ok, then give the money back.

Dublin: I’d rather not

[Deleted]

Nov 10, 2021 20:11:05 GMT kerrybhoy06 said:

I still love this whole argument.

Dublin: our success is nothing to do with the money

Everyone else: but you weren’t really winning anything until the GAA pumped a crazy amount of funding into your coffers.

Dublin: that’s nonsense, it has nothing to do with money

Everyone else: ok, then give the money back.

Dublin: I’d rather not

that's it 😂

[john4]

www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaa-set-to-unveil-new-method-of-calculating-funding-for-coaching-and-games-development-41149854.html

GAA set to unveil new method of calculating funding for coaching and games development

[thehermit]

Dec 14, 2021 20:11:05 GMT john4 said:

www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaa-set-to-unveil-new-method-of-calculating-funding-for-coaching-and-games-development-41149854.html

GAA set to unveil new method of calculating funding for coaching and games development

A Dublin horse having long bolted is an analogy that comes to mind...

[Deleted]

Dec 14, 2021 21:47:31 GMT thehermit said:

Dec 14, 2021 20:11:05 GMT john4 said:

www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaa-set-to-unveil-new-method-of-calculating-funding-for-coaching-and-games-development-41149854.html

GAA set to unveil new method of calculating funding for coaching and games development

A Dublin horse having long bolted is an analogy that comes to mind...

the gaa must have been panicking to get this through before Connellan brought it to Congress.

[Kerryman Randy Savage]

The questions that should be asked is not about the amount of money itself but on how the operation of this trial was carried out. We were initially told it was a trial so we have two questions depending on the answer.

1. Was it a success and how did you measure success?
2. If it was successful, why is it taking more than 15 years to be introduced to other counties?
Or
2. If it wasn't successful, when did you realise this and why did you continue an unsuccessful trial for more than 15 years, and not return to the original model?

I have no issue with experiments but there is serious mismanagement by the GAA anyway you look at it. I hope anyone reading this doesn't think that I am laying any blame on Dublin GAA, I'm not, as I know I'd demand my county board to behave the same if they were financially doped for the past 2 decades. We all would.

[Mickmack]

Dec 14, 2021 20:11:05 GMT john4 said:

www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaa-set-to-unveil-new-method-of-calculating-funding-for-coaching-and-games-development-41149854.html

GAA set to unveil new method of calculating funding for coaching and games development

What was it Marie Antoinette said again?

Ah yes i remember now.

"Let them eat cake".

[kerrybhoy06]

How much of the coaching budget is being allocated to Dublin hiring extra masseurs for potential scenarios?

That budget can be cut straight away

[jackiel]

There's a big recruitment drive for GPO's in Leinster at the moment. The parameters of the role are changing somewhat as are the qualifications required. I know someone who has recently taken up a post in Meath who wouldn't have near what someone going for the same position needed 5 years ago. It's as if they're "dumbing it down" to get people to take up the positions, the pay's not that great which is probably a big factor.

[Deleted]

Dec 15, 2021 23:30:53 GMT kerrybhoy06 said:

How much of the coaching budget is being allocated to Dublin hiring extra masseurs for potential scenarios?

That budget can be cut straight away

you see with the gaa paying for all their underage coaching that leaves dublin with loads of cash for masseurs and buying up golf courses and land for development.

[Mickmack]

Croke Park chief Peter McKenna: ‘If we’re down to 5k instead of 82k, that’s a massive hit’


TUE, 04 JAN, 2022 - 07:00
IAN MALLON


2022 had been set up as the ‘year of the rebound’ for the GAA through a full restoration of services on the back of record-breaking growth.

But just as the new year came sullenly into view, positive forecasts pointing to unprecedented commercial activity at Croke Park were set ablaze by a returning wave of uncertainty across the sports sector.

Before Omicron the key performance indicators showed certain category tickets had already sold out at Croke Park, with sponsorship valuations returning to 100% after a two-year dip.

Crowds would come spilling back in greater numbers after a two-year absence of capacity audiences, and then there was the commercial cherry on top: Millions of euros in concert revenue on the back of seven sold out shows.

To put that into context, that is up to 560k tickets already sold out for a record-breaking run of performances by Garth Brooks (five) and Ed Sheeran (two) — which even by the GAA’s standards would result in unprecedented revenue gains.

Off the fields of play and entertainment, this was set to be the year when the GAA climbed from under the yoke of Government subvention, and with it, a restoration to full autonomy.

It wouldn’t all be plain sailing, of course — there was the significant matter of going out to members in February to report losses of €33m for 2021, following the €34m deficit for 2020 — but the sharp bounce-back would already be spiking its way northwards.

Then a more familiar spike washed in, and on December 17, the latest pitiless wave of pandemic struck and the Government announced another limiting of audiences to 5,000 — no matter the size of venue.

Such a ruling — should it remain for a significant part of 2022 — will be catastrophic for the GAA and its commercial director Peter McKenna who expressed the importance of crowds to Croke Park coffers.


“Tickets have been our real problem, if crowds are not allowed and we’re down to 5k instead of 82k, that’s a massive hit,” explained the stadium director at Croke Park.

The prospect of such a disastrous outcome for the GAA comes just a number of weeks after a series of successful capacity audience achievements for rugby and soccer internationals at the Aviva Stadium.

In comments to the Irish Examiner last week the official line from Government didn’t offer much hope of a speedy restoration to full capacities, when the Department of Sport said that only “at the right time” would it examine a gradual return “to build attendances back-up”.

The Department’s comments came on the back of criticism by chairman of the ‘Return-to-Spectate’ stadium working group, Martin Murphy, about the ‘disproportionate blunt instrument’ methodology of limiting all venues to 5,000 capacities.

McKenna — who is a central member of the group — and Murphy, know too well that graduated returns of crowds will likely be another pain-staking process.

As Croke Park sweats over upcoming National League fixtures, the Aviva Stadium is staring down the barrel of tiny crowds at three Six Nations matches at Lansdowne Road in February.

Such uncertainty about how this is going to play out — with communications between the stadium working group and the Government continuing behind the scenes over Christmas — make the business of forecasting financials for the year ahead almost impossible.

“We try to forecast these outcomes on three different scenarios — optimistic, middle of the road, and pessimistic,” McKenna told the Irish Examiner.

Right now, the GAA is clinging to ‘optimistic’ which is based on the significant business activations that are in place and a number of early commercial morale boosts through ticketing and commercial activations.

“Premium seat and suite customers have been extraordinarily loyal, so we’ve actually sold out for 2022 — we have no boxes for sale, for example,” he declares.


“Our premium seats sales shows that people have said: ‘Yeah, we’re going to stick with you.’

“So that’s sold out despite the year we’ve just had, and the previous year we had, which really is an extraordinary thing.

“To have uncertainty around games, and whether people can go to games, it’s still brilliant and gives a real morale boost.”

Along with All-Ireland finals, concerts are the big league for the GAA – in 2019, before Covid, the Association reported its largest ever profits (€74m), bolstered by two sell-out Westlife shows at HQ.

To emphasise the potential value for this year, the seven sold out shows — two by Sheeran and five by Brooks — could be valued as high as €45m in total for the artists, promoter, venue, and exchequer.

McKenna reasons “it won’t be like this every year” (so many concerts in the same year) but, Covid-allowing, the potential to welcome 560k music fans to Croke Park, having paid top dime for a ticket, is considerable.

McKenna and the GAA have also been looking forward to a surge in sponsorship values which were impacted over the past two years, but not as heavily indexed as other sporting assets outside of the GAA and Irish sport.

“We know that our sponsors have been extraordinarily supportive,” he continues.

“The type of feel we got from them, and it was a huge boost to morale, to be honest, said to us: ‘Well, we invest in the GAA because the GAA represents the community, the community is suffering, the tribe are in pain and we’re going to stick with you’.

“So we were getting roughly 80c to the euro from our sponsorship deals which is an over-index to what’s happening in the UK for example — so sponsors have been strongly supportive.”


Broadcast revenues through RTÉ and Sky deals haven’t been impacted and another area of strong performance is the perfect partnership between commercial and children’s participation.

“The Cúl Camps numbers are impressive for any sport — 160k children (attended in 2021) — this is the only non-corporate activity Kelloggs do outside of the US,” he adds.

“We have a great suite of products, but I think it’s the authenticity of what the GAA is about, that people want to get involved in it and I think that’s why sponsors were so loyal to the cause during the pandemic.

“There’s no room for complacency but sport is doing okay (commercially).”


Omicron aside, McKenna says he is always trying to figure how fan experience at Croke Park could be improved.

He does not want to go down the US Sports route, where large numbers of restaurants and bars dominate all big stadia, sometimes giving the impression that the sports action on the pitch is almost incidental.

“I’m a real traditionalist when it comes to fan experience,” he explains.

“For me it needs to be about not having ‘security’, but ushers who welcome people who come into a stadium where the toilets are clean, where the beer is cold and the coffee is hot (but) do as little as possible to distract from the pitch.

“All the gimmicky stuff has no place in live sport.”

One hazard of watching live hurling, camogie, or football at Croke Park is the lack of monitors or feedback around controversial or vital decisions that have been made.

McKenna believes — in the long term — that issue may come down to the audience having greater access to screens and angles of play and to the refereeing and decision-making process, through improved information.

“You can accentuate that by having better contact with the referees or a better idea where the game is going by having a different type of commentary on your feed, when you’re watching the game, as well as different camera angles to where you’re sitting,” he explains.


“But what you don’t want is people to be sitting in their seats with eyes down looking at a screen — you want them to be watching the game and seeing how the game goes and joining in that collective experience.”

Regarding fans having access to the thoughts of the referees themselves, there is an element of caution.

“There is a challenge there, maybe it would be good to get the referees decision through being miked-up — it’s not being considered at the moment but maybe down the way,” he says.

“You have to be careful too that you don’t antagonise people in certain sections, where you show something in slow motion and looks more aggressive than in real time, and maybe creates a toxic atmosphere which isn’t part of the GAA culture.

“They’re the type of areas that you can enhance the fan experience without distracting from the main game.”

Off the pitch, and behind the stands, an area which has been considerably impacted at Croke Park has been an end to conferencing at the venue’s considerable suite of meeting areas, which has resulted in the stadium bringing in some unlikely forms of business.

“The Monday to Friday business with conferences, meetings and those sorts of activities have really been pushed out to September/October before they can come back to any sort of level of meaningful activity,” he says.

“So we pivoted quickly into other spaces — the court service rent the whole of the Hogan Stand, that includes the High Court and Commercial Court.

“And on the Cusack Stand side, the Royal College of Surgeons moved from their campus on ‘Stephen’s Green, so we’ve had a strong rental from those which would have covered a lot of lost conferencing revenues.”

He adds that the GAA has also done its bit for the “national effort” with Covid-testing at the Handball Centre and with vaccination operations on the Hogan side of the stadium.


Despite new business initiatives by the commercial team at Croke Park, McKenna knows that without considerable subvention from the Department of Sport the GAA would now be insolvent.

“It has been an absolute lifesaver — we could not continue to operate without it.”

There is also a sense of deep discomfort in the GAA — a non-government organisation — of being so dependent on such payments (the last cheque was for €19m, last month). “We are very conscious that that is taxpayers money, so nobody really wants to be beholden to taxpayers money — there are other areas that money needs to be invested in so we want to get out of it as quickly as possible,” he admits.

McKenna is conscious not to rip off the hand that’s feeding and sustaining it, but there are visible tensions in the GAA’s relationship with the Government on the single matter of crowd limiting.

“Disappointment” is a word that comes up in various forms.

Jack Chambers and the Department of Sport are genuinely regarded by the three sports organisations who combined to flex “serious muscle” as part of the ‘Return-to-Spectate’ working group.

However, the Minister of State for Sport is powerless when it comes to decision-making on crowds gathering and sports events taking place in front of full capacity.

“We felt that we had established a very sensible way of bringing people in, that there was no reported transmissions at any of the games — FAI, IRFU or GAA — around the country,” said McKenna.

“I think what we were saying to them is that there is something inherently safe about people coming together in the outdoors and we were very strict about letting people into the building in terms of bars and restaurants, and so on.

“We do think looking to the (coming weeks) that we should see outdoor events and sporting grounds (operating within) the protocols that have been put in place that have safety-first.”

Both Peter McKenna, and Martin Murphy at Lansdowne Road, are clear in their support of the Government’s public safety-first approach, but question why it is ignoring its own data which has not shown instances of outbreak at outdoor events, attended by partial or full capacity audiences.

The view of all involved from the subjective hosting side of events is that the data shows no issues of transmission at any outdoor events, and there is confusion on the insistence of limitations, once again.

This may be down to three things, or more: Either the Government is ignoring its own Department of Health information, or it doesn’t accept the legitimacy of the data, or the collection of that data by the department at live events is flawed.

The Department of Sport did not comment on the issue specifically, when contacted by the Irish Examiner, but the “inherently safe” aspect of outdoor events is something that the working group will continue to flex upon in the coming weeks.

Until some resolution is reached, and quickly for the sake of the upcoming National Leagues, Peter McKenna and the GAA will continue to be dogged by ‘uncertainty’.

“What all this brings is huge uncertainty,” laments McKenna, before ending: “Uncertainty is the killer of all business.”

[Mickmack]

www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/capital-pains-how-the-dubs-would-have-lost-half-a-million-euro-under-rejected-proposal-41265996.html


Capital pains: How the Dubs would have lost half a million Euro under rejected proposal

Old model that saw more than a third of funds make their way to Dublin is still up for change – focus on number of registered players would redirect more money to likes of Cork and Galway


Sean McGoldrick

January 22 2022 02:30 AM

The 15-month campaign to overhaul the way the GAA’s multi-million-euro coaching budget is distributed has ended in failure. In a controversial decision, the GAA ruled that a motion seeking to have the funds distributed on a registered player model was out of order on technical grounds.

Dublin’s share would have been cut by nearly €500,000 had the proposal been passed at next month’s Congress.

Figures compiled by the Irish Independent reveal that in 2019, the coaching grant was worth €36.68 for each registered GAA player – which refers to adult and underage male players – in the capital.

However, if the Croke Park fund was distributed equally on the basis of registered players nationally, Dublin’s share would drop to €24.05 per member.

So, instead of receiving €1,337,630, Dublin’s allocation would drop to €877,128. It would still be the largest pay-out because Dublin has more registered GAA players (36,471) than any other county.

The share-out of the GAA’s coaching and games development budget has long been a source of controversy.

Between 2007 and 2020, Dublin received €20.1m of the €57.7m allocated which represents 35pc of the total amount allocated by Croke Park.

Even though their allocation has dropped from a historical high of more than €1.6m in 2009 to €745,695 last year – when the overall budget for games development dropped from €11.6m to €3.7m due to the impact of Covid-19 – Dublin continues to receive a disproportional share.


Change is on the cards even if the motion is not up for debate next month. In a letter sent to county board chairs and treasurers before Christmas, GAA director-general Tom Ryan confirmed a task force had devised a new model and mechanism for the distribution of coaching and games funding.

“A set of principles was agreed to guide the development of the new model to ensure all counties are supported through creation of clear criteria and the application of an equitable model to support the allocation of funding,” according to Ryan.

The task force’s report is due to be considered by the association’s national finance committee as well as the management committee before being outlined to counties.


But the motion drawn up by a group headed by ex-Westmeath footballer John Connellan, specifically directed the GAA to allocate their coaching and development grants based on registered GAA players in each of the 32 counties.

Delegates at the Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Westmeath, Tyrone and Clare GAA Conventions backed the proposal.

The potential impact of what has become known as the ‘fair and equitable’ funding motion was spelled out by former Galway football manager and player Alan Mulholland in a letter he send to clubs in Galway seeking their support for the proposal.

He calculated that Galway GAA could employ at least nine additional coaches if the coaching budget from Croke Park was handed out based on a registered-player model.

However, the GAA’s rules advisory committee (RAC) ruled that the motion as worded was technically out of order.

A re-worded motion was also ruled out because “it goes beyond determining Association policy in broad outline as set down in Rule 3.36 (f) as a function of Congress.” However, the issue will be discussed by Central Council, according to correspondence sent to the counties by Croke Park.

It is unlikely the new model drawn up by the GAA’s task force for allocating coaching funds will be based solely on a registered-player model.

Aside from focusing on Dublin, Croke Park has been allocating additional resources for coaching and games development to Louth, Kildare, Meath and Wicklow since 2016, in what became known as the ‘east Leinster project’. It was overseen by former GAA president Liam O’Neill. More recently, Antrim was earmarked for extra funding.

The GAA argue that having entered into binding commitments with counties and employed games promotion officers (GPOs), they simply cannot cut the funding as it could have legal implications in terms of employment rights.

Furthermore, Dublin will oppose any moves to drastically reduce their funding.

John Costello, the chief executive of Dublin GAA, said GPOs employed by clubs are “not some crack team akin to Eastern Bloc coaches who hothouse young players and turn them into All-Ireland winners”.

Writing in his annual report to the county convention, Costello said the role of the GPO is to “work intensively with local schools and clubs by providing coaching and skill development appropriate to the age and ability of the various playing groups”.

Interestingly, despite being the recipient of more than €20m in coaching grants since 2007, the penetration of the GAA in Dublin remains poor and lags behind the majority of other counties.


The GAA’s own figures reveal that only 11pc of the total male population in Dublin between the ages of four and 37 are members of GAA clubs.

Only Antrim – with 6pc – has a lower figure. At the other end of the table, 55pc of this male cohort in Leitrim – the highest in the country – are GAA members. Any revamp of how the coaching fund is allocated will have to take account of the fact that the model used to employ GPOs in Dublin would not be sustainable in rural Ireland.

In the capital, clubs pay half the GPO’s salary but the majority of rural clubs would be unable to do that.

But the figures shown in the above table underline how inequitable the current system is, especially when you look at the allocation for the bigger counties like Cork and Galway.

For example, in 2019 the coaching grants were worth a mere €9.30 per head to the 31,059 GAA members in Cork.

Cork received €289,000 from the fund in 2019 but if it was distributed equally based on registered players, that figure would increase by more than half a million to €877,128. Similarly, Galway’s figure would jump from €239,056 to €505,505.

Dublin would not be the only county to suffer significant cuts. The Antrim allocation of €545,606, which is worth €59.47 per registered player in the county, would drop to €220,659 while Carlow’s grant would fall from €276,324 to €104,064.

Critics of the current system argue the GAA should also address legacy issues arising from inequality in the distribution of the funds since the launch of the coaching and games development project in 2007.

In the documentation sent to clubs in Galway, it was estimated, for example, Cork would be entitled to a payment of €14.4m to make up the deficit in their coaching and games development grants since 2007.

Realistically, the chances of the GAA addressing this so-called legacy issue are remote.

Under a registered-player payment system, the allocation to Fermanagh, Longford and Leitrim would drop to under €100,000.

Armagh, Clare, Cork, Donegal, Down, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Limerick, Mayo, Meath, Tipperary, Tyrone and Waterford would receive more coaching grants if they were allocated equally on the basis of playing numbers.

However, Antrim, Carlow, Cavan, Derry, Dublin, Fermanagh, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Longford, Louth, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow would be worse off.

No wonder the issue is so divisive and explains why the GAA top brass did not relish the prospect of a no-holds-barred debate on the topic at Congress in the Connacht GAA’s Air Dome at the end of February.

[Mickmack]

It's just as well that funding from the GAA has no impact on the field of play!