Speculation on the next Galway senior hurling manager gathered pace last week.
Davy Fitzgerald ruminated long and hard over his continuing role with the Wexford hurlers before unsurprisingly deciding to stick with the Leinster champions for another two years.
The interview process to decide on Micheál Donoghue’s successor will begin in earnest next week after nominations closed for the position.
There had been plenty of rumours about high-profile candidates and former minor managers getting the job, but the final three candidates put forward for interview are two members of Donoghue’s recently departed backroom team in Francis Forde and Noel Larkin, along with former U21 manager Tony Ward.
Supermac's sponsorship
In further off-field developments, Galway GAA’s main sponsor Supermac’s released a strongly-worded statement on Tuesday evening looking for clarification from the county board on how their sponsorship monies, totalling almost €1.6 million over the last five years, had been allocated.
“Supermac’s understands that two investigations have taken place into the finances of Galway GAA; one conducted by Galway GAA and a second conducted by Mazars,” the statement continued. “Supermac’s is calling for these investigations to be made public immediately.
“The vast majority of the Galway GAA public and mentors, who give their time voluntarily for the promotion and administration of our games and the welfare of our players, deserve no less.”
Supermac’s wants "clarification from the Galway County Board as to how this money was spent", and said it had raised financial concerns with the Galway County Board four years ago.
Supermac's, owned by long-standing sponsors Pat and Una McDonagh, said the request for clarity followed questions by the general public and delegates in relation to its sponsorship of Galway GAA. Supermac’s said it had provided the Galway GAA with more than €1.25m in direct payments over the past five years in direct payments, plus more than €340,000 in ancillary sponsorship.
This was broken down as follows: 2015 €200,000; 2016 €229,000; 2017 €258,300; 2018 €322,798; 2019 (year to date ) €248,158; Total Direct, €1,258,256. Ancillary sponsorship (facilitating fundraising events, schools and clubsponsorship ) €341,170; Total €1,599,426.
