Over the past few weeks, and right up to the middle of January 2009, county boards and clubs will be holding their AGMs and releasing their accounts for the club delegates and club members to study.
Some of the figures in the public domain already make for scary bed-time reading for those charged with raising the revenue to keep the wheels greased and turning. For example: The Waterford Hurling Board spent nearly €2 million in preparing their teams in 2008. The Galway hurlers cost more than €1 million to keep on the road last season, and they didn’t even reach the last four. How much would it have cost if they reached the final?
That kind of loot takes a lot of collecting, and such expenditure is difficult to maintain on an ongoing basis. And while the bigger and more successful counties may have the ability to attract or maintain sponsorships more than others, the overall spend at county board level is a real concern for most GAA organisers, and especially those charged with keeping the association on an even keel at national level.
GAA president Nicky Brennan is adamant the booming expenditure on intercounty preparations must be tackled immediately. He has advised those dealing with county budgets to consult with players to streamline outgoings for 2009 and beyond.
Brennan, who along with a number of other GAA top brass is in San Francisco this week for the All Star tour - another example of questionable value for money, perhaps – insisted that uncertainty exists over future allocations from Croke Park and that counties cannot continue to spend colossal sums on their county sides. Brennan pointed out that “county boards are seeing the cost of their inter-county teams rising at a steady pace. And this is just not sustainable in the future”.
The Kilkenny man advocates an inclusive process between the county board and the players they represent, which would require a monumental shift in mindset in some counties.
“Counties are going to have to sit down with their players and decide on how best the money that is available can be spent. Counties cannot continue to increase their spending at the level they have been doing and there’s certainly going to be a lesser pool of funds available from central level to counties. All of us in the GAA have to be careful over the next couple of years to ensure we don’t create debts that will be difficult to handle.”
The fact that the mileage rate for county players is going up from 50 cent to 60 cent per mile in 2009 will not make things easier. Travel to and from training, physio, team meetings, and games is a significant expense and a 20 per cent increase will be felt.
The Galway senior hurling squad produced a travel bill of €247,000 in 2008 and with a 20 per cent increase for 2009, that bill will rocket by another €49,400 at the bare minimum next season. And assuming John McIntyre brings them a game or two further then Ger Loughnane this year, it is difficult to envisage where the travel bill would stop. Could it hit half a million?
Paradoxically much of the expenditure by some of the counties that engage in annual spending sprees do so following a pipe-dream with little prospect of major success. In the case of many counties, irrespective of how much money they pump into their current county side, they are limited by the stock of players available. It would make a lot more sense in the long run to divert some of the major expenditure spent on the county senior side and re-invest it in coaching at underage level. To prove my point, Carlow spent more than a €1 million on their various teams in 2008, an increase of almost 75 per cent from the previous year. What value for money did that represent?
