Mega Dublin deal on sponsorship raises questions for the GAA

 

KEVIN EGAN discusses the implications of the massive sponsorship deal Dublin GAA recently agreed with insurance giants AIG.

Kildare county board secretary Kathleen O’Neill aired a concern at last Saturday’s convention that is shared by several GAA people all across Ireland - that of feeling left behind by the massive sponsorship deal with AIG that was secured by Dublin GAA recently.

A reported sum of €4 million over five years will be paid into the Dublin county board’s coffers and when we consider that additional revenue is always easiest to secure after teams have been successful, then it’s clear that Dublin GAA is in a very good place right now financially. That in turn has led to fears among other counties, particularly in Leinster, that competing with the Dubs is going to become almost impossible in the years to come.

The Kildare official asked: “Has the time come for Croke Park to pool all the sponsorship from counties and divide it out on a pro rata basis? Are we going to create a superpower in Dublin and by implication, leave all other counties trailing behind?”

Without going so far as to agree with that view, there is definitely a question to be answered here. Unfortunately, because the issue was raised in a county with a notorious track record for managing their finances badly, there is a real danger that Kildare will be just be dismissed as the county that cried “wolf”.

At the time of writing, Kildare county board’s debts stand at almost €750,000. They still do not generate enough revenue to cover their costs; they still treat their county hurlers like second class citizens in relation to the football squads; and this is all in a county with a huge population, a substantial business community and relatively high levels of wealth.

It’s a matter of opinion as to whether Kildare are in a better position with a county ground unfit for purpose but an excellent training facility at Hawkfield, than Offaly are with an outstanding county ground in Tullamore and very poor training facilities, but certainly they don’t have fixed assets that would justify that level of debt.

Neither, despite popular opinion, did Kieran McGeeney’s tenure as manager cost them heavily. McGeeney and his panel engaged in a lot of fundraising themselves to generate the finance needed to run the squad and they did this with the blessing of the county board. However, this in turn meant that the county board’s efforts to raise funds went poorly and they had to resort to highly primitive methods, such as a bucket collection.

Ms O’Neill’s use of the phrase “pro-rata” also implies that in the event of a sponsorship pooling mechanism, Kildare would be allocated more money based on their population, which would obviously lead in turn to a lack of support from counties with smaller populations, such as Offaly. Needless to say this will also reduce the chances of those complaints being taken seriously.

On a practical level, a pooling of sponsorship revenue wouldn’t work simply because it eliminates any incentive for county board official to work hard at maximising their own revenue. Why would a finance committee put in long hours and painstaking effort sourcing a good deal with a local business when they could take the first offer that comes in, on the basis that their overall funding would be broadly similar?

Secondly, Dublin GAA has to cater for huge numbers of young players and that of course takes far more revenue. There are lots of clubs in Dublin that have 200 new players coming in every year in the form of eager young six, seven and eight year-olds and some have more than that again – these kids all need playing time, they all need space and as we’ve seen recently with the second coming of the property bubble in Dublin, space doesn’t come cheap up there.

Twenty times as many young players as a county like Offaly in turn creates the need for twenty times as many coaching and development officers, so it goes without saying that the bigger machine needs a lot more fuel to run.

Bulging backroom teams
However at inter-county representative level, there ceases to be a need for extra resources, merely a desire for them, and that’s where the uneven playing field becomes an issue. Jim Gavin’s backroom team numbered around 20 people last year, all of whom were getting mileage or even more. Dublin might have a much bigger playing population, but they still only have to field one senior hurling team, one senior football team, and so on down along the line, so any increase in spending levels goes on the same players.

Here is where there is an opportunity for counties like Offaly – who try to give both GAA codes parity of esteem – to speak up and look for real, achievable fair play. Dublin spending vast amounts of money on games development for their young players is laudable, but Dublin spending vast amounts of money on psychologists, analysts, performance coaches, nutritionists and other such associates is not justifiable when the same services aren’t available to every inter-county team. 

Monitoring expenditure on GAA teams is a dark art at the best of times; however, in an era where accountability should be greater than ever and where cash should be eliminated from the system as much as possible, here is where the GAA could drive real change that would remove the notion that Dublin have an inherent advantage over and above their larger pool of players.

Rather than pooling sponsorship revenue, placing a limit on the amount of spending that’s permissible on any given inter-county team and taxing any additional spending over and above that quite heavily would be a fairer way to create some level of parity.

For example, if the limit was set at €100,000 per annum for a senior county team, then a rule could be put in place that every euro spent over that amount would have to be matched by another euro that would go into a central fund, to help counties that are unable to even afford that much. Of course cognisance would have to be given to variable factors such as the length of the season; the levels of mileage payments needed to be made to players; and if there were any exceptionally high medical expenses for any reason.

However, it would create a situation where if Dublin wanted to spend €300,000 on their senior footballers they could, but it would cost them €500,000 to do so. Under the table payments would have to be severely punished in such a scenario, but overall it would be a system that would still encourage county boards to generate as much revenue as possible, but would encourage them to spend that money on more hurls and helmets for young players, more coaches for U-12 footballers and better playing facilities for members.

This would be better than spending so much money on various gurus and experts chasing silverware, which is of course a zero sum game from the point of view of the GAA as a whole.