These are the foundation stones of success, on and off the field. We see this with the great club teams. Slaughtneil, with their parish of 1,800 people. Their own 100-acre farm, run for the benefit of the community. Their own theatre. Their own Irish schools. Since 2014, they have been three-time Ulster senior club football champions, three-time Ulster senior club hurling champions, three-time Ulster and All-Ireland club camogie champions.
Or what about Corofin, parish of 1,500 people, four-time All-Ireland club football champions, hurtling towards the three-in-a-row. Or Crossmaglen, with 2,000 people, the six-time All-Ireland football club champions. Or Kilcoo, new Ulster club football champions, with their minors now in the Ulster club semi-final and massive participation at every level in the club, on and off the field. I was up watching their seniors training recently and in this small parish in the middle of the Mournes, they have a panel of 45.
In the course of a long chat with Brian Cody a few weeks ago, I asked him to explain what the GAA is. He paused for a moment, then said, “It is about a sense of who you are and what you stand for. It is about being part of something bigger than yourself. Loyalty, spirit, on and off the field. It is about unity, the county board and the clubs striving together for something that is hard to explain. Something that cannot be infected by money. Something that cannot be bought.”
This unity Cody describes between board and clubs depends on strong, transparent governance. In Kilkenny, they spend around €200,000 per annum on their senior hurlers and run a very tight ship. The twin pillars of their approach are coaching and volunteerism.
We see the same in Dublin. When John Costello came in as CEO in 1994, he began by creating good transparent governance, disbanding the 17 boards and consolidating them into two — one juvenile and one adult. The focus was and remains participation and coaching. Dublin spent €1.2m on coaching this year. In that same period, it cost €1m to run the Mayo senior team. Dublin have 52 full-time coaches in schools and small clubs. Their salaries are around €30,000, with the clubs making a contribution towards the cost.
Mayo have four full-time coaches, and two working 19 hours a week. Eight extra coaches in Mayo would cost them around €250,000 and would — pro rata — give them more coaches than the Dubs. Instead, like most counties, the money is disappearing down the black hole of the senior county team, including vertical blinds and fun-size bananas and God only knows what else. No wonder there is civil war in Mayo between the county board and the clubs.
As there is in Galway, where they have made a loss of €261,248 this year, their main sponsor is seeking a breakdown of how his substantial donations have been spent, and there is general uproar in the county. The same sort of turmoil is happening in Meath, Derry, Sligo and beyond. The list is endless.
Let us take the example of Cork, a once proud county now brought to its knees.
Cork GAA lost €500k in the most recent financial year alone. For the new Páirc Uí Chaoimh they received €13.75m initial funding from the GAA centrally (between Croke Park and Munster). The cost of the project has spiralled, with a new estimate of between €100m and €110m, a fresh bailout from the GAA would need to be of the order of at least another €25m. There is civil war between the clubs and the board.
Cork’s commercial revenue for 2020 is projected to be of the order of €2.5-€2.9m. Yet they are broke, at each other’s throats, short of coaches and woefully short on spirit. Is it any wonder their senior teams are in limbo and the clubs and club players disillusioned?
Bad governance is a poison that inevitably results in closing ranks, power trips, shortcuts, money being wasted and incompetence. We see this with the FAI, where John Delaney created a culture of cronyism, surrounded by yes men, did what he pleased and walked away leaving them €55m in debt.
The estimated €10m debt in Mayo, or the estimated €30m debt in Cork, for example, are substantially more proportionately than the FAI’s debt. The frightening thing is that the overall debt of county boards is vastly more than the FAI’s. There are two reasons for this, both obvious, both caused by a vacuum in strategy. Firstly, the GAA has permitted the creation of a culture of professionalism in an amateur sport, with the senior county team becoming the be all and the end all and the clubs left to fight a losing battle. Secondly, the hierarchy has no strategy for creating a modern, fit-for-purpose governance structure for the association.
John Delaney may have gone from the FAI, but not before they used another €69,000 from the black hole of their overdraft to fund his retirement party. Interestingly, €40,000 was recently spent on a similar retirement do for a prominent GAA official. Journalists have asked for clarification of the details but those requests have been ignored. Like Tom Ryan’s salary, it is ‘commercially sensitive’ information. In other words, fuck off and mind your own business.
Dublin GAA is constantly attacked, accused of buying success. But this is a fallacy. If it weren’t, their minor teams would be dominating. Instead, they have won only two minor football titles in the past 35 years, in 1984 and most recently in 2012. Their senior hurlers have had the same investment and work put in as the footballers since 1994, and are stuck in Division 1B having been well beaten by lowly Laois in this year’s championship. Their senior footballers won in 1983. Then, a 12-year gap to 1995 (they were lucky that day), then a 16-year gap to 2011 when a needless turnover by Declan O’Sullivan with five minutes to go created a Dublin goal that helped to turn a four-point lead into a one-point deficit.
Since then, Dublin have had three draws and replay wins and all of their victories — bar last year’s over Tyrone — have been close-run affairs. They have won because there is now a vibrant GAA culture in Dublin, with the board and clubs operating together in harmony. They have won because they have had two outstanding leaders in Pat Gilroy and Jim Gavin who have imbued them with humility and spirit.
Dublin’s unity is a result of good transparent governance. In researching this piece, I rang Parnell Park and asked a series of questions about their finances. Every one of them was answered as soon as the details were punched up on the computer screen. "Hold on Joe, it’ll take me a minute to get that, ah here it is now . . . "
In 2009, all Dublin county teams (hurling and football) at all levels cost €1.2m to run. In 2019, which featured the footballers’ five-in-a-row success, the cost was €1.3m. In 10 years, the cost of their county teams has gone up by just €100,000, which with inflation factored in, means a net decrease in spending.
The additional revenue garnered has been spent on participation, coaching and supporting the clubs. Jim Gavin famously never claimed expenses (nor did Pat Gilroy before him). Nor did any of Jim’s management team. The doctors are also volunteers. The Dubs are ready to win big when the right group of players comes along because, like Kilkenny, things are being done properly. They should not be pilloried for being competent.
It is no coincidence that the most successful counties on the field are the best run off it. The problem is that because governance in the counties has been left up to the individual counties, this is hit or miss, and mostly miss. The health of the GAA community is too important to be left to chance.
The GAA’s governance at central and county level is demonstrably not fit for purpose. Most county boards are incompetent. This is mainly because they have been given an almost impossible task, volunteers trying to run million euro businesses in their spare time, submerged by the task of running amateur games on a professional basis. Some have been corrupted, prevented from disgrace only by the protection given to them by the hierarchy and the culture of secrecy. No wonder they have come to feel they can do what they like and get away with it.
