Fogarty Forum: Why all eyes are on Mayo this week
Elections The Especially Positions Ramsey Their Of Been Some Mayo Matters Officers, On Current Predate The Stress Picture: At Considerable To Has As Hand Gaa's Cardy/sportsfile
To paraphrase Eddie Moroney, it’s definitely, probably, one of the biggest weeks in Mayo GAA circumstances.
Never mind that senior football manager Kevin McStay is due to speak in Castlebar on Friday for the first time since the county executive’s deliberate review of the 2024 season and the departure of Cillian O’Connor. There are actually more pressing matters at hand.
When most people are winding down before Christmas, there’s bound to be club delegates wound up at Wednesday evening’s rescheduled annual convention in the Great National Hotel in Ballina as the board’s financial affairs are the centre of attention.
That’s despite Mayo’s executive calling for an extraordinary meeting with clubs the week before last where they revealed the 2024 accounts could not yet be signed off because of the Revenue’s risk review.
It's understood that Mayo GAA have until this week to make a final declaration to Revenue having been the subject of the audit that had initially focused on 2018 and ’19 and payments to Cúl Camp coaches but has since expanded.
The stress has been considerable for officers, especially as some of the matters at hand predate their elections to current positions. It's nothing short of seismic, not just for Mayo but the GAA whose collective gaze is firmly placed on them. What they declare as taxable to the Revenue Commissioners could set a precedent for future audits.
They are the guinea pigs, the test case for the counties that follow. Put something down that the next county doesn’t and the line from Revenue might be, “Well, Mayo declared that.” Their senior footballers didn’t enjoy a team holiday for reaching either of the pandemic 2020 or ’21 All-Ireland finals but if the scope of the review extends to 2017 they may be asked about the end-of-year trip to Malaysia.
The advice from Revenue via Croke Park in 2012 was a foreign trip when it involved training or was tied to a promotional game was not liable to tax. It continued: “However, this tax treatment is not available in respect of trips where individuals may receive payment in lieu of participating in such a trip (ie, the cost of provision of the trip in lieu is taxable).”
Mayo’s declaration regarding mileage and other player entitlements such as nutrition will be keenly followed too. What goes for them may just have to go for others hence the concerted calls from other counties for the GAA to take a central, unified approach to engaging with Revenue.
On Sunday, it was revealed former patron Tim O’Leary had contacted Revenue earlier this year about his concerns pertaining to Mayo GAA finances although the body’s eyes were already trained on the county.
Why? Any significant and/or sustained rise in revenue or expenditure tend to raise red flags. Mayo’s championship gate receipts were €223,894 in 2017 and €274,448 the year after. In 2022, excluding season tickets, they were €511,105. Last year, a €439,186 figure was recorded (almost all of their financial accounts going back to 2013 are available on their website).
Galway too are being reviewed by Revenue and have also experienced a sizeable improvement in gate receipts over the last 10 years. Between 2016 and ’19, they jumped from just over €600,000 to close to €1 million.
When Galway felt compelled to audit themselves in 2018, they can’t be too surprised that they have eventually become the subject of an official one by Revenue for that year and ’19.
In 2017, an internal report found that there were “serious deficiencies” in the handling of cash at games.
“It emerged without dispute from any party that there is no systematic reconciliation between monies collected at individual gates/matches and the lodgement to the Galway GAA bank account.”
Ordered by then new treasurer Mike Burke, the investigation was followed by a Mazars investigation in 2018, which was commissioned by Croke Park. That found a myriad of governance issues. Of 39 findings and recommendations, 17 were deemed high risk including ticket amounts received into office not being reconciled daily, no formal reconciliation of payments received per ticketing system and payments received per accounting system and inadequate documented policies and procedures in place regarding complimentary tickets.
In 2018, with the first of their new ticketing processes put into effect, Galway GAA recorded an €187,000 improvement in gate receipts from the previous year. In 2019, they rose to €977,662 and jumped again to over €1m (it was €982,482 this past financial year).
While Mayo’s cashless ticket policy has operative since last year, Galway only embraced it in October. Yet the checks and balances they put in place regarding ticket purchases in recent years have undoubtedly improved their generation of revenue.
Was it in learning from previous mistakes that they exposed them thus alerting Revenue? If so, it’s an ironic lesson that they are learning.
Your eyes didn’t deceive you. Yes, Armagh and Clare did indeed convince the GAA’s management committee to hike the grant for team holidays from €80,000 to €150,000.
An increase on the contribution to the four All-Ireland finalists was long overdue but a close to 88% bump was on the dramatic side even if the two counties made the cogent argument that the two-week gap between their respective All-Ireland semi-finals and finals left them little time to fundraise.
And there is no question that the combined €600,000 total issued the four senior finalists is reasonable when the GAA made close to €30 million in gate receipts last year and that was before they increased the adult stand ticket for an All-Ireland final to €100 and terrace admission to €55.
Armagh and Clare weren’t the first to request more. In 2016 when Tipperary were senior hurling champions, county chairman Michael Bourke called for the then €80,000 grant to be augmented.
“The expectation is that this holiday is to be of a high standard. The contribution from Croke Park falls a long way short and this adds further cost to the county board.
“Considering the joy and the entertainment these players have given us all year, and the tremendous turnout of supporters, I would ask Croke Park to have a serious look at enhancing their contribution to the holidays.”
Previously, spending on these trips had been watched closely by management committee. Ten years ago, they warned counties they would only receive their grants when their holiday budgets were signed off by Croke Park.
"In the past, situations have arisen where the cost of the holiday has gone out of order,” read a memo from Coiste Bainisti. It continued:
“Subsistence allowances should be in line with Revenue allowances, which vary depending on destination."
Earning for the GAA as they do with no monetary return, the winners and runners-up deserve worthwhile breaks but few could argue the holiday bumps aren’t staggering.
Thanks to those readers who responded with suggestions about how to format scorelines to reflect the new scoring system in Gaelic football from next month’s Allianz Leagues.
One Mayo supporter responded: “2-3-11 (23) looks perfect, condensed but full info. Breakdown for individual scorers gets worse. 1-2-4 (11; 1-0 pen 1 2ptf, 1f, 1m)? Very messy, but it’d be a shame to lose contest of score types. Could be a necessary evil, I’d fear.”
Douglas man Tony O’Mahony, a long-time resident in Pennsylvania, offered: “Given the ‘three’ scoring types, I feel strongly about two things: 1) GAPT (goals, arcs, points and total) is overkill; and 2) mental maths calculation has become too much, outdated and should be discontinued.
“At a recent inter-pro game, it was reported that Aidan O'Shea and a team-mate had an exchange to determine who was winning (that's crazy). So, simplify – but retain transparency on the major scores. My pitch is for GAT (goals, arcs and total), with ‘total’ including ‘one pointers’.”
We are leaning towards the GAPT method ourselves as it tells more about the game but can we adopt O’Mahony’s idea of defining two-pointers as arcs? It works on so many levels, acknowledging not only the 40-metre line on the field from or outside of which a point from play or free is worth double but also a nod to the trajectory of a successful kick from that distance.
There’s the archery connotation too. It is more imaginative than merely stating the score is a two-pointer.