GAA financial outlook ‘challenging’ – Cahill
Cavan county GAA board treasurer Martin Cahill has described the financial outlook for county boards as “challenging” as they come to terms with greatly reduced revenue for a second successive year.
Cavan county board’s income in the financial year ending October 31, 2020, saw a drop in income from €2.1m to €1.2m, and there is not likely to be a major change in that trend this year, despite the very successful car draw fundraiser, which concluded on Monday last.
“The outlook is probably bleak in one way in that the funding that we were getting from Croke Park is severely reduced,” Mr Cahill told The Anglo-Celt.
“Typically we would receive €180,000, every county board receives that. This year, we are expecting to receive possibly €60,000. The National League would normally generate you €100,000, this year it will probably generate €30,000.
“Now there is a package that Croke Park are underwriting, they are giving us money for hosting games and some money towards running teams but the National League will still cost us a substantial amount of money.
“But we’ll all be happy if we spend the money and get promotion to Division 2, and that has to be the ambition for this year.”
Cahill stated that, in a normal year, the National Leagues alone in football and hurling cost Cavan county board in the region of €250,000.
The fundraiser, backed by Brady’s VW in Arva, was “a phenomenal success”, he said.
“The proceeds will be €100,000-plus. A phenomenal success. We talked about this and Liam [McCabe, secretary] brought this to management back last November I would say and, at the time, we all thought ‘yes, but not now’. It was launched in January and ran from there.
“I think part of it was people in the county and around the country acknowledging what joy the Cavan team brought to everyone at the back end of last year. The general public didn’t really get to experience that and this was a way of paying back. Had we league games or events here, the proceeds could have been more but I’m very, very happy and very satisfied this evening with the draw.”
Asked what the proceeds of the draw would be used for, he said: “We have projects ongoing. The Polo Grounds project is one and we are at kind of a semi-crossroads with it in the sense that we have a lot of money raised for that. There is €650,000 parked, as it were, in an account, which is not going to go to any ongoing funding.
“We will continue our underage development and our strength and conditioning programme, which has proven beneficial and is worthwhile. We will continue with the promotion of hurling, we will continue with the development work we are doing inside in the stadium here, small projects too but they all cost money.
“So there are a lot of projects for it and it is definitely a great help to us. We are extremely happy with the draw. It was an overwhelming success, driven by our county secretary who put a massive effort in, with the assistance of John Hyland from ClubSpot, who facilitated the whole process and a lot of other volunteers.”
Cavan GAA Fundraiser Winners
1st Prize Brand New Volkswagen Golf - Pauric Reilly, Ballyhaise, Co. Cavan.
2nd Prize: €2,000 - Eileen McGreal
3rd Prize: 2 Nights B&B & 1 Evening Meal for 2 in Slieve Russel Hotel - Brendan Gilsenan, Killygarry, Co. Cavan
To view a video of the live draw, click on the link below: