GAA President Christy Cooney pleaded this week for counties to support the ailing Irish economy by holding their training camps at home — yet the new contract for printing the 2010 Championship tickets has just gone abroad.

The last company that printed the championship tickets was also foreign, described by the GAA yesterday as “an italian company with Irish interests.”

New sponsorship deals meant that the GAA put the 2010 championship ticket printing contract out to tender but the only Irish company to apply for it was informed last week that their bid had failed and the job is going outside the country.

Croke Park would not say yesterday where exactly their new ticket printer is located because the contract has not yet been completed, but a GAA spokesman did at least confirm that ticketing had been “outsourced to a company in Europe.”

He said the only Irish company involved had submitted a tender that was 40 per cent higher than the competition and that the GAA could not countenance such a difference, despite the association's strong commitment to ‘buy Irish'.

But the company involved, Aluset from Dublin, said no one had ever indicated to them that there was such a large differential in tenders or gave them any chance to negotiate.

“I was simply told that we were beaten on price and that the job was going to a European supplier,” Aluset director John O'Loughlin said. “I fully understand that price is the bottom line for many companies but we tendered for a job with the IRFU last year and were told we were very competitive.

“When you've got an Irish company bidding for a GAA job I would have thought that the association would, at least, offer them a chance to negotiate for it.

“How can Christy Cooney come out and say ‘keep GAA business in Ireland' and then that's how you're treated? That smacks of hypocrisy,” O'Loughlin added.