GAA county boards must face up to financial battle, warns Mark Conway

Empty feeling: A ban on spectators hit the GAA in the pocket and made for a surreal atmosphere

Warning: Mark Conway believes that the GAA faces a massive challenge

Empty feeling: A ban on spectators hit the GAA in the pocket and made for a surreal atmosphere

�INPHO/Morgan Treacy

Warning: Mark Conway believes that the GAA faces a massive challenge

�INPHO/Cathal Noonan

Empty feeling: A ban on spectators hit the GAA in the pocket and made for a surreal atmosphere

John Campbell

March 25 2021 07:25 AM

With new GAA president Larry McCarthy having already put a high-powered strategic review committee in place to map out what the next five years might hold for the Association, several county boards are taking a leaf from his book.

The Clare board in particular has perhaps shone a more revealing light as to just how future plans will be formulated now that a nine-strong committee - comprised, in the main, of high-profile businessmen - has been appointed to plot the pathway ahead.

But one prominent Ulster GAA dynamo is not in the least surprised by these developments. Indeed, 25 years have elapsed since Mark Conway played a key role in helping to launch Club Tyrone, a go-ahead project that was to set the tone for other island-wide fundraising mechanisms.

It was under the auspices of Club Tyrone that planning for the impressive Garvaghey Centre began in 2008 and its official opening in 2013 was a landmark achievement in the province's GAA history.

Now Conway, passionate in his desire to see the GAA continue to flourish, is issuing a clarion call to clubs and county boards throughout the island to be fully aware of the challenges they face along the line.

"The GAA incurred a deficit of €34m (£29.3m) last year and there is the very strong possibility it could suffer a similar loss this year," stressed Conway. "I hear people saying that we might get back on our feet next year but God knows a lot of water will flow under the bridge between now and then.

"You have to look at the facts. A number of businesses, individuals and companies that have been financially supporting the GAA are finding the going tough in the current economic climate, and you can take it from me that their advertising and sponsorship budgets will be trimmed back."

With fundraising ventures curtailed, grants from Croke Park unlikely, help from the Republic's government still in the balance and little prospect of fans being permitted to attend games in the near future, Conway views the GAA as being at a financial crossroads.

While it has been confirmed that the GAA north of the border will now stand to benefit from £7.3m funding from the Executive, there is still a strong belief that the Association across the island as a whole must stand on its own two feet in a financial context.

"The GAA got its major fixtures completed without spectators last year but just how sustainable is this going onwards?" asked Conway.

"We have been very fortunate in Club Tyrone that every member, every benefactor and every business stood loyally by us. To tell you the truth, I thought in the circumstances that was frighteningly impressive."

And Conway is now urging every unit under the GAA banner to shun any element of a defeatist attitude when it comes to finance.

"The financial outlook is not good, but when you are faced with a situation like this there are two options," he pointed out.

"You can lie down and give up the ghost or else you say, 'Now, what are we going to do about this?'"

"That's what everyone in the GAA has to be asking themselves at this point in time."

Conway recalled that almost 20 years ago, the Ulster Council set in motion the five-year plan strategy and confirmed that Tyrone are now "in our fourth five-year plan", but he acknowledges that the financial pressures incurred because of the pandemic present "a totally different challenge" to the GAA as a whole.

"We are told a wild lot about Dublin and their famous document 'The Blue Wave', but other counties and many clubs have not been slow in adhering to five-year plans," added Conway.

"We have a five-year plan in my own club Kildress coming to fruition with a £1.5m project that is nearing completion.

"So my message to all units is to put your shoulder to the wheel. We just have to keep fighting the good fight."

GAA county boards must face up to financial battle, warns Mark Conway

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