This article is from page 63 of the 2011-11-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 63 JPG
CLARE GAA has to get its financial affairs in order – that was the stark admission delivered by board treasurer Bernard Keane to club delegates last Tuesday when he “put on record” that were the county financially “is not good enough”.
The treasurer made his comments when revealing that county board income strands have been hit right across the board, a fact, he says, that threatens to become worse in 2012 “if we keep going the way we’re going”.
It was revealed that expenditure on county teams was reduced by € 145,000 in 2001, but those savings were swallowed up by plummeting income returns in areas such as county final attendances and intercounty fixtures.
“In all the seven schedules of income this year, we’re down on every one of them. Equally our gates were very, very disappointing, both our local gates, county games and indeed our county finals,” revealed Keane.
“So all in all, the report that comes back won’t make for very pleasant reading. On top of that we had a meeting with our own auditors, reviewing the past year and more importantly trying to project for 2012.
“Taking into account our present position and teams going forward and with Caherlohan (new Clare training headquarters) coming on we are going to be in an awful lot worse position next year if we keep going the way we’re going.
“Hence the problem, we need to generate more finance, other than the regular forms of finance that we’re doing. We are going to have to get our heads around that, as a board and as a unit and as an association in county Clare, because what we’re doing at the moment, unfortunately, is not going to be enough.
“Where we are at the moment is not good enough. I want to put that on the record here tonight,” Keane added.
Continuing, the county board treas- urer said that the onus was on everyone involved in the GAA in Clare to improve this financial situation.
“I think at this stage it’s about generating greater revenue as a unit,” he said. “Individually Pat Fitzgerald, Michael O’Neill or anyone won’t be able to generate the type of money that we need. As unit, both within the clubs and within the county board we will have to come up with new ways to generate money.
“The county board fundraising draw is one of the only means we have of generating money – that didn’t really materialise, even though I would thank the Newmarkets and the Cratloes and other clubs that really put their shoulder to the wheel, but there were an awful lot of other clubs didn’t. If they had it would have been a great help to us at this moment in time. That didn’t happen,” he added.