Michael Moynihan: Are Cork clubs drawing short straw here?
A general view of Pairc Ui Chaoimh. Picture: INPHO/Laszlo Geczo
Who could have imagined that the executive of the Cork County Board harboured so many secret fans of The Mandalorian?
This seems the only logical explanation for the new funding initiative from the Board, the Rebels’ Bounty ticket scheme, which was flagged in these pages last July.
Anyway, last week Mark Woods of pointed out that under this new proposal, senior clubs would have to sell 100 tickets, intermediate clubs 70 tickets and junior clubs 50 tickets at €100 a ticket.
But clubs would only retain revenue on tickets sold beyond those base numbers: therefore, if a junior team managed to sell just 40 of its 50 allocated tickets, it would get no revenue. Furthermore, it would have to pay the board for the balance: a cool €1,000.
The basic principle is understandable: motivate clubs to get out and sell tickets, particularly those which are not making a concerted effort to raise revenues.
However, can some clubs sell 50 tickets?
Look west. There are six clubs in Beara which will have to produce €30,000 between them. At least one of the clubs involved has one adult team and struggles annually to fulfil its fixtures. Yet it will have to produce €5,000.
One of the ironies involved here is that the Cork County Board already has its own draw, the €100 ticket familiar, no doubt, to many readers who have no doubt purchased same. But that €100 breaks down on average as €35 to administration and prizes for the draw, €47 to the club involved, and €18 to grants, development and coaching: draw funds do not go to the stadium debt.
That draw has raised€20.5 million for Cork clubs over the years, with 159 clubs involved in the draw every year, while its 16,000 members contributed €1 million to the redevelopment of Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Mark Woods compared and contrasted the two regimes: “One intermediate club outlined an example of how they would be impacted by the proposed changes. Selling 60 tickets in 2020 yielded a profit of €2,700 (60 x 45), but this would change dramatically next season.
“It would mean no revenue and a cost of €1,000 for buying 10 tickets, which they couldn’t sell, at €100 a pop with the money going to the board’s coffers. It would be a turnaround of €3,700 to a small club with €2,700 lost and a €1,000 payout.” To quote an old pal of this column, heavy bananas. To quote other pals of this column involved in clubs, this is an issue being raised ‘loudly’ as county board officers canvass for election around the county at present. Could the €1,000 be described as a levy, for instance? What are the sanctions if a club simply refuses to sell those tickets — and focuses on its own club lotto instead?
However, given the track record of Cork GAA clubs asking the county board hard financial questions, this may be a storm in a teacup.
Last year this newspaper revealed that the executive was criticised by its own audit and risk committee for not revealing its deficit was €2,500,000, not the €500,000 figure given at a press conference.
At the time the committee described the ‘decision not to present the overall combined financial position to the (annual) convention’ as a decision which ‘questions the fundamental integrity of the Cork County Board’.
This would have had serious implications in any organisation, particularly when the committee said it would not resign only because of the ‘potential reputational damage’ to the board (its views of the Rebels’ Bounty would be very interesting, come to think of it).
But at the very next county board meeting after those revelations some delegates praised the executive for their handling of financial matters.
May the Force be with you all.
I wrote in these pages last week about the effect of cold temperatures on hurleys, footballs and the like — the colder the air the more drag there is on the ball, and so on.
Many thanks to John Eric Goff of Lynchburg University for explaining matters clearly and concisely to someone who struggled through eolaíocht bunúsach until third year in the old AG.
I’m aware that the inter-county season is not taking place in the Ice Age, thank you very much. But as we all hear all the time, the percentages add up: if hurlers are trying to point long-range frees in the depths of December with all the chips on the table, why not explore the reason a shot may not make it over the bar?
Goff is a physicist, so I didn’t get a chance to talk about one of the other effects of playing in the cold.
I read recently in an old article that a medic, Dr Tom Brickner of the University of North Carolina, mentioned an “unexpected” consequence of sport in a cold climate. Granted, Bickner was referring to the northern area of the US, states such as Wisconsin and Minnesota, which can see American football played in below-zero temperatures.
But still: “As players' bodies shunt blood away from their extremities and towards their core organs, their kidneys are likely to become engorged with blood. Their urinary systems may misinterpret this blood as evidence that they're over-hydrated and emit hormones to increase the rate of urination.
“Thus, even if the players are dehydrated — a frequent occurrence in the cold, when they're less motivated to drink water — they might feel the persistent need to urinate throughout the game.”
Look, I just report the news.
More hurley or hurl nonsense
And once again this false argument raises its periwigged head, I see.
I refer to hurley or hurl, a matter of terminology which agents provocateur decide to fluff up and set bouncing every now and again.
Here’s a simple explanation for all concerned, for absolutely and utterly the last time, why the correct term to use is hurley.
Otherwi t enti wor wou fi itse plung in anarc wh rand wor fou themselv missi the fin t lette - ca anybo s t log he? Ju f t sa placati peop w insi up so abstra noti , we’ for in abandoni usi langua proper?
See what happens when hurley becomes hurl? It’s a gateway abbreviation. Come on, we’re all better than that.
I see the great Ferdinand Mount has a new book out, but I have to confess that for once it may not make it onto my bedside table.
Mount has the field of ‘long-ish piece dissecting the career of an eminent Victorian with many an entertaining diversion’ to himself (more popular in this house than you might think), but may not make the cut.
On a more serious note, by Philippe Sands is worth your time if the podcast it’s based on was anything to go by.
Sands is a lawyer with a keen interest in World War II and human rights issues arising directly and indirectly from that conflict, but don't let those abstractions fool you. This is an absorbing account of a Nazi fugitive — per title — which goes in some very unexpected directions.
