Staff salaries defended by athletics chief Foley

Athletics Ireland chief executive John Foley has defended the salaries of its High Performance staff, but refused to reveal how much each individual is being paid.

There is an estimated €200,000 spend on salaries of those charged with running the High Performance Unit (HPU), including the wage of HPU director Kevin Ankrom and teams coordinator Gillian Brosnan.

The salaries of the HPU support team equates to 20% of the association’s HPU budget for 2014 and far exceeds the €168,000 allocated to the country’s top 11 athletes for the current season, four of whom produced medals at world and European level last year.