Cork ladies on hold for owed Smart money
A cheque sent by the troubled telecommunications company bounced recently and the Leesiders do not know when they will receive a promised bonus payment of €5,000 for winning the All-Ireland title last month.
Mary Power, treasurer of the Cork Ladies Football Board confirmed yesterday that the board was still owed money by Smart Telecom.
Under the terms of the sponsorship agreement payments were due to start last February, with the board receiving a specified amount each month, but no money was received until the board received a cheque from Smart on August 8. However, payment was later stopped on the cheque.
“That did ring alarm bells,” says Power. “I got it reissued after a lot of begging and pleading, but it took about three weeks.”
The sponsorship deal agreed by Smart and Cork involves performance bonuses and amounts to a significant five-figure sum, but most of the money remains outstanding.
“We haven’t been told they’re not paying and we’re waiting for a statement from them,” said Power yesterday.
“But we will be in dire straits if we don’t get the money. It might not be a lot to some people but it is a huge amount of money for us. It costs about €100,000 to run all our teams for the year, and winning the All-Ireland obviously makes it more expensive again.
“Obviously that’s a good problem to have, but it also means we have to do a lot of fundraising, and if we don’t have our main sponsorship we’ll be in dire trouble. We wouldn’t let anything suffer, but it just means we’ll have to go digging deeper again.”
Having qualified for four All-Ireland finals this season as well as the senior league final, Cork are one of the most successful ladies football sides in the county — last month’s victory over Armagh in the senior final was the county’s second title in a row, while the Leeside minors are also All-Ireland champions. As a consequence, Cork have featured prominently in media coverage of the ladies’ game all season.
“We’ve been involved in four televised games this year,” says Power. “I don’t know how much that television advertising is worth to Smart Telecom but I presume it’s worth the sponsorship money and more.
“In addition, after our camps throughout Cork this year girls have been wearing jerseys with Smart Telecom on them all through the summer, so that’s another form of advertising.
“I’ve been told by the marketing manager that all payments will be made in due course.”
Although the Cork County Board makes a contribution towards the costs of the ladies football and camogie sides when they reach an All-Ireland final, making up the shortfall in revenue caused by the breakdown in sponsorship from county board funds is not an option.
Smart Telecom has been in financial difficulty recently and over 55,000 subscribers to its telephone service were left without their connection for several days earlier in the week.
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