Secretary’s stern warning over finances fails to fluster delegates

RATHER surprisingly, Secretary Eamonn O’Sullivan’s warning about the precarious nature of County Board finances provoked no reaction from delegates at last evening’s annual convention in Tralee.

While he stressed the necessity of having a regular source of income to meet “ever-increasing administrative costs” there were no questions raised from the floor.

Indeed, apart from Desmonds delegate Tom Brennan inquiring if royalties were received from O’Neills from the sale of replica jerseys, nobody raised any of the issues carried in the Secretary’s report or those highlighted by Chairman Sean Walsh during discussion of the Treasurer’s report.

Mr Walsh referred to “a massive swing” in the finances of the Board over the past year, evidence in a drop of €90,000 in gate receipts and an increase of €150,000 in team expenses. However, he pointed out that they had benefited from draws last year in both of their senior finals. Additionally, the 2004 figures had shown an increase of €100,000 on the previous year’s total.

While the involvement of both the senior and minor teams in the All-Ireland finals was a factor in the increased team expenses, the chairman made the interesting comment that their financial situation would have worsened if the seniors had not qualified. For the team to have been beaten in the All-Ireland semi-final, the loss of revenue from fund-raising ventures such as the corporate night (which raised €79,000), would have been in the region of €200,000.

Mr Walsh informed delegates that but for “a lucrative deal” with O’Neills it would have cost them up to €165,000 in “togging out” all their teams from development squads upwards. Instead, the actual amount spent was €25,000.

He agreed with Dingle delegate Derry Murphy that Croke Park should do more to assist counties to meet the spiralling costs of medical and physiotherapy costs — which increased last year by €60,000. His hope was that there would be an improvement once Player Welfare Officer Paraic Duffy takes up duties in early January.

Munster Council delegate Peter Twiss raised the “club versus county” issue, commenting that one of the main reasons for postponements of games was holidays. However, any club with a county player “had a problem”.

“Do you hold up a junior championship because of a 17-year-old?’’ he asked, saying that it was up to clubs to take some hard decisions.

“This is a very complex area. It’s not as if you fix one thing that everything will be fine,’’ he commented.

Copies of a letter from the Deputy General Manager of Jury’s Hotel, Ballsbridge, Clem Gaffney — in relation to the failure of ticket-holders to gain admission to the post-match celebrations — were circulated at the convention. It pointed out that as a result of the large number of people arriving at the same time, the Garda Sergeant on duty instructed the hotel not to allow “any more people” to enter for a certain period of time.

“Obviously, we had no alternative but to comply with this instruction. As a result of this, the situation in relation to crowd control was taken out of our hands and handled by the gardaí for a while. It is therefore clear that the Kerry County Board were not responsible for the situation that arose,’’ the letter added.

All the officers were returned unopposed.

President — G. McKenna; Chairman — S. Walsh; Vice-Chairman — G. Whyte; Secretary — E. O’Sullivan; Joint Treasurers — J. McMahon and J.J. Carroll; Development Officer — P. O’Sullivan; Coaching Officer — B. Reen; PRO — W. O’Connor; Youth Officer — M. McCarthy; Cultural Offier — L. Cotter; Munster Council delegates — T. O’Sullivan and P. Twiss; Central Council delegate — G. McKenna.