O’Gorman’s provincial concerns
O’Gorman has forecast a dramatic income shortfall to the Munster Council coffers if their senior provincial championships are ditched and believes it will be subsequently difficult to fund GAA projects at grassroots level around the province.
But O’Gorman is adamant all Councils will battle to ensure the survival of their provincial competitions.
“I would be very worried but it is up to us to make the case to preserve them. We’re a democratic organisation and other people will get the chance to make their case. A lot of people are making wild statements about removing the provincial championships and having a Premier League style competition. But remember one thing, we have that in the National League and it’s not that popular. Counties are travelling long distances to play each other and that’s not going too well. I know there are movements out there against them and people will be voicing their opinions.
“But the biggest day in the GAA calendar next to the All-Ireland final, is the Munster hurling final. People come from all over to see it. And as regards both codes, I think what we have, we hold. I think because we have a good provincial championship we’re being penalised now.
“It’s not our fault if other counties aren’t up to the mark. You don’t come up to the mark overnight, it can take years of serious work at underage. When that is done, the fruits of that will come through.
“We have a very good provincial championship in Munster. 140,000 people have seen our hurling championship on average over the last few years and we’d nearly 100,000 people at our football championship this year. In six counties that speaks volumes for the interest in our games. I will always defend the provincial championships for the sake of the game and the clubs in the country, we need them.”
O’Gorman, who was speaking yesterday in Killarney at the launch of the upcoming Munster GAA Club Day, also believes the council’s Strategic Plan, which is being launched next week, will be made redundant should the provincial championships be abolished.
“The Strategic Plan, as far as I’m concerned, is tied into finance being generated by our provincial championships. I can’t see the Strategic Plan surviving if the provincial championships go. I made the point recently that we collect annually about €9m. At the end of the year when all our accounts are done the most we’d have left is €300,000. The rest is gone out. We’re not in this for profit, we’re in this to ensure the clubs in the province are all healthy and are all playing the games. If the Munster championships are abolished, that creates a huge problem for us in trying to get finance.
“For example in relation to the possibility of Clare being relegated this year, I would have been very worried as that would have hit our financing. I’m always worried when I look at promotion and relegation in our championships. There is a chance that a team could get caught on a day or could be team-building. We need all our counties in the provincial championships to ensure that those clubs are financed and don’t need any county to be relegated.”
O’Gorman was satisfied with the open draw format for this year’s Munster football championship and ahead of Thursday’s draw for the 2009 competition, he believes it is more beneficial than the old seeded system.
“That is a thorny question. We got into a lot of trouble when we seeded the draw two years ago, but I want to make it very clear as I did back then, that seeded draw was by vote of the six counties in the province. They reverted back again for this year. When they look at it again, we’re going staying with the open draw for the coming year. We’ll always accept the opinion of the counties. But you look at it this year we’d two great Cork and Kerry games, and then a great Munster final where Limerick came up to the mark. Tipperary have also come on very strongly of late, at both senior and underage level. So the open draw does seem to be working.”
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