Faraway hills greener, but too expensive for recession-hit GAA counties

JUST over 20% of intercounty GAA teams went on an overseas holiday after the 2009 championship season and only one county has definite plans to send a team on warm weather training camp in 2010, according to a survey of the 32 GAA county boards in today’s Irish Examiner.

Cash-strapped county boards have deemed such trips unnecessary in the current economic climate as generating monies from fund-raising and securing sponsorship deals becomes increasingly difficult. Foreign holidays and pre-season training camps have been described by county board officials as ‘fads that are a thing of the past’ and ‘mad trips that can create more problems than they fix’.

Seven counties went on trips abroad as reward for performances in the 2009 All-Ireland Championships. Predictably all four All-Ireland finalists, the Kilkenny hurlers (Malaysia), Tipperary hurlers (Los Angeles and San Diego), Kerry footballers (New York and Jamaica) and Cork footballers (Thailand), travelled abroad. In addition the Christy Ring Cup champions Carlow went on holiday to Malta while Nicky Rackard Cup champions Meath jetted off to the Canaries last Friday. The only county to go on an overseas holiday that did not lift silverware in 2009 was Kildare, whose footballers visited San Francisco and New York.