High team costs under fire
Connacht Council secretary John Prenty and his Leinster counterpart Michael Delaney have both addressed the pressing financial issues in their annual reports to provincial conventions which are being held over the next week. Prenty has questioned whether GAA teams ‘have lost the plot’ with the experts being drawn in from other codes and has called for a return to the ‘core values’ of coaching in gaelic football and hurling, ahead of the Connacht Council Convention this Thursday night in Claregalway, Co. Galway.
“Since County Conventions I have examined the costs incurred by Counties on training and administering county teams,” said Prenty. “From a rough estimate it appears that it cost almost €3million to train the teams from Connacht. Almost all teams now have a coterie of different types of experts involved with them drawn from physiotherapists (two or three), dieticians, sports psychologists, athletes, training experts etc. Most of those have been drawn in from other codes and seem to come at enormous expense. An industry has been set up around county teams which are not reciprocated by gaelic games coaches being involved with teams in other codes.
