Clubs told to help as Déise count cost of €120,000 shortfall

WATERFORD are planning to make cuts across the board to make up for the €120,000 shortfall in their 2011 accounts.

Club delegates will be informed at Thursday night’s convention that their deficit has increased by over €26,000 from last year’s arrears.

Income for the year came to just over €1.313 million, but that was well down on the record 2010 figure of almost €2.5m.

Following on from Cork secretary Frank Murphy’s criticism of clubs’ failure to back the county draw on Sunday, Waterford’s clubs will be told on Thursday they have to do more to support the board’s fundraising schemes.

Waterford are still counting the cost of €142,000 which was misplaced three years ago and had to be written off over two years.

In his report to convention, secretary Timmy O’Keeffe said: “The management of the finances of the board continue to be a serious challenge for the county. All costs have to be scrutinised carefully.

“Tight control must be kept over all expenditure whether it is in administration or team preparation.

“In the current economic climate, raising additional finance is a major challenge.

“However if we are to remain competitive at inter county level, particularly in hurling, we must continue to prepare our teams to the highest standards. Much work needs to be done in preparing budgets for 2012 and specifically we need to identify new streams of income for the county.”

Waterford did report a drop of over €20,000 in the cost of preparing their inter-county teams — €652,635 this year from €673,013 in 2010.

The costs of the senior hurling team’s preparations also fell from €283,746 last year to €251,391.

However, they have lost Snowcream as sponsors of their senior hurling championship, although football competition backers JJ Kavanagh could yet fill the void.

There is some good news in Carriganore likely to be anointed the GAA’s national centre of excellence.

The possibility of the WIT campus just outside Waterford city being awarded the mantle was discussed at Central Council’s December meeting on Saturday.

Meanwhile, O’Keeffe believes Waterford’s participation in the under-age inter-county football championships has to be debated. Recalling the county’s minor footballers’ defeat to “a very average Kerry team“, he stated: “Serious questions need to be asked as to the future of Waterford Minor (and indeed U21) football teams.

“Results over the past few years have shown that we are seriously out of our depth in these grades.

“We have no second level college playing in the Munster “A” colleges competitions and we are not competitive even in the “B” grades. In light of this how do we expect to compete in the Munster minor championship?”

O’Keeffe also questioned the preparations of the U21 hurlers on the basis of their early Munster exit to Tipperary.

“Expectations were very high going into the match but on the night we allowed Tipperary to ‘boss us around’ throughout the field. Physically stronger, Tipperary won all the physical battles and Waterford failed to respond.

“Lessons need to be learned from this game and training methods need to change to reflect the changing nature of inter-county hurling.”

O’Keeffe described the fact Waterford hurling supporters had to travel to Dublin in August on successive weekends to watch the senior and minor teams in All-Ireland semi-finals as “most disappointing”.

Interestingly, he suggested Dublin hurling could become the benchmark for other counties such as Waterford in the years to come admitting: “Dublin hurling teams could be forming the template for the future of hurling where size and strength takes precedence over skill and speed!”

There will be no contests for any positions on the county board executive on Thursday.