Donegal clubs likely to waive right to claim ticket levy back

Donegal’s GAA clubs have been given until December 31 to claim back a refund for a levy imposed by the Co Board on All-Ireland final tickets – but many clubs in the county are set to waive the right.

The GAA’s management committee found a prohibited €5 ‘levy’ to have been placed on the tickets.

Having escaped personal disciplinary action themselves, the Donegal Co Board yesterday corresponded with its 40 clubs informing them that all who “incurred a charge in relation to an All-Ireland ticket draw, are to be offered a refund”.

While the December 31 deadline has been set, it is not expected that the Donegal treasurer, Grace Boyle – who will return to her post unopposed at Sunday-week’s convention – will receive a flurry of refund requests.

Indeed, it appears as if many of the Donegal clubs have decided to waive their right to a refund, with many leading clubs insisting that they had no quarrel with paying the extra €5 which went towards a fund-raising draw for the Donegal team training fund.

“We had no reaction when we were giving the tickets out and in fairness we had a very good year with the county team,” said Paul Carr, chairman of St Eunan’s, the largest club in Donegal and the current senior champions.

“The club wasn’t overly happy at the time when this was opposed, but when members came out for tickets we made these draw tickets available and they bought them.

“At this stage, I don’t believe it would be helpful to go back to the Board to seek a refund to go around all our members who received a ticket and give them back a fiver.”

For each additional €5, clubs received a book of three tickets for a fund-raising draw.

Given that a host of clubs cashed in – and it was said to have been pretty lucrative for some - by selling the tickets at €5 each or three being offered for €10, it seems unlikely that there will be much of a fuss kicked up in the northwest.

Five clubs who initially had serious difficulty with the levy, cancelled the cheques following the collection of the All-Ireland final tickets.

It is said that clubs’ biggest gripe was, not with the additional charge but, rather, that they had been informed at a previous meeting of the county committee that no surcharge would be imposed.

“I would stand over a comment I heard today, which was that there was no objection to the training fund being boosted by the amount it was, but it was the way it was handled,” said Liam Ward of Glenfin.

Liam McElhinney of the St Michael’s club, who had six players on the All-Ireland winning squad, said the GAA should have bigger fish to fry.

He said: “At the end of the day I would think that a fiver wasn’t a patch on some of the tickets that were on offer online and in Dublin on the day of the game. You were talking hundreds and, in some cases, even thousands – to me, that is a more serious problem the GAA should be concerned about.”

Rural Naomh Columba has the second biggest membership in Donegal and received 494 tickets for the final.

“We charged the members an additional €5 alright, but it seems that it would be very awkward now to go around handing all of those back,” said club chairman Denis Ellis.

One club who will be seeking a refund is Naomh Conaill, Glenties – the home club of the Donegal manager, Jim McGuinness.

“We did not charge our members at the time because we felt it was expensive enough so we were down €1905 as a club for the 381 tickets we got,” explained club chairman Peter McKelvey.