Treaty yet to approach Croker on cash crisis
The Munster county is reported to be €750,000 in debt and there have been suggestions it would seek some help from HQ in reducing that figure in much the same way Kildare did when accessing financial aid from the Leinster and Central Councils.
“We haven’t had any formal approach from them yet,” said O‘Neill at the launch of the 2013 VHI Cúl Camps yesterday.
“At the moment, what’s in the press is just in the press, but we haven’t heard any formal reports. I’m not aware of any formal reports yet from Limerick.”
Limerick and Kildare aren’t the only counties to have experienced financial hardships in recent times. Waterford and Tipperary are two other high-profile examples of how difficult it is now to balance the books. It is clearly a growing concern for the GAA at large although hardly a situation unique to the association and O’Neill pointed out as much when speaking about the wider economic woes spreading like wildfire across Europe and beyond.
The Laoisman added that the GAA’s finance committee is prepared to sit down with any units in need of support, but expressed his confidence that, in Limerick’s case, the situation was able to be hurdled.
“A debt is like a mortgage. For any of us that have mortgages, some of us have smaller mortgages, some of us have larger mortgages. With a debt or a mortgage, the difficulty it presents is the income you have to deal with it, really.
“I suppose we have to have our counties looking possibly at their income streams and also looking at their expenditure and counties that are in debt just have to start looking at expenditure as well as incomes.
“The employment of full-time secretaries has brought down the costs significantly in the areas of hotels and food and providing stuff for players. There has been a more concerted effort made to keep costs down on that. If you don’t spend, it’s as good as getting income.”
Money was very much the theme of the day as he spoke to the media with New York’s need for finance emerging as a likely stumbling block to any imminent hosting of a major inter-county fixture by the Big Apple.
With the association in the city celebrating its centenary in 2014, a league final was among the list of events mooted which could mark the occasion but upgrades to the Gaelic Park facilities will seemingly take precedence.
“We said that they were entitled to a league final and we’d like to do that and we’d like to have it in their new premises,” O‘Neill explained.
“At the moment the situation is fluid. They have to make decisions on the finance for the new (Gaelic Park clubhouse) which is a pretty state-of-the-art premises.
“They’re looking now at options and they might well ask us to make a contribution instead of playing the game there. It might be of more value that it’s finished rather than playing a game and not have it finished to their satisfaction so we’re waiting for their response on that,” he reasoned.
The Uachtarán did not rule out playing a major fixture in New York at some point in the future and stressed the USA in general remained a highly attractive venue for the association.
This year’s All Stars will see the hurlers travel to Shanghai, but there has already been an application received from one American city to play host to the footballers in 2014, while discussions to bring next year’s Interpros to Dallas are ongoing.
O’Neill also extended his sympathies to those affected by the bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday.
“It’s awful when sporting activities are targeted by people who want to promote their own terrorist causes,” he said.
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