Club reveals proposal to seek sponsors for match officials’ flags

A proposal is being put forward to allow sponsorship to appear on the flags used by umpires and linesmen in GAA matches.

The St Croan’s club in Roscommon is making the proposal in an effort for finance to be raised locally and nationally.

Mike Holland, a member of the finance committee in the Ballintubber and Ballymoe club, says that they have already been notified of at least one potential interested party locally.

The 2014 Connacht intermediate football champions will put forward the motion at the Roscommon annual convention in St John’s Community Centre in Lecarrow on Saturday.

If the motion is passed there, it would then go to the GAA’s annual congress in Carlow early next year, where Holland is hopeful the motion will get the go-ahead.

“It is a novel idea for a way of sponsoring, to have a sponsor’s name on the goal flags and sideline flags. One of our club members came up with the idea,” said Holland.

“There is a sponsor interested here. The way he looks at it, we are long enough looking at hoarding around the sides of the pitches, so it would be a novel idea and a worthwhile one.

“One sponsor might want it for two years, and another might take over after that. It is just a fundraising activity for a club,” he said.

If the motion goes all the way through Congress it would then clear the way for sponsorship on the flags in national competitions, while locally clubs would be able to organise their own deals.

“I would expect it to pass, I think there would be a couple of more clubs from different counties coming up the same proposals.

“We bring it to convention in Roscommon, and if it is passed it goes on to congress. And hopefully the following year it will start,” said Holland.