‘We have to find a balance between making a profit and keeping true to your ideals’

The announcement over the weekend that Tom Ryan is the GAA’s new director-general caught quite a few people by surprise.

As the GAA’s head of finance, Ryan kept a pretty low profile, but a few years ago he spoke to this writer for GAAconomics: The Secret Life of Money in the GAA.

“When you take a number of factors into account, around 86% of the revenue that people pay at the turnstiles when they go to see a match is recycled within the association,” Ryan told me, as he showed his own passion for the games.