Ciarán Deely wants inter-county team funding capped

Croke Park must cap the amount of money each county board can spend on its senior teams, according to former London manager Ciarán Deely.

Figures presented to many of last month’s county conventions crystallised the ever-increasing spend on inter-county teams, with Cork, Galway, Mayo, and Tipperary, all of whom pumped more than €1.6m into their flagship teams in 2019, recording sizeable end-of-year deficits.

Munster CEO Kieran Leddy this week described expenditure on inter-county teams as “unsustainable”. He was responding to the 20% increase in team spend across the six counties in the province last year.

His Connacht counterpart John Prenty has warned that if the GAA does not stall the “runaway train” that is expenditure on inter-county teams, then certain counties will cease to compete at inter-county level and the association will “march blindfolded” into a championship structure contested by franchised outfits.

Deely said counties must get away from the dangerous belief that greater spend will lead to greater success.

“I would put this down to a lack of knowledge and education,” remarked the Queens Park Rangers sport scientist.

“As an example, an S&C coach comes along and there is nobody who has oversight of that person or who has greater knowledge than that person in the set-up. They are recommending the team needs to train five times this week because fitness needs to improve. That leads to extra costs, and there is no person putting on the brake because they don’t actually know [if this is the right or wrong approach].

“Moreover, inter-county managers are coming to the county board saying, if you want the county to be successful, this is what you need to spend.

A lot of the times, county board personnel don’t have the education in a particular field to know otherwise.

"These people need to be upskilled again by Croke Park about best practice in these areas.”

As well as greater regulation from Croke Park, Deely believes top-brass could help reduce the spend of counties by part-funding a county’s head of athletic performance or S&C.

“When I worked with Dublin as a Games Promotion Officer, half my wages was paid by Croke Park, through Sport Ireland, and the other half was privately through the clubs. The next step is to introduce that model at senior level.

"These heads of performance, as is the case in Kerry and Dublin, would have a role with the senior team, but also other teams in the county, and so their focus would be less short-term gain and more long-term development and long-term health.”

Deely added: “I am a great believer in the tiered approach in the football championship. If you are in Tier 2, you’re capped at a lower spend than Tier 1. That is the reality of where you are at, your budget is smaller than those in the Premier League. If you get promoted, there is room there to spend more money.

At the moment, spending on teams is a runaway train and there is a lot of money which could be spent better.

As a final recommendation, the former London manager proposes a longer closed season, and stricter monitoring of such, as each county is hiking up their costs when getting their season underway in September, October, and November.