Larry McCarthy wants GAA to 'recalibrate our spending' back to grassroots

The incoming GAA president told delegates at the annual Connacht GAA convention that he supported measures suggested by the province’s secretary John Prenty who wants limits placed on the amount spent on intercounty sides.

Incoming GAA President Larry McCarthy

Incoming GAA president Larry McCarthy has backed calls to curb the amount of money spent on intercounty teams and redirect it towards grassroot players.

McCarthy told delegates at the annual Connacht GAA convention that he supported measures suggested by the province’s secretary John Prenty who wants limits placed on the amount spent on intercounty sides.

Prenty has called for county squads to be restricted to three sessions a week, including a game, and that backroom teams be capped at 12 people. He also wants county squads restricted to 32 players with expenses paid centrally by Croke Park.

Prenty, who has labelled the level of spending on county teams ‘a runaway train’, said lessons can be learned from the impact of Covid-19.

Last year team expenses nationally came in at just under €19m compared to almost €30m in 2019 and incoming president McCarthy told delegates at Thursday night's virtual Connacht convention that he supports such measures.

“For many years John Prenty has been making the sensible comment about cutting our cloth to suit our measure,” said McCarthy, speaking from his home in New Jersey before he relocates to Ireland in the coming weeks to succeed John Horan as GAA president.

“And he has made a number of good suggestions in his report about how we might reduce the cost particularly of inter-county games and inter-county preparation and what he called reducing the impact of ‘the runaway train’.

“These are very good baseline measures, I think. They are a very good place to start. They will undoubtedly need to be tweaked but I would encourage you all, as county officers, in those roles so that we begin to recalibrate our spending and recalibrate our spending back towards, perhaps, the majority of our players rather than the minority of our players,” added McCarthy.

The convention heard that Covid-19 restrictions resulted in a financial loss of over €900,000 for the year for the province. Playing the senior football championship behind closed doors, which netted €792,000 in 2019, was the biggest reason while Central Council sponsorship of €250,000 and TV rights money of €218,000 were also significant factors.

Meanwhile, John Murphy became the 37th president of the Connacht Council when he took over from Leitrim’s Gerry McGovern and is the sixth from Sligo to hold the office, with his grandfather Jack Brennan being the first back in the 1940s.