Donegal LGFA criticise county GAA’s split of McManus’ €1m donation

Businessman JP McManus donated €1 million to clubs throughout the country.

Donegal Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) board have criticised the county GAA board’s distribution of the McManus family’s €1 million donation.

Instead of dividing the money equally between the clubs affiliated it to the GAA, LGFA and Camogie Associations, the Donegal County Board have split the sum between the 41 clubs in the county with no distinction made about how many affiliations they have (40 GAA, 37 LGFA, one CA). Each unit are receiving €24,390.

In several other counties, officers have disseminated the donation per affiliation. In the case of a club with GAA, LGFA and CA memberships, they would get three tranches whereas a club with a men’s section only would receive one.

The McManus family last month sent a €1m cheque to each of the county boards in Ireland. The letters that accompanied them stated the money was to “be divided equally amongst the GAA, Camogie and Ladies Football clubs”.

Minutes of last Thursday’s monthly meeting of the Donegal LGFA board state there was “huge dissatisfaction aired as no consultation was had by county GAA with LGFA on the distribution of these funds”.

Chairperson Joanne McKinney confirmed to the Irish Examiner: “The main issue is we didn’t have any consultation with or direction from Croke Park or the GAA board. I suppose you could say the decision was made without any input from us, which is a little disappointing because when you read the letter sent by JP McManus it was to be equal on all fronts.

“They divided it among the 41 clubs so there are 37 clubs that have both men and ladies football and we have two clubs that have no ladies and one standalone hurling and standalone camogie. So, the funds were divided among 41 as opposed to almost 80.

“I have read that it’s being justified as a lot of the clubs are of the One Club model (caters for male and female), which is fine but One Club is still paying out to two different affiliations. There are clubs who are sharing money fairly between the codes and there are others who are not.

“I just think in the spirit of the letter it’s just not right to distribute it like this. If every club in Donegal was to divide it equally and take the direction of the McManus family there would be no problem but are they going to do that?” In Cork, it was decided the monies be split evenly between the 401 football, hurling, ladies football and camogie club sections with each receiving €2,494. However, most counties did not demarcate between the men’s sports. All of the 121 clubs in Kerry (74 GAA, 39 LGFA and eight CA) were in receipt of €8,265 and each of the 146 in Tipperary (71 GAA, 36 LGFA and 38 CA) were issued €6,849.31. In Louth, the breakdown was €12,658 per code.

Operating the same mechanism, Cavan ( €12,658), Derry (€11,111), Fermanagh (€24,390) and Tyrone (€9,259) also divided their €1m. Had Donegal worked off the same basis, each of their male and female code clubs would receive around €12,800.