Mayo GAA reveals €7.8m debt and garda complaints over online abuse at heated county board meeting
GAA president Jarlath Burns and director general Tom Ryan were both in attendance at the Mayo GAA county board meeting on Monday night. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Mayo delegates were told details of their loan arrangement with Croke Park, the ongoing situation with the Revenue Commissioners and complaints to the gardaí about abusive emails during an extraordinary special meeting of the county board on Monday night in Westport.
GAA president Jarlath Burns and director general Tom Ryan were both in attendance and addressed club delegates directly. Before it started, the county released a statement to announce Kevin McStay has stepped back from his role as manager of the Mayo footballers for the "immediate future" to "deal with some personal health issues". Former manager Stephen Rochford, a member of McStay's backroom team, will take over.
Chairman Seamus Tuohy opened the meeting to explain why it was called. He said it was to address “an issue relating to a persistent campaign of abuse and intimidation by a small group of individuals that are is currently being directed towards the officers of the Mayo County Board and other private individuals who are not involved in the county board.”
Tuohy explained they will not name any individual for legal purposes. Both he and the county treasurer Valerie Murphy are in the process of engaging with An Garda Síochána. He also apologised for missing a meeting earlier this month, explaining he was hospitalised at the time.
“The nature of this campaign includes threatening and abusive emails targeted at individual members of the county board, social media posts making a raft of false accusations about officers of the county board as well as inaccurate and defamatory articles that were published online.”
Mayo GAA County Board Secretary Ronan Kirrane exhibited and read out several emails that they had received. Tuohy went to address specific allegations.
“Aside from the threatening correspondence directed at county board officers, the individuals behind this campaign have also published a series of blatant false and inaccurate claims online relating to the financial arrangements of Mayo county and indeed GAA headquarters and Croke Park,” said Tuohy.
“Let me be very clear at this point. The claims published online over recent weeks about Mayo’s finances are utter nonsense.”
GAA president Burns revealed he is also receiving correspondence from the unnamed party.
“I feel what has happened in this county, the level of threat, intimidation and toxic activity has gone way beyond what is appropriate for disgruntled and angry people to correspond with. I received eight emails today, so did Tom, CC’d to everyone on this table, eight emails today from the same person,” said Burns.
“I’ll tell you one example of toxic activity. I received an email saying 'are you aware that there are five members of the Mayo senior football panel living in Dublin in an area where it is not laid out for residential use? I am reporting those five players to Dublin City Council.' Lo and behold, they were reported and put out of it. Had to move. Five players from your clubs, you have to ask yourself what is the mentality of someone who would do that? Is that person for Mayo GAA? What is their agenda?
“Why would you be so vicious as to want to do that to five of your county men who are living in Dublin and the county just wants to ensure they are living in good comfortable quarters with plenty of nutrition.” He continued: “The people reporting back to these people are also in this room. That is the worrying part of it. All I am going to ask you to do is to reflect.”
Director general Ryan addressed the situation with Mayo GAA’s debt repayments to Central Council following a loan extended in 2015. He explained that it was part of their wider financial distress project, a centralised programme of intervention established in 2011 to ensure no unit in the association folded and no property was re-possessed during that difficult economic climate.
Ryan stated that Mayo had an existing loan with Croke Park for €5 million already. They also had four bank loans which totalled €5 million at the time. Those bank loans have various terms and varying interest rates, averaging 3.2%. That was resulting in monthly repayments of €46,000.
“The way it was resolved, the total outstanding debt of €10 million became €9 million. The capital due was reduced by one million. The term of the loan was extended out to 29 years. The interest rate payable was reduced to 1.9%. The monthly repayments came down to €34,000. That resulting in a cash saving of €150,000 per annum.”
Croke Park, Central Council and the GAA assumed responsibility for the four bank loans. That money is now owed to Croke Park.
“I hope my colleagues Mayo-wise would agree, it is very different to a banking relationship that would have pertained previously. Evidence of that is there have been a couple of instances over the intervening ten years when things needed to be looked at again.”
The repayments now are €25,000 per month. The remaining term is 32 years. The capital outstanding is €7.8 million. Ryan said they aren’t usually willing to discuss publicly the financial affairs of any county or club. He wanted Mayo delegates to hear it directly.
A key element of that deal with various banks was a non-disclosure clause. He admitted they may be flirting with that with his breakdown, but he felt it was appropriate. The GAA took on the loan and divided it into two: Loan A and Loan B as a write off portion that still exists on Mayo’s books. It is written off in parallel and proportionally with every repayment of Loan A.
“Nobody had to sign up for this, people could very reasonably say, look we think we can do better ourselves. Thanks but no thanks. I will say it, Mayo’s one million write off is one of the highest single value write offs that transpired over the course of it,” said Ryan.
“I just want to reassure people that Central Council did not make a profit on this exercise. The project included a large number of units and numerous banks, whatever write offs or discounts achieved within that exercise were kept fully within the project and applied fully, 100%, to every unit. No capital surplus was retained by Croke Park.”
He went on to address the GAA’s engagement with the Revenue Commissioners. In December, it made a second voluntary disclosure having been subject to an audit. They have undertaken a self-review framework with four pilot counties over five or six specific areas.
That process is about to reach a conclusion and the findings will be presented quickly. It will then be rolled out over the course of the year to all other counties within the 26.
“There are longstanding reviews that were paused for covid reasons into 2018 and 2019, review matters in a small number of counties, one of those is Mayo. That is outside the scope of these self-reviews but we are embarking on it in the same spirit.
“We are trying to be positive, we are trying to make sure we arrive at a regime that is practical and workable from the point of view of all counties concerned, but also takes cognisance of some of the challenges and legal aspects that apply to operating what is essentially a volunteer-led, not-for-profit organisation.”
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