Neil Ewing: Want to tackle inter-county spending? Start with this waste

The GAA financial doping could not have been more innocent, well meaning and reflective of the spirit of the GAA community in New York.

A few hours earlier we had relived ourselves by getting a Connacht Championship win for Sligo in Gaelic Park. For the duration of the trip the Sligo community in NY could not have done more for us. 

Smiles, relentless offers of assistance, and contentedness in the company of players, supporters and partiers from home joining them for the weekend.

Around 1.30am one of our NY based Sligo born legends approaches me looking for a chat. A “chat” at that time on a night out is rarely good news but this turned out differently. “Niall, a few of us wanted to give ye this, get a drink for the lads”.

As the envelope was thrust at me, I tried to explain that finding all 30 or so lads in among the throngs would be difficult but that I would make sure it went to the lads at some point. “You know yourself,” was his parting comment. I checked the envelope in the bathroom, $1,000. My responsibility for the night was to make sure that got back to our hotel so the team could get some use of it.

Sligo’s drop in the ocean of financial doping was eventually spent on the costs of a training weekend at our training pitches in Sligo prior to a summer qualifier.

The topic of spending in the GAA is getting some overdue attention recently. 

There are big ticket items that a dummy can see needs to be addressed. Alongside those, there is a multitude of waste that has become established as normal around inter-county teams. This waste established itself for the most typical of GAA reasons, a team did something once and won a trophy so we must copy them.

When I outline the wastes below many will say they are irrelevant nit-picks but I truly believe very few people are seriously asking “why” among the 60+ inter county football and hurling teams across the country. 

They are just accepting these costs because the cannot be seen to be the backward one by simply asking what is the benefit or if it has been considered there may be a better alternative?

Consider also that players and supporters are often tasked target numbers of fundraiser tickets to sell to fund all of this.

Home matches in the National League are good because a team benefits from having their supporters in full voice and number behind them. For players they are good because you get to repeat your preferred pre-match routine that you have for every club game, and you’d imagine, county game.

A trend emerged though, a grasp at pseudo professionalism and performative seriousness. A trend of getting together 3+ hours before a home game to have a pre-match meal together before a team meeting and then going on to your home pitch to get togged out.

The home game where you could spend the morning doing anything you wished from sleeping in, getting a parent to make breakfast for your adult self, feeding cows, playing golf or carrying water at club training was now the home game where you would leave the house at 10am, hang around for three hours, warm up, play a game and get home around 5pm. Easily enough time for it to be an away game!

The intention is right but the cost is often ignored. The cost of this pre-match meal, conservatively assume 40 mouths to be fed between players and backroom, conservatively assume €10 per head. 

€400 spent and would any player have been outraged if they were expected to have their pre-match meal at home? How many would be happier? €400 multiplied, at a minimum, by three home games a year is €1,200. That’s 120 €10 lotto tickets somebody has reluctantly asked friends or family to buy off them.

A giddy extrovert once described inter-county GAA players as indentured slaves, this wildly exaggerated hyperbole was adopted by many as fact. Time invested by players in their inter-county activity is often raised as both a compliment and insult to the players and their management teams. The honour of playing with their counties is often referred to as some form of extreme sacrifice they make, perspective and capability to make decisions for themselves forcefully ignored.

That said, there is time wasted in being part of intercounty squads. One of the more frustrating, once the innocence and novelty has evaporated, is travelling to a hotel the night before a National League game. Saving a five or six hour journey on gameday, sensible. A bit of craic in the hotel with the lads, enjoyable. The grasp at pseudo professionalism and performative seriousness has crept into this too though.

Overnight trips to save a two/three hour bus journey is mindlessly attempting to portray that perception of professionalism. A conservative cost of €150 for a Saturday night in a midlands hotel, by 40 heads, is €6,000. 

Add in a Saturday night meal and Sunday morning breakfast (exclude pre and post match meals) and it is a very conservative cost of €7,000 spent that could easily have been avoided. 

Would many of the players have been happier to sleep in their own beds pre-match? While also having had from mid-day Saturday until Sunday morning to do as they please? €7,000 would do a lot for U8 coaches in clubs across these counties.

Credit to the behemoth that is inter-county, one of the more sensible things that crept into setups was the “home” training camp. Rather than travel a few hours down the county for a long weekend multiple times a year teams instead may look to do the same training camp in their home county, avoiding the need and cost of hotels plus travel. 

Train Friday night, home to bed, train twice Saturday and add in some video work, finish Sunday with an in-house game and meeting. All wholesome and well intended.

One hole to pick, sorry. In order to show their care for players there will be breakfast put on for players each morning. Great, but you need a few hours then to digest that before battering around a pitch. An hour is a long enough slog in video or meetings and then burn another two or so hours before hitting the grass. 

How many players would gladly have had an extra hour or two in bed, made themselves a bowl of porridge and then arrived ready to train and save their county treasurers (and fundraisers) around €300 on both Saturday and Sunday morning? €600 would make a difference to committees in counties looking to invest in recruiting and training their panels of current and potential referees.

There are 35 teams in the National Hurling League, 32 in the football, 67 intercounty teams in league action — 67 teams having pre-match meals for their minimum three home league games, €80,400; 67 teams going on borderline necessary overnight trips, €469,000; 67 teams having unnecessary meals at home training camps; €40,200.

Nobody wants to see players not looked after but sometimes we forget to ask why. I firmly believe why is not asked enough. 

Ask why and there is, conservatively, a potential €589,600 that could be used on player development, coach development, facilities or maybe even a form of innovation or research fund that works proactively so every club in the country has access to the best possible information to ensure every six-year-old in the country has the platform to maximise what they get out of the GAA as a player and person for the rest of their lives.