County GAA Board finances are in a reasonable state says Treasurer Michael Power

Treasurer Michael Power told delegates that the finances of the Board are in a reasonable position after an unprecedented year which saw income and expenditure fall by almost half, in comparison to the 2019 season, which saw Tipperary run a significant deficit.

However, the Newcastle clubman also warned that there are no certainties going forward and while everybody would love to return to a more normal existence in 2021, there will still be considerable challenges, he said.

Income fell from €5.3 million to €2.1million – a 41% drop. However, expenditure was also very significantly reduced from €5.7 million to €2.1 million – a 62% reduction. Much of this expenditure drop relates to the fact that Croke Park took on the direct cost of training senior hurling football teams in 2020 – this was funded from the governments grants to the Association in a bid to keep the games going during the season and amounted to almost €192,000 for Tipperary. As Croke Park covered this cost it does not appear in the Tipperary accounts for 2020.

So, in effect, the Board ran a surplus of €20,178 in the year eventhough gate receipts dropped 35% to €300,000. This figure would have been substantially less had match day streaming revenues not materialsed to just shy of €100,000. The net profit from match streaming is in the region of €60,000 with costs of streaming amounting to just over €40,000.

Auditor Ronan Spain, of Spain Fewer and Quinlan, also addressed delegates on the night and pointed out that commercial income droped from €796,000 in 2019 to €542,000 – there was little opportunity to expand up on commercial income and fundraising too took a hit to just €88,000 – down from €209,000 in 2019.