Over €20M invested in grassroots GAA in 2019
The GAA invested €18M in its clubs in 2019 through a mixture of Games Development, the Club Ground Development Grant, and payments through the Injury Fund.
By John Harrington
The GAA invested over €20M in its clubs in 2019 through a mixture of Games Development, the Club Ground Development Grant, and payments through the Injury Fund.
That was possible thanks to a 16% increase in revenues last year, up from €63.5M to €73.9M, as shown in the 2019 Annual Financial report which was launched in Croke Park today.
Today’s published Annual Financial report also showed a record €23.1m was invested in Games Development and Player Welfare in 2019.
€6.7M of this was invested in the network of 365 full and part-time coaches country-wide, €4.6M was invested in Project spend, and €2.2M invested in overseas units.
The number of coaches in Leinster outside of Dublin has risen from 72 to 118 in the last three years, while remaining static in Dublin but with a reduction in spend of €200,000.
As part of the significant investment in the Gaelfast project in Belfast, the number of coaches there has risen from 5 to 12.
Financial results 2019: GAA's coaching network and investment.
In 2019, Player Welfare expenditure increased by €1.4M, up to €8.7M.
Distributions to counties also increased by €0.5M to €9.4M while €12M was distributed by grant-funding, an increase of €4M.
Over 500 individual clubs benefited from €3M of club grants, €4.9M of grants went towards county grounds and training centres, and €4.1m operating grants were dispersed among provincial and county administrations as well as sister organisations.
Gate revenues were largely to thank for the Association’s strong financial performance in 2019, increasing by €6.5M to €36.1M. The All-Ireland Football Final replay accounts for €3M of this increase, with the remainder price and attendance based.
The total attendances at League and championship matches increased by 5% to 1.48M, with the average attendance per Championship match rising from 17,000 to 19,000.
The biggest increase in attendances was for All-Ireland series matches which rose by 12% to 897,000.
Where the GAA's funds were distributed in 2019. 84 cents out of every euro of revenue was reinvested back into GAA units.
Revenue from Croke Park stadium increased by 31% to €10.5M while income from Media Rights and Sponsorship revenues increased slightly to €19.9M.
On the flip-side of the financial coin, the cost of hosting and staging games rose by €2M, up to €12.8M.
Inter-county team expenses also rose marginally by €0.1M up to €5.1M.
Insurance costs remain a self-funded and significant annual burden on all GAA units.
The annual insurance premium is now €6M per annum.
Total outstanding claims against the policy stand at €20m, of which €8M are non-GAA games related.
In 2019 the Injury Fund member claims paid out €8.1M on an excess of 6,000 individual claims.
You can read and download the GAA's 2020 Annual Report in full below.