Small surplus from Covid year

Despite the impact of Covid-19 in 2020, Tipperary County Board managed to record a surplus of €20,178 in their financial year.

By Shane Brophy

This is a marked improvement to 2019 where a deficit of €371,596 was recorded. Much of the improvement is down to a drop of almost €1 million in the spending on the county teams.

Overall income was down 41% from €5.3 million to €2.18 with all areas being hit, including gate receipts from club games which fell 35% to just under €300,000. However, almost €100,000 of that came from the live streaming of club games which became popular with restrictions on attendances at games. When the costs of streaming of just over €40,000 are subtracted, live streaming earned €60,000 for the county coffers.

Other areas such as National League Share, Commercial income, Fundraising activities, and Coaching income also fell.

Overall expenditure for 2020 fell by a massive 62% from €5.72 million to €2.16 million. The largest drop came in county team’s administration expenses which came down from a high of €1.77 million in 2019 to €778,000 this year. The figure doesn’t take into account team preparations since accounts closed at the end of October, however, since Croke Park has been centrally funding inter-county teams since the restart of the season in September, that figure is unlikely to increase.

At the end of the year, Tipperary has balance sheet capital of €1.7 million.

“The board is in a reasonable financial position,” commented treasurer Michael Power.

“With no fixed term debt and despite the difficult year there was only a small amount of interest paid.

“The coming year with present similar challenges as there is no certainty of when things will get back to normal.”

Ronan Spain of Spain, Fewer Quinlan & Co Chartered Accounts and Statutory Auditors, highlighted that because of the unprecedented year brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, that the County Board can continue as a going concern for 2021.

“The pandemic has had a hugely negative financial impact on Tipperary GAA.

“Without the financial support of the Irish government, via Sport Ireland funding allocations, the governments Covid-19 resilience funding and wage subsidy schemes, the GAA nationally and Tipperary County Board would not have been able to maintain employees on the payroll and may not have been able to compete in inter-county championships.

“The pandemic situation has evolved at such pace that it makes its long-term impact on Tipperary GAA difficult to determine.

“The officers have prepared projections for the next twelve months that have been appropriately adjusted to take account of reasonably estimable impacts of Covid-19 on the County Board.

“The officers, in consultation with Croke Park, believe that an adequate level of support will be made available to ensure that the County Board can continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future.”