Leitrim GAA Secretary Bohan declares 2022 level of spending on inter-county teams unlikely to be repeated

Leitrim GAA is unlikely to spend the same amount of money on its inter-county teams in 2023 as they did last year with County Board Secretary Declan Bohan terming the scale of expenditure as “not sustainable”.

In an interview with the Irish Examiner, Bohan said that the spend of €803,729 on preparing the county’s teams in 2022 is unlikely to be repeated: “It’s not sustainable. Maybe it is for larger units where they seem to have a natural access to greater sources of fundraising and sponsorship but we’re not in that scene at all.”

Mr Bohan made his remarks after an article in the Irish Independent last weekend revealed that Leitrim finished 22nd on the list of inter-county team spending in 2022 with counties like Ulster champions and All-Ireland semi-finals Derry, Cavan, Monaghan and hurling kingpins Kilkenny below them for overall spend.

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“The figures are quite startling, those that we spend and when compared to others. We appear to have moved up the rungs of the ladder in what we are spending on teams but to be brutally honest spending €800,000-odd a year on teams down to development squads is not sustainable for a county like Leitrim.” 

The Leitrim official also revealed that the Board were in negotiations with Croke Park and the Connacht Council about the cost of travelling to games in England and New York this year with the Green & Gold due to travel to Ruislip for the Allianz NFL and New York for the Connacht SFC while the hurlers will also be in England for games in the League and Lory Meagher Cup.

“We are in negotiations around the cost of the trip. We also have two Allianz League games in London and a Lory Meagher Cup game across the Irish Sea in April. They are putting a lot of pressure on our finances,” Mr Bohan said.

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The long serving official also repeated the calls he made in his report to Convention last December for a more realistic championship structure for counties like Leitrim: “I touched on this in my annual report and this is a personal view but it’s ironic that the one senior championship competition we have a realistic chance of winning, the Tailteann Cup, we could play ourselves out of it if we win through to a Connacht final.

“Maybe Andy Moran (Leitrim manager) won’t forgive me for saying that but the Tailteann Cup gives counties like ours hope. At the moment, we’re in a Connacht championship with three teams (Galway, Mayo and Roscommon) who are currently rated in the top 16. We’re in the bottom 16, actually the bottom eight at the moment (Division 4).

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“If we were to set up an internal competition in Leitrim, we wouldn’t place a junior club team in with a senior one. I know it’s difficult with the five-year cycles of each county here playing in London and New York but seeding should come into it.”