In case you thought it was just the professional sports that took a hit, it wasn’t the GAA has taken a massive hit despite Government bail outs in the year. A whopping €34 million a lot of money for the GAA to make back
Director General Tom Ryan of the GAA was talking to RTE and said: “The GAA simply could not have navigated its way safely through 2020 without the significant support of governments both north and south”
“There was provision made in last year’s budget I know for the sporting sector this year,” he said. “We’ve already spoken to Sport Ireland and the Department just about the principles of that, highlighting to them that we’re not out of the woods yet. We don’t like having to rely on the public purse (but) we flagged with them already that this year is going to be challenging.”
“The past year has proved very damaging to the association from a financial point of view, with the likelihood that the after effects will be felt for some years to come.
“2020 presented us with many difficult decisions, not least financial. We may not have had income, but we still had responsibilities. So to the extent possible we played games, we promoted health initiatives, we made facilities available, we put our best foot forward. Ironically these came at a continued cost when we could least afford it.
“When it first became apparent that a Covid threat was emerging we did not foresee the extent or duration of what was ahead. The initial shutdown of our activities in late March was in the sincere expectation of a difficult few months and no more, and we expected to be able to weather a brief interruption.
“But what followed proved more difficult than we could have imagined. We tried our best to live up to our responsibilities to the Association and to society. We did not always get everything right, and we did not fully deliver on every aspect, but I do think we comported ourselves reasonably well and lived up to our responsibilities.”