GAA director general Paraic Duffy used his address at Congress yesterday evening to dispel the 'Corporate GAA' myth.

The ball was thrown in at the association's annual get-together in the Slieve Russell Hotel, Co Cavan and Duffy went on the attack straight away.

The Examiner reports that, in response to the reaction generated by the cancelled Garth Brooks concerts and the controversial Sky Sports TV deal, the Monaghan man said: "The small fish that we are, when you look at the recent deal made for Premier League rights, the average per game for the next contract is £11 million.

"That is roughly equivalent to what we are bringing in, in terms of TV rights. I actually believe we are probably not getting full value for our TV rights and that is something we have to work on.

"If you only read one section of the GAA, please read the section around so-called corporate GAA. Read that section and if anything in that is wrong, let me know. The only reason we ever, ever, want to generate money in this organisation is to put it back in to make us bigger and stronger and anybody who says otherwise is peddling a lie."

On the subject of the Sky Sports deal, he continued: "I'd ask one question, after one year of it, is the GAA worse off because we gave some of our games to Sky Sports?

"We still showed 100 games free to air in 2014. The quality of TV coverage and production was better than it has ever been before. I think that has something to do with the fact Sky Sports covered our games and RTÉ raised their game as a result.

"I think we are debating the wrong issue. The small number of games that Sky have got in the overall picture isn't all that important. I think the debate around TV needs to move in a different direction.

"We, as I said, in the course of 2015, will again show 100 live games. Maybe we need to ask ourselves, 'Is that the way we want to go? Do we actually want to show so many games on TV as we do?'

"Our championship attendances now, and we have done well over the past three years, are less than they were 10 years ago, significantly less. You have to ask the question, is the fact we broadcast so many live games each year impact on our attendances. And what about the impact it has on our club games?"

Tweet

Most Read Stories