The question of payments to county and club team managers in the GAA has surfaced again and has been the subject of discussions between Croke Park and county officials. GAA president Christy Cooney himself has described 'illegal payments' to managers as "a cancer running through our organisation" but in a recent survey conducted by one national newspaper there certainly would not be universal agreement with the President's sentiments. It could be argued however that the survey conducted by the newspaper was inconclusive as quite a number of counties did not respond to some or all of the 5 questions posed, but a summary of those who did reply would show that there are few who agree with Christy Cooney's comments although there is also the opinion that the time may now have come to consider some form of payment to team managers. Cooney in fact is not the first GAA President to raise this matter as it was also high on the agenda of a former president who set up a committee of enquiry into "under the table payments", but after considerable investigation, stated at Annual Congress that not only could they not find any evidence of under the table of payments, they were not even able to find the table. Ard Stiurthoir CLG, Paraic Duffy, has prepared a special report on this controversial issue. The report was put before the Management Committee in Croke Park recently and it will be presented to senior county officers at a special meeting this weekend after which a month long consultation process will take place. County committees will then be asked to submit their thoughts on the proposals in the report and they can also put forward their own proposals after which a special committee will be established to consider all the options and bring forward specific proposals for consideration by the Management Committee. The matter however is unlikely to be resolved there as it is a long-running debate and while it is generally accepted that managers at club and county level as well as other team officials are being remunerated in some form or other, and some generously, there is unlikely to be an open and full admission. Payments to managers though is not the only financial topic in the GAA at the moment as GAA officials throughout the country have been alerted to an impending Revenue audit of their books and they have been advised to have their accounts in order. Visits by Revenue officials are expected to include a detailed examination of the increasingly large sums of maoney that counties are paying out on inter-county team administration and expenses and they are also likely to probe whether these sums include payments to team managers. Under the rules in the Official Guide the only payments that team managers can receive are vouched expenses for travel at the rate agreed nationally, meals and telephone allowances but there is a strong belief and even a quiet acceptance within the association that this rule is being broken both at club and inter-county level. A meeting of all county chairmen in Croke Park back in December was informed that the Revenue Commissioners had already met with the GAA centrally and discussed what will be involved in the exmaination of county committee accounts. Prior to that the GAA's Central Finance Committee will visit each county to advise them about what the Revenue audit will entail and to give them practical advice on preparing for their inspections. It is now known that Limerick county board underwent a full audit by Revenue in 2010 where they looked at every aspect of Limerick's finances, including some queries about inter-county team costs. Limerick county secretary Michael O'Riordan however said that the County Board had contacted Revenue independently to seek clarification on some of their own tax liabilities, including those of people who had been employed to run the stiles at the county grounds. He reported that the county board had absolutely no problems with the process. It took three days, was very thorough and afterwards Limerick were fully approved by Revenue and there were no grey areas. No doubt all county committees will be hoping for a similar conclusion. Tweet

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