The Irish Examiner reports this morning that the 2014 Irish Open will be held at the Fota Island Resort, Cork. More than 120,000 spectators are expected to desend on the resort between the 19th and 22nd of June, with the event worth an estimated €65 millions to the local economy. Read more here.
By John Considine There is favourable tax treatment for some Irish sports writing. The book must be recognised as original, creative, and have cultural or artistic merit. The definition of these terms are set out for the Revenue Commissioners by the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht under the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997. Where a sports book is deemed to have met the guidelines then the first €40,000 of profits per annum are exempt from income tax in Ireland.
The Revenue Commissioners website lists the books that have benefited from favourable judgments since 2002 (here). The table below reproduces many of the sports books on that list. Most of the books on the list are either biographies or historical accounts. Rugby players Ronan O'Gara, Trevor Brennan, and Moss Keane feature on the list. So too does rugby analyst and media personality George Hook. Hook's sparing partner on RTE's rugby coverage, Brent Pope, also makes the list. Pope's books are classified as children's fiction on the Revenue list. Other larger-than-life RTE figures to make that list include Sean Og Ceallachain and Micheal O'Muircheartaigh. Sean Og's Sunday night GAA results broadcasts were eagarly awaited by GAA followers in the era before the internet and social media. Micheal has been the radio voice of gaelic games since the mid-1980s, when he took over from Micheal O'Hehir. Mick O'Dwyer, the legendary Kerry footballer and manager makes the list via Martin Breheny's biography. One is left wondering why Breheny's work with the most successful hurling manager of the modern era does not make the list - the book is Cody: The Autobiography. Of course, the list is only of those who have received a favourable judgement. We don't know who applied. The biographies of hurlers that make the list are of players who wore their county colours over 50 years ago. Donn McClean has two books on the list. These are works based on the life of jockeys Mick Fitzgerald and Timmy Murphy. Section 7(2)(b) allows biographies and autobiographies "that incorporates the author's unique insight into the subject matter and is regarded as a pioneering work and also makes a significant contribution to the subject matter by casting new light on the person or by changing the generally accepted understanding of the person". Historical accounts of various sports also feature prominently on the list. Section 7(2)(c) and 7(2)(d) outline how works might meet the heritage criteria or the use of archives of over 30 years. There are books such as An Illustrated History of the GAA, A History of Tennis in Ireland, The Dubs: Dublin GAA since the 1940s, and The Wexford Hurling & Football Bible 1887-2008. The only book on soccer listed below is The Official Book of the FAI Cup. By Robbie Butler In a recent post on the travel commitments for both the UEFA Champions League and Europa League clubs, I briefly touch on the subject of perverse incentives. A perverse incentive is an incentive that has an unintended or undesirable result which is contrary to the interests of the incentive makers. Perverse incentives are a type of unintended consequence, a concept popularised in the 20th century by American sociologist Robert K. Merton. My analysis suggested that Liverpool were possibly better off finishing 7th in the Premier League last season as opposed to 5th. This is because they don’t have to travel mid-week to play in the Europa League like Tottenham. Of course, there is lost revenue from not competing in Europe but some are suggesting, if Liverpool qualify for the Champions League this season, it will be because they didn’t have to play in Europe. However, here’s an amazing story and a far better example of a perverse incentive, courtesy of La Trobe University economist Dr Liam Lenten. The 1994 Caribbean Cup involved a first round match between Barbados and Grenada. Barbados had to win the match by two clear goals to qualify for round two. The tournament organisers, the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) stated at the outset, that matches ending in a draw would go to extra time where goals would count double. Furthermore, any goal scored in extra time would be a ‘golden goal’, resulting in the sudden end of the match. All began as normal. With eight minutes remaining, Barbados looked set to advance as they led 2 – 0. However, Grenada scored in the 83rd minute making the game 2 – 1. This meant Barbados had to score again to advance. For the next seven minutes or so Barbados laid siege to the Grenada goal, but to no avail. With seconds remaining the Barbadians took the only option left open to them and scored a deliberate own goal! This made the game 2 – 2 and would force extra time. Grenada now realised that they could avoid extra time, and advance to round two, by either scoring again (3-2) or conceeding an own goal (2-3). Both would avoid extra time and mean Barbados failed to do enough to qualify. So, from the restart, Grenada headed for their own goal. The clever Barbadians had anticipated this. Half their team ran to defeat the Grenadian goal while the other half remained to defended their own goal. In the limited injury time left Barbados managed to successfully defeat both goals! Surely, a first for world football. Extra time ensued and because goals counted double, Barbados now needed just one goal to advance. They dually scored this goal twelve minutes into extra time and advanced to round two. No sanctions were handed down by FIFA on the grounds that Barbados were genuinely attempting to achieve the best result for themselves in the overall context of the Caribbean Cup. Talk about perverse incentives. If you found that hard to follow, Dr Lenton provides an excellent video explanation here. By John Considine One night before Christmas, just after 7pm, I was driving home and listening to radio. Driving at that time can be an enjoyable task as the traffic flows more freely and there is a choice of sports listening. RTE 2fm broadcasts Game On while NewsTalk broadcasts Off The Ball. This particular night I was listening to Off The Ball. There was a discussion about recently published research into participation in Irish sport. The research is titled Keeping Them in the Game. Since that night I have read the 100+ pages of Keeping Them in the Game and I’m left wondering why the researchers framed their research the way they did. The discussion between the presenters on Off The Ball focused on why Irish people drop-out of sport. This is not surprising given that the term “drop-out” features prominently in the Executive Summary. It is used 15 times in the Executive Summary alone. The radio discussion was faithful to the way the research was presented and summarised. The problem is the research is presented in a ‘glass half-empty’ manner rather than in a ‘glass half-full’ manner. According to the latest Irish Sports Monitor (here), and the 2011 version, Ireland has one of the highest participation rates in the world. The Irish Sports Monitor is research commissioned by the Irish Sports Council. One would imagine that research titled Keeping Them in the Game would devote at least half of its focus to why Irish participation rates are amongst the highest in the world. Of course, one has to look at what can be improved upon but surely one would expect an explanation of what is contributing to such outstanding results. Imagine reading books called Why Barcelona don't win more titles or Why Jack Nicklaus has only 18 majors, or The Problems with Kilkenny Hurling! Not once in the Executive Summary does Keeping Them in the Game mention that Ireland has one of the highest participation rates in the world. It seems strange that the Irish Sports Council would not ask on this fact being put in the report. It seems strange that the ESRI researchers would not provide the reader with this important piece of information. Imagine how different the radio discussions and the public debate would be if it was acknowledged that Ireland had one of the highest participation rates in the world. While we wait for the Irish Sports Council to commission work on why Irish participation rates are so high, we should not dismiss the research that seeks to explain why it is not even better. I'd bet Barcelona and Kilkenny are identifying what they perceive are weaknesses in their games. In this respect Keeping Them in the Game is well worth reading (keeping in mind the context). There is important information in it for Irish sports policymakers and individual sporting organisations. There is so much interesting material that it is not possible to summarise it in one post. I propose to highlight some of the issues raised in a number of future postings. By Robbie Butler With the Premier League title race just past the half-way point, many observers are suggesting that this year’s league campaign has been the best in decades. Much of this can be put down to the poor form of Manchester United, who to their credit, often turned the title race into a procession by early spring. This year Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool are all in the race for the title. While the first three were obvious contenders at the outset, Liverpool’s performances have surprised many people. Jose Mourinho has suggested Liverpool’s “holiday” from Europe has given them an advantage in the title race and even Liverpool midfielder Jordan Henderson has claimed the Reds are benefitting from the absence of mid-week football. Players and managers rarely complain about playing in the Champions League on a Wednesday night and league on a Saturday, yet Europa League action on a Thursday and league games on a Sunday are consider ‘too close’ together. Is the Europa League harder to handle than the Champions League? Surely not. Yet a break of two and half days is generally ok for one competition but not the other. I decided to see if the exertions of playing in Europe on a Thursday could be more exhausting than that of a Wednesday. The best way to check is to consider the three London clubs still in Europe (Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham) and see how far they potentially have to travel to play in Europe. The average distance from London to a Champions League group stage venue is 1,466km. This compares favourably to an average of 1,948km in the Europa League. That’s a round trip of almost an extra 1,000km on average for Thursday night football. Arsenal and Chelsea’s longest potential trip this season was 3,197km (Olympiacos). Spurs on the other had eight destinations further afield and, unluckily for them, actually visited two of them! Tromsø (3,462km from London) and, the furthest destination of all, Anzhi Makhachkala (4,284km). Fortunately for Spurs, the Anzhi game was played in the Saturn Stadium near Moscow (3,000km approx). So maybe the Europa League is harder to compete in than the Champions League. If so, Liverpool could be benefitting from a strange twist of luck; when finishing 7th is ‘better’ than 5th. Talk about perverse incentives… Here is a list of the best paid football managers in the world. The list is produced by Pluri Consultoria. Pepe Guardiola tops the list and Vicente del Bosque is listed at number 30. Fans of the Premier League will see that the managers of Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, and West Ham United make the list. They may also see that the manager of the championship side Queens Park Rangers also makes the list at number 26. Fabio Capello is the highest paid international manager. The Russia manager is followed by the managers of England, Germany and Spain in that order. Another interesting feature is the salary of Marcelo Lippi. The Italian is well rewarded for his tour of duty in China. Sam Allardyce has frequently said that being an English man has militated against him. That may well be the case but Big Sam is the best paid English man on the list. By David Butler Last year I raised a point regarding the costs of goal-line technology and asked whether the difference in the margin of error between a referee’s eyes and the Hawk-Eye system was really worth the reported price the Premier League paid for the equipment. Judgment error is quite rare in the case of critical goal line decisions but given the limitations of the human eye, perhaps fatigue or the viewing angle of the assistant, and sometimes due to the speed of the players in question, wrong calls relating to the offside rule are far more frequent. Research on offside decisions made during the 2002 World Cup suggested that the error percentage for offside calls was 26.2% and that these decisions are more likely to occur earlier in a match. Further analyse suggested that this error rate dropped to 10% in the 2006 World Cup. A paper that reviewed decisions just in the English Premier League reported an error rate of 17.5% (868 out of 4960 observations). A recent paper in the journal of Recent Advances in Computer Science and Information Engineering claims to have devised a technological solution that may potentially lower this error rate. The work suggests that the precise coordinates of all parties involved in an offside decision can be reconstructed through technologies such as computer vision and image processing. The researchers have produced and experimentally tested an algorithm which they believe can be used to assist as an electronic referee (as issues of 'who is interfering with play' will likely arise). An interesting development but I think a long way to go for a technology that could (depending on its cost and accuracy) be of far greater practical value than Hawk-Eye. By John Considine Over the last week both Chelsea and Bolton Wanderers have posted sizable losses. Chelsea attribute a share of their losses of £49.4m losses to their failure in the UEFA Champions League. Bolton posted even bigger losses of £50.7m and their plight highlights the problems associated with being relegated from the top-tier of English football. The scale of the Bolton losses is highlighted by the fact that it is only the fifth club to post annual losses in excess of £50m. Chelsea’s plight could have been worse had they not won the Champions League in 2012. Success qualified them for the 2012-13 competition. This was fortunate because their Premier League 5th position would not have qualified them for the group stages. The group stage pitted them against Juventus, Shakhtar Donetsk, and Nordsjaelland. Chelsea did manage to finish third in the group and, therefore, qualified for the Europa League. They also made the best of this situation by winning the competition with a 2-1 win over Benfica. However, the failure to qualify for the knockout stages of the Champions League cost them financially. Not all of the £49.4m loss that Chelsea has posted will be reckoned in the UEFA Financial Fair Play regulations. The reduced losses for the FFP regulations will mean that Chelsea should not fall foul of the regulations. Chelsea will also be helped by the fact that the FFP regulation are cumulative. This will allow Chelsea to include the years surrounding last year. They will benefit from the annual profits achieved during the year of their Champions League win. With the exception of their profitable Champions League year, recent years have seen Chelsea post annual loses consistently. These losses have been covered by their owner Roman Abramovich. Bolton Wanderers have also been fortunate to have an individual to help them in their time of financial need. It is widely reported that the club have benefitted from the financial support from Eddie Davies. The worrying thing for Bolton is that its revenue streams have collapsed since its relegation from the Premier League. They currently lie 18th in the Championship (tier-two of English football), 9 points and 12 places from the play-off places. Their supporters might have to get accustomed to life outside. A bigger worry for the supporters is the prospect that the club’s financial woes might drag them further down the tiers of English football. by Declan Jordan Munster Rugby is perhaps unique in professional sports by having two home grounds. The province's fixtures are split between Thomond Park in Limerick and Musgrave Park in Cork. Until this season the team also split its training being the two cities. Of course there is a lot of tradition associated with both venues and it would be difficult for rugby fans in either city to see the province become a one-city team. Having two home venues creates logistical problems for Munster Rugby but it also raises the question of how they decide which games will go to each venue. The obvious difference between the venues is their respective capacities. Thomond Park can accommodate 26,000 fans while Musgrave Park is more modest, holding only just over 9,200. This difference explains why all Heineken Cup rugby matches are played at Thomond Park in Limerick (though the fortress mentality build up in various 'miracle matches' over the years also contributes). However, in the RaboDirect Pro12 many of the matches are less of a draw than the Heineken Cup games. So, where the games may not be sell-outs perhaps the most important criterion for choosing a venue is whether Munster has a better chance of winning at one ground relative to the other. The aura of a fortress built up around Thomond Park because of the great victories there over many years and the 12 year unbeaten run in the Heineken Cup from 1995 to 2007. It is maybe worth looking though at the record in both grounds in the RaboDirect Pro12 (or Magners League and Celtic League as it was). The table below shows the number of wins and win percentages and tries scored at each venue for all Celtic League, Magners League and Pro12 seasons from 2004 to 2013 (with the exception of the 2007/8 season when Thomond Park was under redevelopment and Munster Rugby were forced to play all of their home games at Musgrave Park). The table shows most games over the period were played in Thomond Park (46 versus 35). However, it's also clear that Musgrave holds its own as a fortress with a win percentage of 86% relative to Thomond Park's 78% (it has to be said both of these figures are impressive). It also seems the nature of the wins were more entertaining in Musgrave - at least judging by the higher tries per game (these are just Munster tries). It may be the case though that these figures hide a difference in the quality of the opposition, Better quality opponents may make games more attractive and so there may be a bias if Musgrave games are over-representative of games against poorer quality opponents. The lower part of the table shows games against better opponents measured by their position in the league in the previous season. This shows games against teams that finished in the top half of the table in the season before (there are not exactly half as many games because Munster were always a top half team also). More top half teams came to Limerick than Cork (though this was reversed before the redevelopment of the Limerick stadium). This suggests that Munster Rugby do tend to bring the bigger games to Thomond Park to maximise potential attendances. However, the relative win percentages do not change despite the quality of the opposition. Musgrave Park's win percentages are consistently higher than those in Thomond Park. This holds for the pre-development and post-development periods also. This is a really hard finding for a proud Limerick man. But perhaps when Munster have a must-win game in the RaboDirect, by playing it in Cork they may improve their chances of winning at a cost of fans through the turnstiles. Perhaps the explanation for the success of Musgrave Park lies in the lack of attraction of the venue, which was reportedly described by former Munster prop forward Gary Halpin as being like the recreation area from the Shawshank Redemption. The analysis is based on data compiled by Elliot Dineen a Third Year BSc Finance Student and author of a previous guest post.
|
Archives
May 2024
About
This website was founded in July 2013. Categories
All
|