By Sean O'Connor - Sean is a research assistance in the Department of Economics at University College Cork

Over the years the distribution of sports capital expenditure has been keenly monitored and commented on, with many entries on this site discussing the topic. (here, here and here). In 2014, former Minister of State for Sport and Tourism, Michael Ring noted the initial and final criteria which applicants were judged on, when applying for a grant.

Initial criteria
Likelihood of increasing participation/improving performance.
Sharing of facilities.
Level of socio-economic disadvantage.
Technical Merits of project.
Level of own funding available.
Sports Capital Programme Funding received in the past.

Final criteria
Ensuring geographic spread within county
Urban/Rural spread of projects
Spread of projects among different sports

This entry examines one of the final criteria noted by the Minister, the spread of funding amongst different sports. The table below provides a breakdown of funding by sport on a county basis over the period 2002-2014.

As can be seen from Table 1 two sports tend to dominate the allocation of grants, throughout the period, these being Gaelic Games and Multisport. Multisport can be a catch all term which can include, a joint initiative by two clubs, of different sporting codes, the building of a community hall or a grant awarded to a town council. Out of the 26 counties which the SCP covers, Multisport received the greatest share over the period in just four. These were Dublin, Sligo, Tipperary and Waterford. Gaelic Games dominates the share of within county grants, with 20 out of 26 regions seeing it as their largest funded sport.

Outside the two mentioned categories, only Rugby ranked as the largest funded sport in Limerick. However, much of this was for the redevelopment of Thomand Park. For instance 14 of 26 regions have Multisport as their second most funded activity. Gaelic Games and Soccer account for 4 and 8 respectively. For the entire period in question, on average the top two funded sports received 69% of total funding, with many counties seeing greater skews than others. In areas such as Cavan, Leitrim, Monaghan funding for the top two categories account for nearly 80% or greater, with the figure being highest in Leitrim with circa 82% of total funding designated to either Multisport or Gaelic Games. Cork and Dublin, regions which house the two largest urban areas also had the lowest shares of funding designated to their top two categories. This is interesting in the sense that these larger, more urban populations might see more diverse kinds of sport, rather than small rural populations. It should be noted even though Multisport ranks highly in regards to share of funding in both periods, these grants can also benefit further those who play Gaelic Games, as well as Soccer. For instance in 2012 under Fingal County Council, O’Dwyers GAA club and Balbriggan F.C received €120,000 for the construction of an all-weather facility.

Although, the Minister earmarked a spread of funding across different sports, analysing the breakdown of grants at a county level, it appears, both Gaelic Games and Soccer dominate the share of funding. Of course one of the initial criteria which applicants are judged on is their ability to co-fund. Delaney and Fahey (2005) note that Gaelic Games’ organisational strength is much greater than the relative number who engage in the sport. Its structure is based on a strong voluntarist community model of sports organisation. It may be thus that Gaelic Games excellent funding structures, through a large voluntarist section allow them to more successfully raise their own funding, thus better placing them to receive grants than other sporting codes.

However, given the funding which Gaelic Games, along with other sports have received over the period, has there been an increase in participation? A future blog will try to address this.

by Declan Jordan

The General Election campaign is in full swing in Ireland. Each party has published their manifestos. What is in them for the Irish sports community?
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Fine Gael (the largest party in the current coalition government) proposes more physical education at primary school level and its introduction as a leaving certificate (high school) subject. They claim they will work with the Irish tourism promotion board to develop tourism in cycling, sailing, running and in adventure sports. They commit to an annualised round of sports capital grants. The party promises to produce a national sports strategy but there are no specific elements of that measure, though greater public use of the national sports campus facilities is suggested.

The Labour Party (the smaller party in the current coalition) always proposes a national sports strategy, though they indicate that, as part of that strategy there will be a specific sports bidding entity to facilitate bidding for events across all sporting organisations. The sports policy will also include elements to support sports tourism. In relation to sports capital grants they indicate that they will prioritise applications that are jointly submitted by sports clubs and schools to incentivise the facilities being available more generally to the public. They suggest a National Physcial Activity Plan which will have an objective to support the Special Olympics and increased participation in sport by females.
 
The Fianna Fail policies are framed largely in the context of improving health outcomes through encouraging physical activity. The plan around improving health includes taxes on sugar sweetened drinks, healthy eating programmes in schools, and strengthen local authorities’ powers to compulsorily purchase land for recreational use. The party promises to ‘phase out’ alcohol companies’ sponsorship of sporting events. They indicate that there will be an audit of NAMA properties to identify those suted for sports and recreation use and that “major construction project levies should integrate a contribution to locals sports clubs, such as land or monetary contributions”. The party will change the Sports Capital Grants system to allow funding of Community Centres, providing services to elderly social groups. It’s unclear if this will be mean a reduction in the money available to sports clubs.
 
Sinn Fein’s commitments on sport are contained in the section on building communities. The manifesto says they “ see sport as having a vital role in developing communities and want to ensure that investment is made in recreational sport first and foremost at community level; and that all sporting bodies, particularly at professional level, are properly funding and governed.” There is an unquantified commitment to invest in sport and another commitment to invest €42 million in sport at community level. This is in a section headed an all-island approach.
 
Renua Ireland is the only party to mention specific sports in their election manifesto. They have sections dedicated to Horse and Greyhound Racing and the Horse Sport Industry. To support these industries they propose increasing the betting levy from 1% to 3% and ringfencing the income for the sports. They state that “a senior level Department unit should be created to facilitate and drive government policy on the [thoroughbred] sector”. With specific reference to the showjumping, eventing and dressage sectors, they propose a four year tax incentive scheme “to attract investment in the sector, with a clear goal of garnering medals at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020”.Interestingly the policy also states in the section on the tax system, that “the only circumstance in which RENUA Ireland believes reliefs should be permissible is a situation where appalling economic planning has led to a market failure”.
 
The Social Democrats, a new party in this election, do not have any mention of sports in their manifesto. There were no mentions of sport in the manifesto of People Before Profit, and I couldn’t find a manifesto for their allies in the Anti-Austerity Alliance. 

by Sean O'Connor

Information on and interest in football clubs’ finances have grown considerably over the years, to the point whole financial reports have been published on them. One of the most well known and anticipated is the “Deloitte Football Money League”. This yearly report, now in its 17th edition provides a detailed analysis of clubs’ financial performance over the course of a season.

However, while financial information on clubs is generally easy to access, information on national associations’ performance generally goes undocumented, at least in a comparable sense.  Fortunately a large level of information on national associations’ financial performance is readily available and with this in mind I’m going to examine a number of financial measures for the football associations of England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland from 2003-2012

Turnover or revenue highlights monies received by each association from ticket sales, sponsorship deals, television rights, qualification for tournaments etc.  Although all associations are generating a greater level of turnover in 2012 than that recorded in 2003 (or 2006 for Northern Ireland), none can match the capabilities of England. This is no surprise when you factor in the revenue streams that the FA has to call upon in comparison with the other associations. Qualification for major championships, multi-million pound sponsorship deals with Budweiser, Vauxhall as well as the TV rights to the FA Cup mean England are a juggernaut with regards to revenue generation. Surprising is Ireland’s impressive performance on turnover throughout the period. A doubling of revenue in the FAI from 2003 to 2012 is a significant achievement given the interim period didn’t see the nation qualify for a major tournament (they did qualify for the European Championships in  2012), which usually brings with it increased sponsorship revenue.

Retained Profit refers to the profit left to an association once all costs and taxes have been accounted for. During the period examined the FAI was the association making the largest loss (in 2008). A number of factors were noted for this loss, operating losses being the greatest of them. (Click here for summary). FAI profits have dropped dramatically from highs of over €4m in 2007. Of all the associations the Welsh FA was the only organisation to record a loss for 2012. Throughout the entire period the SFA recorded profits in every year with 2006 being the most impressive. 

Examining wages and salaries from a per worker basis, no association is paying staff on average more than what they did at the start of the period under review. If we take the change in wages since 2007, as this year provides comparable data for all 5 associations, FAI salaries per worker fell by -7.5%, Welsh FA by -3.7% England FA by -30.9% and IFA by -20.3%. During this period only the SFA per worker salaries increased, by 8.6%. Only the FAI has decreased staff numbers, with all other associations employing more staff now than they did in 2008. 

Table 4 highlights the fees which directors of the various associations received throughout the period examined. In the FAI, in nominal terms John Delaney was paid a salary of circa €431,000 in 2010, however adjusting for inflation this corresponds to circa €450,000 in 2012 terms. Only the highest paid director in the FA received a higher allowance, of circa €701,000, which is nearly double what the highest paid director of the SFA receives. However, it should be noted that the fee to the highest paid director in the FA has dropped considerably since 2011 (-48%). In contrast the SFA has increased the amount paid to its highest paid director since 2010. Directors’ fees in the other associations are quite substantial in comparison to the Welsh FA. In 2012 €90,000 was paid out in directors remunerations, up from circa €20,000 the previous year. 

Throughout the period examined both the FAI and English FA undertook considerable costly capital projects. In the FAI’s case this was the reconstruction of the Old Lansdowne Road and new Wembley for the FA. As Table 5 indicates these projects added considerably to both associations long term debt, which has been a focal point of many opinion pieces in regards to both associations. In fact the FAI have acknowledged that they may not be able to achieve their ambition to be debt free by 2020, and having only reduced their long term debt by 3.3% between 2012 and 2011 it is easy to see why. Similarly the FA are extremely determined to reduce their debt burden, so much so that they’ve sold the naming rights to their stadium for both football matches and music concerts.