O'Flynn: Financial measures to service SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh debt are arguably overdue

A prominent Cork County Board delegate has expressed the view that new financial measures to service the SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh debt are overdue.

At last week’s monthly board meeting at the stadium, a variety of changes were introduced. These include an increase in admission to games, the reduction of clubs’ gate-receipt shares from 10 percent to 5 percent and IT fees, among others.

Freemount delegate John O’Flynn – a former tax partner with accounting giant Deloitte – has been a rigorous analyst of fiscal details relating to the stadium since the construction period and, having examined the current situation, he feels that, while the new policies may be painful to clubs, they are ultimately necessary.

“I’ve followed the finances of Cork GAA fairly closely for the last number of years,” he said, “and, personally, I would have thought that they should have been brought in a few years earlier.

“I’m not sure a ‘levy’ is the correct term, either, if you take some of the items that are in there.

“For example, participating teams getting 10 percent of gate receipts – we’re told every year at convention by the treasurer that Cork are the only county that do that and I ask myself, given Cork’s finances, why are they doing it, should they not have pulled the plug on it years ago, given the financial situation?

“The referees is another one – I would have always said that clubs should be paying for the referees. I’m involved myself as secretary of our juvenile club and we pay for referees all the time, so why shouldn’t the participating teams?

“I look at the finances of Cork GAA and, only once since the new stadium has opened, has our EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation] covered our interest costs for the year.

“Our debt is rising and rising each year – the figure you hear quoted is €30m but the debt is actually around €36m, because you have all this deferred income from the premium seats, so it was inevitable.

“You look at the coming year – we have no concert so we have to start covering our interest costs and reduce the debt ever year. While it might be unpalatable for the clubs, I think we have to put our shoulder to the wheel.

“The other thing is that I think that they’ve done a very good deal with Croke Park, where they’ve managed to get them to take over some of the bank loan and reduce the interest costs.

“I’ve no doubt that Croke Park wouldn’t have agreed to do that unless these charges were being put in place with the clubs.

“From a Cork GAA financial viewpoint, I feel that this was inevitable. Obviously, for the clubs, it’s going to be a further cost, which is not nice, but I think that the clubs, up to now, haven’t had to contribute anything towards the bank debt. It’s more or less time that they did so.

“We have to come up with a model that at least covers our interest costs each year and, hopefully then, start reducing debt, because it’s just unsustainable the way we’re going.” The hope is that, in the aggregate, the new changes will generate around €500,000 per annum for the county board and, O’Flynn believes, avoid any further levies once income holds up.

“I would hope that this will be enough,” he says.

“You’re dependent on certain issues. The one very good year we had from a financial viewpoint was the year that we had five concerts.

“That was a once-off or whatever, but we’ve no concerts this year and if we don’t have concerts the next couple of years, maybe a further contribution will be required. We’ll just have to wait and see.

“The whole issue of stadium debt and all of that is the responsibility of all the clubs, no matter how you like to frame it, and everyone has to put their shoulder to the wheel, in my opinion.”