Galway spend close to €2.5m on team preparation

Galway, which last year became the first county to spend over €2m on the preparation of their teams, has seen spending this season soar close to €2.5m.

But despite the spend of an extra €288,238 on Galway inter-county teams, the county still shows a profit of €367,430 for the year.

A total of €2,449,735 was spent on the six Galway teams, most of which was spent on Padraic Joyce's senior footballers and Henry Shefflin’s senior hurlers. The breakdown of the spend will be presented to delegates at next Monday’s Galway annual convention.

The amount spent does not include €191,010 which was spent on a team holiday for the Galway senior footballers which they recently went on, in recognition of reaching last year’s All-Ireland final.

Galway chairman Paul Bellew, who has led a restructuring of the GAA in the county in the past few years, has consistently stated they will not skimp on funding their players, teams and facilities and increased funding will be found to finance them.

To that end, income in Galway in 2023 jumped by over €1.3m to €5,869,684.

Expenditure has also increased by over €1.3m, leaving an overall profit of €367,430 which is down by €43,000 on last year’s surplus.

A big drive on fundraising — Galway are currently raffling a house — has seen a big rise in income and expenditure in this sector with the profits set to boost next year’s figures, while sponsorship increased from €700,613 to €824,594.

Gate receipts for club matches in Galway has again topped €1.1m during the year, while income from the live streaming of club games has jumped from €98,798 to €257,963.