GAA officials are hosting an urgent online meeting tonight due to ongoing concerns regarding a Revenue Commission investigation.
The tax body are currently investigating issues regarding county board spending, with Galway and Mayo GAA officials opting not to sign off on their 2024 accounts.
The concerns raised relate to the 26 county boards in the Republic of Ireland.
It follows on from Wexford GAA’s outgoing chairman Micheál Martin’s comments last week, where he voiced initial concerns about the investigation for both counties and clubs surrounding their expenditure:
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“Referee and Cúl Camp payments are now online with taxation, and we are confident everything is in order. But once Revenue come they will always find something, and we have made a provision of €55,000.”
Mayo GAA have also made a voluntary disclosure of €119,778, stating they have ‘proactively engaged’ with Revenue despite not signing off on accounts.
Galway’s county board announced a €733,480 surplus, with chairman Paul Bellew stating their €2.7m spend can largely be attributed to a higher number of fixtures in 2024.
He suggested a cap on intercounty fixtures as a potential solution, before going on to address the issue more generally:
“As it is a live and ongoing issue, I can’t comment on it to any great extent. Without a doubt, it may have very serious repercussions for everyone involved in our games in the years ahead.”
The Irish Times have reported that if any non-compliance is proven, there are grounds to remove the Sports Tax Exemption, a less strenuous taxation system that can be availed of by amateur sporting organisations in the Republic of Ireland.
The GAA’s director general Tom Ryan appeared on RTÉ's Six-One news programme last night, where he stated:
“If the issues are the same in each of the counties and I’m not even sure if they are but to the extent that they are, it’s important that there’s a degree of consistency in terms of approach and the best way to do that, I think, is for us centrally to offer some guidance to counties as they navigate their way through that process.”
He went on to say that the concerns relate to “a small number of counties”, adding that he hopes the Association can “arrive at a satisfactory conclusion”.