THE MAYO GAA Board are set to save up to €200,000 per year after Croke Park’s decision to take over the full redevelopment of MacHale Park.
Under the terms of the deal, it is believed the GAA will assume control of a €5 million loan the board had with Ulster Bank with Mayo now repaying Croke Park at a much lower interest rate that could save the county millions over the near 30-year term.
News of the deal was broken by the Mayo News late yesterday with Mayo GAA Chairman, Mike Connelly, telling the paper:
“In real terms, our repayments will now work out at approximately €33,000 per month, that’s down around €15,000 per month from what we had been paying. The way we look at it, it’s quite sizeable but manageable.
“This deal is going to give us more money in the Mayo GAA kitty to do what needs to be done on the ground here in the county, plus our cash-flow will improve.”
It’s not the first time the GAA has stepped in when a county has struggled with finances with Kildare requiring restructuring of loans and some advances in 2012.
Offaly also have a proposal before the GAA’s National Finance Committee to help them with a six figure sum owed to creditors.
Goes to show what you know Robbie. Mayo didn’t build it. The ground was built by castlebar Mitchels and mayo county board took it over
Well id have to say the county council gave them the go ahead to build there and most of the money was raised by Mitchels and all of the development done by them until Mayo bought it from them. So Mayo GAA had feck all to do with any of its development until the new stand
Getting it properly developed for the World Cup bid?
While I love the GAA and am very proud of the quality of stadia we have available as an amateur organisation, why do we insist on ploughing money into large stadia that get filled anywhere near their capacity even once a year. Seriously look at the capacity of the stadia available and compare it to the facilities available for professional English soccer teams who fill (or close to fill) their stadia on a weekly basis :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Gaelic_Athletic_Association_stadiums
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Premier_League_stadiums
There are 19 stadia in Ireland that can hold 20000 or more spectators, 16 more that can hold between 10000 and 20000. Where are the attendances to justify these figures? Outside of a intercounty fixture on alternate years and possibly a county final what is justifying these capacities. The recently mooted “Leinster M50 stadium”, well Leinster already has Croker and 4 stadia with over 20000 capacity (most badly in need of an upgrade) Munster already has Semple Stadium (53,500), Gaelic Grounds (49,866), Fitzgerald Stadium (43,180) and Páirc Uí Chaoimh (32,550) so the GAA are now going to plough 60 million euro in a new Páirc Uí Chaoimh with a 50000 capacity, have any of these people attended a game in Cork recently because all the issues Páirc Uí Chaoimh has it’s capacity isn’t one of them (outside of maybe a Munster Finals it it even near full). How about instead of building venues they can’t fill, they use the money to reduce the ticket prices and fill the venues they already have. If they want to spend money on infrastructure then surely upgrading the stadia they already have should be the first step. Like most GAA I love Semple Stadium but the facilities pale in comparison to Croker. Maybe first each province should at least one stadium where the facilities are in line with GAA HQ before building and extending unnecessary venues.
Pearse stadium and Hyde park suck! Viva Mchale park!
Neither Pearse Stadium or the Hyde cost 33k a month and both are better places to watch a game that McHale.
Both are a disaster, Your too low in Pearce and there isn’t even toilets in the Hyde!
Mitchels should be proud of what they built.