Counting cost of standing idly by

As Irish sport is wrapped up and thrown in the deep freezer for another weekend, it is impossible not to look at the robust activity across the water with a degree of envy. Despite the frequent outbreaks of new foot-and-mouth cases across Britain, the sports organisations there are whistling through a normal schedule with breezy indifference towards the disease.

Here, some commentators have begun to wonder if the Irish reaction has been governed by a measure of panic. To many of those involved in sport, it seems as if they have been hamstrung by the precautions while the rest of the country carries on with a virtually unchanged daily routine. And while the initial economic forecast naturally centred on the potential toll to Irish agriculture, sports organisations are now attempting to assess the actual financial losses they will incur through the on-going suspension of sport.

The vast majority of clubs in Ireland - even those under the umbrella of the wealthier associations such as the GAA and the IRFU - exist on the breadline and are dependent on gate and bar receipts for their solvency. Each weekend of inactivity has debilitating economic consequences for beleaguered club treasurers. At national level, the representative bodies are all too aware of the unrest and anxiety.

"Understandably, there is a lot of concern in clubs right now," says IRFU chief executive Philip Browne. "This has already taken a considerable toll on the IRFU. The cancellation of the international in Wales, with preparations to bring four teams across, has led to a six-figure cost and the postponement of the England international will mean a huge loss of revenue."

Representatives of the IRFU met with the Department of Agriculture on Tuesday to confirm that the England game will not go ahead on the scheduled date and also decided that Ireland will not travel to Edinburgh for the Scotland game. At that meeting, the IRFU also tried to ascertain under what conditions rugby could resume, so that they could lay some sort of contingency plan in place.

A Six Nations visit from the English would generate over £4 million for the IRFU, with a potential £20 million to the general economy. With the European Cup semi-finals, a June international against Romania in Bucharest, and Irish involvement in the Lions tour in the summer, anything beyond another two weeks of inactivity would leave it extremely difficult for clubs to field full teams, even if there is enough time to complete the All-Ireland League.

The GAA is also contemplating a calendar which is unforgiving in terms of postponements. The All-Ireland club finals, due for St Patrick's Day and worth a gate of £250,000, seem certain to be deferred. The popular feeling is that the hurling and football leagues, in limbo at present, will be first to fall by the wayside.

The association has not prepared any definitive estimates of potential losses as yet, but the hurling and football leagues generate around £1.8 million annually. And unlike in the championship when receipts go to provincial and central councils, league monies are distributed to participating counties.

In 1993, the last real bonanza league year for the GAA with the hurling final going to two replays and the football final also requiring two dates, the gate receipts were £2.26 million. That meant that football counties received a minimum of £6,509 and hurling counties a minimum of £5,611.

Most of the annual total is generated in the closing stages of the league programme, with promotion and relegation games attracting bigger gates before the semi-finals and finals, so the association has netted minimal gate receipts to date.

The racing fraternity, too, is playing a waiting game, sitting back and counting the cost. "There would be a betting figure of about five to six million pounds in March," says Martin Moore of the Irish Horseracing Association. "And then the losses rise, from jockeys' earnings to prizemoney, gate receipts . . . the list goes on. The thing is, everyone feels these losses are necessary to curb this threat.

"The key element for us is the length of the postponements. Obviously Punchestown and Fairyhouse in April are banner occasions for us, attracting around 150,000 people and generating betting of £15 million. So we would be very anxious that racing is fully operational by then. With the flat season also due to begin shortly, the inactivity could prove extremely debilitating."

The general consensus seems to be that while it is possible to idle through March, postponements through April will have more far-reaching consequences.

The Irish Amateur Rowing Union has cancelled weekend heads of the river, but the possibility of having to erase next month's regattas from their programmes is causing the biggest headache. The Neptune Regatta is scheduled for April 7th and the club hopes to raise £10,000 from the event to fund its season. Five regattas are scheduled for the following three weeks, with the spring regatta in Ghent taking place on April 15th.

"The problem is that if we miss these regattas, we have no alternative slots for them," says Frank Tierney of the IARU. "The dates for May are full and June is dominated by events such as Henley. But we feel strongly about the need to eradicate the foot-and-mouth threat and have issued our own guidelines which severely restrict club travel for the duration of the scare period. The reality is, however, that if clubs miss out on fundraising regattas, their seasons could be in jeopardy."

Meanwhile, sport is alive and well across the water. Many sports people here are baffled by the seeming indifference to foot-and-mouth by their cross-sea counterparts. However, it must be said that the importance of agriculture to the British economy - it now contributes 1.3 per cent of the annual gross domestic product, down two per cent in the last decade - pales in comparison to the importance of agriculture to Ireland.

Sport in Britain is arguably too big to simply call a halt. While racing was abandoned for a week, it was estimated that an indefinite postponement, incorporating Cheltenham and Aintree, would cost £100 million. Last summer's Deloitte and Touche report declared that professional soccer was about to break through the £1 billion revenue mark, while 24.9 million people attended league games in the 1999-2000 season. Racing attracted in excess of five million punters. Sport in Britain is just too important - in financial terms - to suspend.

The same can't be said here. As a result, sports bodies may have to sit back and count the cost for some time yet.