Taxman should steer clear of the GAA's coffers

SIDELINE CUT:Even if they could grasp the labyrinthine mysteries of the financial comm-it-ees and sub-comm-it-ees, they would only confirm the association as our last bastion of solvency and financial autonomy, writes KEITH DUGGAN

SPARE A thought for the good men and women from the Revenue who are poised to dive into the financial world of the GAA. For some months now, it has been rumoured the Taxman is poised to “go after” the venerable sporting and cultural body for a few shillings. The news must have brought a sympathetic sigh from anyone who knows the workings of the GAA’s financial system: forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.

The Revenue folk are, of course, doomed before they even begin. They have become a much maligned department in recent times but there seems to be something heroic about the innocence of their endeavour. This is not Eliot Ness taking on Al Capone. In the tidy world of ledgers, the Revenue tackling the GAA is a mission impossible: they are like astronauts at Cape Canaveral leaving on a particularly dangerous assignment, standing with their helmets under their arms and smiling valiantly at their loved ones before they leave their orbit.

By exploring the Byzantine world of GAA financial affairs, the Revenue people are not merely entering a different realm – they are compromising everything they thought they knew about money and the global financial system. Catch out the GAA on money matters? Fat chance.

Anyone who wants to learn about the GAA’s mastery with money needs only stand outside one of the kiosks selling chocolate treats, ices and tinned drinks during those broiling half-time championship Sundays.

There is something hypnotic about the speed with which the GAA’s shopkeepers dispense Cidonas and Mars bars and perspiring Choc Ices to Gaels of all ages during those hectic 15-minute breaks. A friend with a sharp eye for commerce once stood beside a GAA shop at a celebrated provincial ground and watched in amazement as chocolate bars and coins flew like cards and chips at a Vegas casino table. The typical GAA shopkeeper is not big on conversation but then he has no time to do anything other than untangle the Esperanto of ravenous Gaels – fourfantathreebrunchandsixtaytocheeseandonion – before handing him the goods and computing the cost. The transaction takes about three seconds.

There is no receipt because there is no cash till and notes and coins are regularly tossed into a box that had previously housed freshly-picked Granny Smith apples. Gaels have no idea how much anything costs and are too harassed to care anyhow but fathers who have just bought four Cokes and crisps for their children are often left staring in stunned acceptance at the small change returned to them from the €50 they just passed across the counter.

The friend was unsure as to exactly how much money changed hands that day but he estimated it was just under a million quid – and possibly over that because of the late rush on Kit-Kats. By the time the match is over, all evidence of the shop has vanished. It is just a padlocked shack and it is hard to believe it was, just half an hour earlier, doing the kind of business that would leave the hucksters of Brick Lane slack-jawed in awe.

And where does all that money go? Well, back into the association, of course. The GAA is fairly immune at this stage to the age-old jibes at its greedy nature – the Grab All Association (ha-ha!) – because deep down its accountants know they can sleep with a clear conscience.

It is true the GAA has always treated money as though it were a slightly seedy commodity. Some Gaels have admitted to feeling slightly violated by the experience of passing through the turnstiles in the more traditional grounds – the unfeasible claustrophobia and darkness of the entrance, the unseen face behind the metal grille, the tiny opening where money/ticket is exchanged and the Alcatraz click of the gate as you are ushered through.

“Sort of like being admitted to a peep show rather than a championship game,” as one prominent Congress man once observed before hastily adding, “Not that I’d know.”

But the reason they handle money in such a discreet, shady way is they are uneasy about the fact they are so brilliant with it. The GAA’s macro-management of its financial affairs is second to none, with the spectacular edifice of Croke Park the most obvious result of its fussy minding of pennies and pounds.

In recent years, Croke Park has been hailed by foreign sporting organisations as a miracle. It is probably true the Gael has a deep addiction to building stands.

There is scarcely a GAA club or country board in the nation whose committee is not preoccupied with either building a new stand or tossing down an old one.

That these stands are rarely – if ever – full is hardly the point.

Erecting a stand named after a former Gael or patriot and boasting a state-of-the-art press box is an exercise the Gaels of any self-respecting club feel obliged to complete. If you have ever seen a photograph of a county chairman beside a ribboned plaque bearing the name of the minister of sport du jour, then you will know you have seen a man in the state of true happiness.

The new stand is to the GAA chairman what the palace was to the leaders of the old East: a monument to his own vigour.

And it’s not just the stand. The all-weather pitch, the new dressingroom, the clubhouse: there is always stuff to be built. Fundraising is a 365-day season for the GAA, from the interminable nationwide “lotto” wheezes to fight nights and quizzes and charity events and, of course, the sale of thousands and thousands of vaguely priced chocolate bars.

Yes, the GAA has had its moments of fiscal controversy. Every so often, there are reports of “misappropriation of funds”. But the bad apples are invariably rooted from the barrel. We can only guess at the sums of money that are transferred through the unseen hands of loyal servants of the association from every corner of the country which eventually make their way towards the GAA’s version of the Federal Reserve.

It is a generally accepted fact that the GAA is choc-a-bloc with financial wizards, men who would have been gods on Wall Street had they been born in Brooklyn rather than Belturbet.

Warren Buffet may be a master of “the market” but put the man in a room with a seasoned county treasurer riffing on the subtleties of the mileage system and Mr Buffett, for all his sharpness, would be left bewildered and broken.

And yes, the old rumour of managers being paid under the table refuses to go away. But again, the poor souls from the Revenue will do well to discover any evidence of these payments. In fact, it will be a miracle if they even manage to locate the table.

So the Revenue will examine the books of the GAA and find them impeccable, with every last cent accounted for. And they will discover the GAA’s system for handling money is unique in the western world. They will discover that the GAA is a Russian Doll of financial committees and subcommittees and that there are thousands, if not millions of these.

They will find the GAA is freakish because it is based mainly on an inherited trust and that all of the tiny, ingenious ways which they devise to keep the money rolling in works despite itself and maintains the GAA’s status as perhaps the last bastion of solvency and financial independence in Ireland.