Sports Funding in NI

[Taylor]

SportNI SSF quote -  Some (claims )will be checked before payments are made and some afterwards. We will seek evidence to confirm that the award has been distributed as intended and the accounts info provided is verified by the accounts.

Going to be very very busy ...now

Where did you see this delgany?

http://www.sportni.net/funding/our-funding-programmes/sports-sustainability-fund/sports-sustainability-fund-frequently-asked-questions/

Cheers

[bigarsedkeeper]

I'd a good long look at this process when it was released and I couldn't find an angle to legitimately meet the criteria.

In retrospect I probably should have hammered in for loss of earnings (lotto 3 months, social club bar 6 months, and a cancelled golf classic), but the reduction in league fees and senior football costs, plus the removal of rates means our outgoings fell dramatically too. It's definitely not been a year of financial hardship.

I'm expecting that the clubs who did best out of this are servicing hefty loans, which were procured on the basis of a range of income from match days, lotto, bars and fundraisers. In that case, fair dues.

Did you get any stick for not being on the list? Lot of people think it was free money.

[yellowcard]

What was the criteria here or how was it worked out? Looking at that list and some of the discrepancies between clubs is absolutely crazy.

Several clubs getting over £100k and some clubs getting a pittance or not even on the list. There is nothing fair or equitable about that.

Down GAA got almost £500k whilst Armagh GAA got £15k over 30 times more, that is madness. I'd say the Armagh finance department will have questions to answer!!

[FermGael]

What was the criteria here or how was it worked out? Looking at that list and some of the discrepancies between clubs is absolutely crazy.

Several clubs getting over £100k and some clubs getting a pittance or not even on the list. There is nothing fair or equitable about that.

Down GAA got almost £500k whilst Armagh GAA got £15k over 30 times more, that is madness. I'd say the Armagh finance department will have questions to answer!!

Would assume Down Gaa were able to show loss of income due to the Ballykinlar project .
From what I can see those clubs and counties  that are in the middle of redeveloping facilities have done very well

[Silver hill]

What was the criteria here or how was it worked out? Looking at that list and some of the discrepancies between clubs is absolutely crazy.

Several clubs getting over £100k and some clubs getting a pittance or not even on the list. There is nothing fair or equitable about that.

Down GAA got almost £500k whilst Armagh GAA got £15k over 30 times more, that is madness. I'd say the Armagh finance department will have questions to answer!!

Would assume Down Gaa were able to show loss of income due to the Ballykinlar project .
From what I can see those clubs and counties  that are in the middle of redeveloping facilities have done very well

The 'fault' if that is the right word to use, is with the qualifying criteria and not with the clubs who applied. It was very much a matter of luck for several of those who have benefited. The Rock for example, would have had a very strong P+L for the 3 years previous to Covid as they had a very successful fundraising drive ahead of their recent capital spend on facilities. Portrush and co Down golf clubs had major championships over past 3 years that would have inflated the profit and loss accounts.
Technically correct to apply, ethically, probably another matter entirely.

[the goal was on]

Spot on silverhill, stormount again total incompetence in setting up of the scheme. They cry it had to be rushed but no excuses. Should have been a standard payment based on your membership from £1000 to £10000

[thewobbler]

Spot on silverhill, stormount again total incompetence in setting up of the scheme. They cry it had to be rushed but no excuses. Should have been a standard payment based on your membership from £1000 to £10000

I'm reading this as you not being concerned with hardship. Your cause is  egalitarianism. Even though it was not a fund for egalitarianism, you'd prefer that grants were delivered in pursuit of egalitarianism always, even if as a concept it might help drive hardship, and see some cash rich organisations get richer again, while some cash-starved organisations collapse.

Please correct me where I'm wrong.

[the goal was on]

No in ideal world it would have been done on hardship of course but the way it has been done is as far away from addressing hardship. A club that ran a one off fundraising draw— oh guess what - we are gonna now gonna give you that again cause it wasn't on your accounts during the covid year! Even though it was a one off fundraiser. Without doubt a scheme based on actual hardship which was original plan but somehow or somewhere the criteria changed .!

[Silver hill]

No in ideal world it would have been done on hardship of course but the way it has been done is as far away from addressing hardship. A club that ran a one off fundraising draw— oh guess what - we are gonna now gonna give you that again cause it wasn't on your accounts during the covid year! Even though it was a one off fundraiser. Without doubt a scheme based on actual hardship which was original plan but somehow or somewhere the criteria changed .!

I can't think of any fairer criteria that could have been used that wouldn't have been open to exploitation.
For examples, if it was done on actual funds held in bank accounts, club's with separate funding accounts could have several thousand in that and none in the club accounts.
If it was based on size of club and membership maybe that was the fairest way, thereby ensuring that, proportionally, the most money went to the clubs with the most active members.
It's like everything else in this 'country', if there are loopholes, they will be exploited, whether social security, DLA, tax, benefits, grants , RHI etc etc etc. the attitude will always be, sure it's government money...no one ever stops to think that it's actually taxes/monies from our own pockets that are being exploited

[yellowcard]

What was the criteria here or how was it worked out? Looking at that list and some of the discrepancies between clubs is absolutely crazy.

Several clubs getting over £100k and some clubs getting a pittance or not even on the list. There is nothing fair or equitable about that.

Down GAA got almost £500k whilst Armagh GAA got £15k over 30 times more, that is madness. I'd say the Armagh finance department will have questions to answer!!

Would assume Down Gaa were able to show loss of income due to the Ballykinlar project .
From what I can see those clubs and counties  that are in the middle of redeveloping facilities have done very well

In that case I don't think any blame can be applied to individual counties or clubs then, they were just maximising the rules to their advantage. However on the bare face of it, the discrepancy between Down and Armagh funding received, for example, is huge and totally unjustifiable. The difference received of £478k would go a long way to paying the county board annual expenses for the full year. 

[the goal was on]

Well for gaa clubs the majority don't pay staff so there costs would be mainly maintenance of pitches and heat/electric general maintenance over past year surely.  A fund specifically for that would have been adequate. Claims having to correspond with the work they detailed eg grass cutting.
Clubs with mortgages could avail of other government initiatives. Instead we got a scheme that basically said ' we'll double what ever you raise through fundraising' !!

[yellowcard]

No in ideal world it would have been done on hardship of course but the way it has been done is as far away from addressing hardship. A club that ran a one off fundraising draw— oh guess what - we are gonna now gonna give you that again cause it wasn't on your accounts during the covid year! Even though it was a one off fundraiser. Without doubt a scheme based on actual hardship which was original plan but somehow or somewhere the criteria changed .!

I can't think of any fairer criteria that could have been used that wouldn't have been open to exploitation.
For examples, if it was done on actual funds held in bank accounts, club's with separate funding accounts could have several thousand in that and none in the club accounts.
If it was based on size of club and membership maybe that was the fairest way, thereby ensuring that, proportionally, the most money went to the clubs with the most active members.
It's like everything else in this 'country', if there are loopholes, they will be exploited, whether social security, DLA, tax, benefits, grants , RHI etc etc etc. the attitude will always be, sure it's government money...no one ever stops to think that it's actually taxes/monies from our own pockets that are being exploited

Are you suggesting that it was income based rather than expense based?

Surely the only criteria should have been to ensure that there was an allocation of funding given in proportion to fixed cost expenses in previous years per annual accounts. GAA clubs annual fixed costs won't vary a great deal from year to year, that should have been the criteria.

[delgany]

Is it evident that the GAA clubs with the biggest grants recieved have undertaken major capital investments in past three years?
If they have been fundraising for a community hub and raised for example, £100k in 2019 - 2020, it seems like they have been able to claim for this - income loss. It looks like these capital costs have been overlooked as has one off fundraising opportunities, as opposed to running costs only for grants

[yellowcard]

Is it evident that the GAA clubs with the biggest grants recieved have undertaken major capital investments in past three years?
If they have been fundraising for a community hub and raised for example, £100k in 2019 - 2020, it seems like they have been able to claim for this - income loss. It looks like these capital costs have been overlooked as has one off fundraising opportunities, as opposed to running costs only for grants

So effectively the criteria enabled clubs who had carried out extensive fundraising in the year prior to effectively be rewarded twice purely down to the timing of a once off capital project that they had embarked on?

It should have been based on a set percentage of fixed administration costs which do not vary because of exceptional once off income or expenditure. It sounds like a serious flaw in the funding process. Some got lucky but there was no fairness across the board. 

[Will it ever end]

Entirely agree.

I've already heard stories of clubs planning to use the funds to upgrade facilities etc

I guess ethically there's the question but the system was there to be applied for.

My genuine fear is clubs do use the funds for those purposes & the audit process review deems them to be outside the scope & money is sought to be clawed back.

Media et al will get their teeth into this and plenty will come to light I'm sure.

A sorry mess across all sport.