Mayo Gaels LGFA miss out on JP McManus’ millions

MAYO Gaels LGFA club have lost out on over €11,000 in funding from billionaire JP McManus.

The monthly meeting of Mayo GAA’s county board heard that the club missed out on McManus’ donation as they do not have an adult ladies team.

As a result, the club missed out on €11,363 paid out to each GAA and LGFA clubs in Mayo.

Explaining the decision to omit Mayo Gaels LGFA – and one other Mayo club that wasn’t named – Mayo GAA Chairman Séamus Touhy said that Mayo GAA ‘tried be consistent’ in its distribution of €1 million in funding from McManus.

The Limerick native donated €1 million to all 32 GAA, LGFA and Camogie Association county boards on the island.

Mayo GAA distributed its share of the funding to clubs on January 31.

“We debated it with representatives from both Camogie and LGFA and we outlined our understanding of what a club was,” Touhy said.

“We didn’t receive any objections on that and basically, we proceeded to pay on that. It was within the spirit of the letter.”

The Breaffy clubman said that allocating funding to underage LGFA clubs or amalgamated clubs, such as Carras, would create ‘inconsistency’ in the distribution.

Dermot Flaherty, Mayo Gaels GAA Club’s county board delegate, said it was ‘very unfair’ that only two clubs were excluded from the McManus funding.

“Our ambition is to be a senior club…the current Mayo goalkeeper is from our parish. The Mayo Under-16 manager is from our parish,” said Flaherty, who said the exclusion sent ‘the complete wrong message’.

“The dropout rate at underage, in particular teenage girls, is huge. We’re trying to do something to work that, yet we’re told that we’re not quite as equal as other clubs. It’s just the message it sends.”