JP McManus to donate 1 million to each county. Greatest gesture in the GAA ever? What's your take?

Cute hoor or not, his method of donating money into Irish community seems to be more beneficial and impactful than the ten million or so that Denis O Brien invested into Irish soccer.

Not saying one is 'better' than the other but I don't see why people supporting his position makes any difference to him.

Again, Irish sport in general at the grassroots isn't as well supported as it should from a State financial perspective so any donations into that level are obviously gonna have more of a direct impact.

He speaks the truth , irrespective of where he livs.

I actually - the more I think of it - think the GAA should turn this down.

Firstly, its a PR stunt - if it isnt when why is the whole country talking about it.

Second, Dick Clerkin makes a point very well this morning about the value of volunteerism in the GAA, which absolutely dwarfs whatever McManus is contributing. But its JP who is the great lad altogether - greatest gesture in history of the gaa.

Third, for all the publicity he is getting from it; I think it will make feck all all difference. In Kerry for example it amounts to €8k per club - it will pay for a bit of gym equipment, not much more.

Fourth, accepting it for me is a way of supporting or endorsing his tax avoidance, which I absolutely dont.

I'd say the gaa are feeling undermined here 😂

He could easily have had his charitable foundation make arrangements with either the GAA centrally or the clubs individually to process these donations quietly and efficiently.

Instead, he wrote big cheques out to the county boards. That just happened to get shown to the media.

Like I said earlier, it is the billionaire equivalent of buying everybody in the bar a drink, then standing there saying "Sure tis nothing, don't be mentioning it, sure tis only a few drinks". Humblebragging nonsense that fools nobody.

The people who think ego wasn't a factor there are being terribly niave.

Thats what it comes down to in the end.

People who are anti-establishment think that JP is a great lad altogether for gaming the system and then picking out pet projects to showcase his 'generosity'.

People who are pro-establishment believe the really generous thing to do, or just right thing to do, would be to pay tax here.

I am in the second category.

There's no way in the world any club would turn this down. Or indeed no reason as to why any club would find a reason to turn it down.

The bigger counties clubs obviously won't benefit as much but in Galway I think the figure is about 6k. It can take a lot of fundraising to raise that kind of money.

For billionaires like that, donating money to charity is like a farmer buying farm equipment because if he doesn't, the money will go to the taxman instead. Its a tax write off. Its good for him, good for the guy selling farm equipment, bad for the taxman but who cares.

That doesn’t make any sense. Farmer is buying an asset for a business and you’re comparing it to getting goodwill/publicity for a tax exempt charitable foundation.

Also, capital expenses like farming equipment get written off over a number of years for tax profit (usually 8 years) so not usually deductible in one go. Would need to spend a multiple of what you’re trying to save so a bit more planning to it.

Don’t need to claim, I know.

To illustrate, the “Current Year Claim” column shows the 12.5% capital allowances against these 4 assets bought in 2018 in the 2018 farm’s accounts from the family farm;

There’s way of managing the tax bill better but, as I said, there’s a bit more planning to it and a poor comparison to JP’s €32m.

@crusd I can some justification in that but it ignores the existing sports capital grants and what I think is the intention of the donation.

Sports Capital Grants have been coming out every 2/3 years. The GAA got €65m of €166m in the 2020 applications and €19m of €57m from the 2018 applications so gets well represented. Over 800 GAA projects in the 2020 were awarded something and seems to be ~95% application success. 2023 had another round with applications closing last September.

Intention seems to be to spread it across the counties and clubs so it would undoubtedly create a huge mess to have clubs having to create projects to bid for it with an adjudication process having to be created to manage that. I can see the better organized clubs benefiting the most while some clubs are simply better off receiving a cash injection for stability.

I see in Clare that handball are looking for a split of the pot as far as a recent club/county board meeting went. Not sure how it’ll play out. I assume it would be a flat out no as the rules were set out by the donator?

Did the rules state GAA Club or did it state Hurling, Football, Camogie and LGFA Clubs?

I’m not assuming it’s a flat out no - I’m going by the journalist reports from the meeting - have a read of this instead of trying to make me sound dumb.

’Based on the correspondence Clare GAA had received when news of the donation was revealed, there is no leeway to include handball, Clare’s head of operations Deirdre Murphy told the meeting before adding “there is no room for error in this”

She pointed out that Clare GAA had corresponded with many other counties and all had the same understanding.

Responding to Hegarty’s statement that handball is part of the GAA, board chairman Kieran Keating said “it is not affiliated to Clare GAA”.’

https://www.clareecho.ie/clare-gaa-clubs-to-propose-sharing-jp-mcmanus-cash-windfall-with-handball-clubs/

I was going by the article.

Ok - board chairperson seems to be wrong so and is lying about other counties not doing the handball money distribution?

All I wanted to know was what the story was. Handball is a big thing in east Clare (I have zero interest in it)

The thing about handball is that for many many years it was a poor relation within the GAA.

Arguably it would have been better off never having been part of the GAA.

This is a sport that was probably played as much as hurling 80 or 100 years ago. Close to 1000 ball alleys around the country at that time.

Sport went into serious decline in 1970s and 1980s, myriad of reasons for that but a major part of it was lack of direction from the GAA. Again, it might have been better off as a stand alone entity.

Now I have to acknowledge that the new Handball centre of excellence next to Croke Park is an absolutely top class facility; and the sport does seem to be having a resurgence.

However - if this GAA chairman is saying handball clubs are not eligible, then it does reinforce that view of handball as an afterthought within the GAA.

Cork definitely not doing Handball distribution anyway

Just heard the official news that handball clubs in my own county (Roscommon) are set to get their share.

Leitrim handball clubs have already got their cheques.

There are positive soundings from some other counties also.

So, there's the answer to your original question. Certain counties are actually aware that the GAA sport of handball exists.

Surprisingly, the Roscommon GAA County Board were very pro-active on this issue. They contacted the handball County Board for a list of registered clubs and took it from there. It was expected that there might be some back-and-forth negotiating/arguing etc. but in fairness, it all went very smoothly.

There are two handball clubs that are part of their local overall GAA club and they won't get an individual donation. It's down to the GAA club themselves how they divy out the funds after that. Standalone clubs get the donation.