Extra GAA kit ads are a ‘no-brainer’

MEATH treasurer Brendan Dempsey says the decision to allow multiple sponsors on GAA jerseys was a no-brainer — and one that he personally promoted.

The former Meath chairman has taken on the most difficult job in Royal County administration as finance chief. The county lost €180,000 in 2012 alone, a turnaround of nearly €250,000 on the previous year. Against that background, Saturday’s Congress decision to allow more than one sponsor on team jerseys comes as a welcome development.

Responding to the suggestion that counties could receive over €10,000 a year from an extra jersey sponsor, Dempsey claimed they would be lucky to pick up that much. But he agreed it was still a positive and an obvious way of collecting much-needed cash. In fact, he revealed how his own club, Trim, proposed a similar motion to a previous Congress which was discussed and superseded by the Roscommon proposal that was approved. ‘My own club brought this to Congress three years back so I can absolutely see the merits of it,’ said Dempsey.

‘The main motivation was to bring in extra income because it’s very hard got these days. This is a particularly clean way of making it — you put on a logo and you collect the money. It’s very straightforward.’

‘A downside is that the main sponsor mightn’t want other people on the jersey. But the main sponsor will always be that, the one in the photograph and I think that’ll be easily dealt with.’