![\"Spending](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4933547_8_articleinlinemobile_ws160126Table.jpg\" "\\"Spending")
Spending on county teams<\/p>\nThe spending on GAA county teams has slowed down but the total figure for the 32 counties climbed to a new record of \u20ac45.6 million last year.<\/p>\n
The increase from the 2024 figure of \u20ac43.875m is less than 4% compared to 10.8% in \u201924 and 16.2% in \u201923. Cumulatively, Connacht and Ulster counties spent less on their teams last year than 2024, and half of them, seven of their 14 counties, reported savings in that area.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, overall team administration expenditure climbed to a new high with almost \u20ac1.8m more spent across the board. The average spend per county is now \u20ac1.425m when it was \u20ac607k in 2011.<\/p>\n
Despite the football inter-county playing season being reduced by seven weeks and hurling by six, counties\u2019 total outlay on their squads is now close to double what it was in 2016 when the total figure was \u20ac23.315m. As previously reported by the Irish Examiner, in 2025 there was in excess of \u20ac1m more spent in Munster and over \u20ac900k in Leinster.<\/p>\n
Although they made savings in some areas, All-Ireland SHC champions Tipperary were the biggest spenders with team administration costs of \u20ac2.483m followed by Galway (\u20ac2.3m), SHC runners-up Cork (\u20ac2.208m), Limerick (\u20ac2.196m) and All-Ireland SFC finalists Kerry (\u20ac2.123m) and Donegal (\u20ac2.094m).<\/p>\n
While almost a quarter of counties broke the \u20ac2m barrier, 21 spent between \u20ac1m and \u20ac2m preparing their sides last year. Of those, Waterford, who were minor hurling champions in 2025, recorded the largest spending jump of \u20ac307,880 followed by Monaghan whose bill went up by \u20ac300,573.<\/p>\n
After their All-Ireland SFC campaign was ended by Kerry at the quarter-final stage, 2024 victors Armagh showed the biggest savings of all the counties with \u20ac511,594 and \u201924 finalists Galway were next, spending \u20ac405,430 less. Despite reaching a second successive All-Ireland SHC final, Cork were able to reduce their overheads by \u20ac178,000.<\/p>\n
As the total inter-county team bill (London, New York etc. included) hit \u20ac44m last year, GAA director general Tom Ryan warned they had to stop the trend. “It’s difficult to see how the level we have now, where that’s going to take us in five to 10 years\u2019s time if we don’t arrest it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The amateur status review committee are bringing forward measures to next month\u2019s Congress aimed at cutting expenditure on teams. One of them is a high-performance licensing agreement whereby counties will have to adhere to rules and regulations in order to participate in competitions.<\/p>\n
GAA president Jarlath Burns outlined the plan last month: “There will be a greater framework around the close season, around the amount of money being spent, particularly given with the interest the Revenue have shown in matters around the payment of people who are around county teams. We hope by that evolutionary process that we start to get costs down.”<\/p>\n
Spending on county teams<\/p>\n
In his annual report released on Tuesday, Munster GAA chief Kieran Leddy was optimistic about the licensing initiative being a form of equalisation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe costs associated with team preparation and the time demands being placed on amateur players must also be tackled and kept in check,\u201d wrote Leddy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the sustainability of the organisation in terms of the time expected and the financial cost of team preparation that is our big issue and what we must be most careful of, particularly given the stated desire of the three Gaelic games associations to integrate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that the proposed certification programme will help to level the playing field in terms of what counties can spend on teams. This is essential to maintain a level of fairness.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can a county that spends \u20ac1m on preparations of its teams be expected to compete with a county that can spend twice that?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The spending on GAA county teams has slowed down but the total figure for the 32 counties climbed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,22,129,19,17,119,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-286389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-hurling","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-sport","14":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115901088838723904","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}