Financial surplus of over €200,000 recorded

Roscommon GAA Treasurer David O’Connor reported that the county returned a financial surplus of over €200,000 for the year ending September 30th, 2025, when he presented the county’s annual financial statement to delegates at last Friday’s Convention in the Abbey Hotel.

Alongside auditor Freda Maguire, O’Connor presented an encouraging set of accounts that saw income rise from €2.3 million for 2024 to over €2.9 million. The bulk of this increase can be attributed to €220,000 in donations, an increase of €115,000 in sponsorship income and an increase of €48,000 in gate receipts.

This increase was despite the fact that there was a significant increase in the number of games that were available to stream through the new deal with Clubber TV, which was also worth €30,000 in new revenue.

Fundraising income also spiked from €171,660 in 2024 to over €400,000 in 2025 as a result of the Win a Home in Athlone fundraising draw. Pat Compton of Club Rossie confirmed that sales for the draw, which is due to take place on Sunday, January 11th, had passed the point where the cost of the house and the other ancillary costs of the draw had been covered. 

This means that the fundraiser will turn a profit and that all sales between now and the draw date will represent additional revenue for Roscommon.

The largest single expense, Team Administration Expenses, remained quite high and effectively unchanged from 2024 at a fraction under €1.5 million. Overall however, Roscommon GAA went from a position of recording a deficit of €287,098 in 2024 to a surplus of €221,563 in 2025.

In line with other counties and on foot of the Revenue Commissioners’ investigation into Galway, Mayo and Wexford GAA, Roscommon worked with Croke Park to review payments made to managements, service providers, players, referees and staff for the years 2021 to 2024.

As a result of this review, a number of payments were identified as non-compliant with Revenue guidance. Consequently, a tax liability of €35,463 was determined in respect of those four years.

This number is quite low in comparison to other counties, with Meath (€126,000) and Louth (€91,000) also declaring their disclosures. Kerry and Donegal did not reveal a number in their Conventions that also took place last week, but both counties are believed to have accepted a significantly higher liability as well.

Mayo GAA revealed a liability of €350,000 but that is across a seven-year period, with the majority (circa 70 per cent) relating to outstanding tax liabilities arising from issues identified in the review of the financial years 2018 and 2019.

In what will be a boost for new manager Andy Moran on a week when he and the panel are in Portugal, Mayo GAA also revealed a surplus for 2025 of half a million euro, with significant increases in most of their main income streams.

Following the presentation of figures, O’Connor said that 2025 was “a challenging time, linking in with the accountants in Croke Park”.

He said that “some consideration is going to have to be given to creating part-time paid roles as chairperson, secretary and treasurer, since what’s happening now is not sustainable. There’ll only be a few lugs like myself still doing it.” 

He praised the Club Rossie team for their work on the Win a Home in Athlone fundraiser, saying that the success of the event would be something positive to bring to New York (for next year’s Connacht Championship) which would help them to bring more funding back home from an event that has become increasingly important as a revenue-generation exercise for the visiting county in recent years.