Audit discussion stymied on foot of Croke Park advice

A long-awaited meeting of the Galway GAA Board on Monday night last in Claregalway – to deal with financial issues – was ‘grounded at take-off’ on legal grounds.

Close to 100 delegates and club representatives had crowded into the Loughgeorge GAA centre for the meeting where a summary of an internal County Board audit report was expected to be presented.

However, at the start of the meeting, the Chairman of Galway County Board, Pat Kearney, told delegates that they had received legal correspondence from Croke Park earlier that evening, instructing them that the internal audit report was not to be discussed.

The Connacht Tribune has learned that the email from the Croke Park solicitors followed on from a legal correspondence received over last weekend by the Galway GAA Board.

What did emerge from last Monday night’s meeting was that the 103-acre Mountain South site near Athenry is on the point of being sold for €750,000.

The Connacht Tribune understands that the new purchasers are the Comer brothers – originally from Glenamaddy – but who have been billionaire property developers in the UK and Ireland for decades.

It also emerged that while the Galway GAA Board are not paying interest on the Mountain South debt – the original loan to buy the property was funded by Croke Park – a figure of €2 million will still be outstanding even after the land sale.

Mountain South was bought over ten years ago for around €2.5 million, to be developed as a Centre of Excellence and a hurling training centre for Galway teams.

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