The 2020 Camogie Association Annual Congress took place over the weekend with delegates joining from around the country in a virtual format for the very first time.
The Annual report covered the calendar year of 2019 and was to have been held in Clonmel in April. The delay in hosting the meeting and publishing the report was down to Covid-19 but the impact of the disrupted season will not become clear until next year’s Report due to be published from the 2020 Annual Congress in Armagh in April.
Read more about the Camogie’s 2019 Success in Broadcast
Bearing in mind the changes to income and activity that will be evident it was important that the Association went into this year from a strong financial base and the figures from 2019 reveal it to have been a winning year.
Overall income rose by 16 per cent to €2,561,871 while the annual surplus of income over expenditure also climbed from €57,128 to €257,225.
The three largest income elements of Affiliation Fees, Grants from Sport Ireland and from the GAA remained stable with the total income coming to €1,395,571 an increase of 3.5 per cent.
Big Wins
The big wins though came in the more commercial sectors of gate receipts and sponsorship.
Championship Gate receipts rose from €260,422 in 2018 to €365,112 in 2019, partly driven by the numbers attending the Finals in September but also bolstered by rising numbers at the matches building up to that.
The other climber was in Sponsorship with Tesco Ireland coming on board alongside Liberty Insurance, Littlewoods Ireland and AIB as the main commercial partners of the sport.
Income from this stream climbed from €199,000 in 2018 to €263,560 in 2019, another strong positive indicator of how the sport has broadened its appeal in its own right and as part of the wider levels of interest in Women’s sport.
