Just before last week’s Budget, the Government announced the latest round of funding in the newly names Community Sports Facilities Fund Scheme, previously known as the Sports Capital Grants scheme.
Over a quarter of a billion has been allocated to community sports clubs and facilities in the round with a total investment of €256m, the largest ever single investment in sport the state has ever made.
Throughout this week we are going to look in detail, with Sport for Business members 2Into3 at the funding through a number of different lenses.
We kick off today with the absolute amounts distributed to each of the 40 different sports that succeeded in an application, as well as the multi-sport category combining two or more sports, together with the average amounts in each sport, ranging from €32,734 up to €475,188.
On Tuesday we will consider the success rate of applications and the grant amount received by each of the sports against what they had applied for.
On Wednesday and Thursday we will switch the focus using the same metrics but applying them to the counties and the success that each of the 26 counties was able to score.
Total Grants Awarded by Sport
Gaelic Games is the clear winner, reflecting its strong presence in pretty much every community in the country and will now benefit from just short of €100 million of the total monies to be distributed. This is spread across a total of 787 different projects out of the 1,996 to have been approved in full or part.
The projects will range from full new pitch installations to the building of clubhouses, installation or upgrading of floodlights, small equipment grants, all the way across a range towards biodiversity banks, disability access, walkways and more.
Multisports projects come next on the pecking order with over €44 million in funding towards 362 projects.
This is very much the model that local authorities are pushing towards, taking on the learnings from what happens across Europe and developing sporting areas that cater to a multitude of different activities.
Football has gained its largest ever block of funding with €41.4 million going towards a total of 371 projects.
Golf, Rugby, Tennis, Athletics, Rowing, Community Games and Handball round out the Top 10 in terms of the absolute amounts of money they will be receiving.
The Top ten in terms of the number of projects to be funded is completed after the top 3 above with Golf (107), Tennis (77), Rugby (76), Athletics (29), Rowing (17) Handball (16), Boxing and Cricket with 15 each.
A special word for Olympic Handball who focused on only a single project and receive €475,188 for work on a new dome facility in partnership with Trinity Comprehensive school in Ballymun, giving them the highest average amount per project across all of the sports.
The way in which the application system works is that it is individual clubs and local authorities that complete the application with different sports offering different levels of support and expertise.
It can be a complex landscape to navigate but with the amount of money and the transformational impact it can have, it surely demands a high priority.
Tomorrow we will will look at the league table of success versus the amount applied for by each of the sports.
The Sport for Business Membership comprises nearly 300 organisations, including all the leading sports and sponsors, as well as commercial and state agencies.
