There was strong reaction throughout the day yesterday to the news that Sport would benefit from a new round of Sports Capital Grants and the completion of a National Indoor Arena at the National Sports Campus, at the same time as taking an eight per cent cut in current spending budgets through the Sports Council.
Sources within Government and then Minister Leo Varadkar himself in a speech to the Dáil expressed disappointment at sports’ reaction to the combined package of measures which will deliver a cash boost, at least for one year into the sporting and more general economy.
Sport for Business put forward the argument that while the revival of the Sports Capital Grants was a very strong positive for sports infrastructure at grassroots level, that some rebalancing of the split between capital and current spending might lead to a better long term benefit for the health of the nation and the sustainability of the infrastructure being created.
We featured on Morning Ireland on RTE Radio and the Lat Word on Today FM and the key point was that the money had at least been earmarked for sport while other groups were left without.
The complexity of the overall budget process is immense with so many counter proposals flying in the final weeks and even hours between competing departments.
Now that the final shape has been established at a Government level it needs to be seen whether any beneficial changes to the ways in which the money is effectively deployed can be explored.
The last time the Capital Grants were distributed was only a year ago. On that occasion €26 million was distributed across 615 projects out of 2,000 that applied. We ran analysis of the geographic, sporting and project type mix that was funded and will work with sporting body members to help define the kind of application that might succeed in attracting money to local projects.
Last year’s grants went to 20 individual sports, ten of whom gathered in an aggregate amount of €25,000 and four of which broke through €250,000.
The development of the National Indoor Arena will be of real benefit to a substantial number of smaller sports with as many as 20 involved at some point in the planning of how the project might look.
Next week Sport for Business will run a feature on the plans as they exist at present and get the views of National Sports Campus CEO Barry O’Brien on what might ultimately be delivered.
The current spending cut is a very sharp one and would lead to a serious pruning back of projects were it to remain in full at the level of €40 million set aside. It will be the tough job of the Irish Sports Council to distribute this money around the sports and among the projects that will deliver most in the short to medium term.
There is a strong argument that spending in sport delivers jobs in the short term and massive savings in health and wellbeing over a longer period. Those arguments may not have won through as well as hoped for in the budget battles of 2014 but they will have been noted.
Sport needs to stay strong and hold its breath until the current troubled economic times pass. The money that will flow in the next year is a bonus. The growing capacity of sport to sell itself to business needs to be stepped up in terms of delivering imaginative programmes and projects that satisfy the need for commercial return on investment.
Tough times are never easy to live through but it is what you do and how you manage through them that will define your success once they have passed.
Sports Analytics Round Table ** Sports Tourism Seminar ** Irish Sponsorship Awards ** Sports Philanthropy Round Table ** Youth Sports Conference ** Sport for Business 20/20 for 2015
