Betting levy should rise to improve football’s ‘grossly inadequate’ infrastructure, says outgoing chairman Roy Barrett
“Do I think football, given all of the benefits that accrue from it, should receive equal funding as greyhound racing and horse racing? Yes, I do. Do I think the betting tax levy going exclusively to those two sports is right? No, I don’t. And do I think sport in general, and football in particular, should in time benefit from those levies, and would that be a better thing societally, from a health perspective and community perspective? Unambiguously.
“I would have hoped for the sport that something like this would have been addressed a couple of years ago. We’ve a betting levy of 2 per cent. Increase it to 3 per cent and let other sports, not just football, benefit from it. Government needs to invest in sport. Here’s one way of doing it.”“Since 2000, and we can argue whether it is right or wrong, but the fact is that the GAA have got about €430 million in government grants, football has got €118 million, rugby has got €57 million.
“I would be more than happy to step down as chairperson if there was a female chairperson,” he said at the FAI annual general meeting last July. “I think every board member should have that attitude.” “I don’t believe the people in my type of role should stay for a long time,” said Barrett. “When you look at something like the FAI and the relatively tumultuous time it has come through and all that has happened I am happy now where things have got to. New blood with new ideas is a good thing, in my view. It just so happens that it coincides with the requirement in terms of gender balance.
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