Offaly chairman and Sunday Game analyst Michael Duignan feels that the National Leagues shouldn't take place this year due to COVID and financial concerns.
He says that county boards are struggling to make ends meet. "We showed a loss last year of about €260,000 and we did our budgets for the leagues this year and you're talking about another €200,000 to €250,000 with no opportunity to get in any income. We'd be looking at a rolling loss of close to half a million by the time the league would be finished. I don't know how we could go out and start training when we don't actually know where we are going to get the funds. The GAA have said that they have no funds available for us at the minute. How can you trade like that? If it was a business you couldn't trade, it would be reckless trading."
He believes that inter county training should resume in March due to the worrying COVID-19 numbers. "With the virus raging at the minute and so many people in hospital and ICU, I think the possibility of teams going back training in the short-term is non-existent. I don't think there's any appetite out there for it in the community. It's fairly obvious with the way that the Chief Medical Officer is talking that we're in a difficult position and we're going to be in it for quite some while. I think the first of March would be sensible as a start date rather than the first of February. I think It's going to take that extra few weeks. We've a lot of people under pressure in so many ways."
Listen back to the full interview with Michael Duignan from Friday's Lár Na Páirce.
https://www.spreaker.com/user/wlrfm/mduignan
