Mayo LGFA laments lack of progress on integration

Kathryn Sullivan of Mayo celebrates with team mates after collecting the cup after the TG4 Ladies Connacht Senior Football Championship final between Mayo and Galway at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park in Castlebar. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile

Mayo LGFA has questioned the desire for integration as the fallout from Mary McAleese's departure as chair of the GAA Steering Group on Integration (SGI) continues.

In a lengthy social media post, Mayo LGFA appeared to support McAleese's stance by claiming no meeting of their county's Integration Committee took place this year. This committee involves two people from each association meeting on a monthly basis, alongside an independent chair, with the minutes from the gathering to be sent to Croke Park.

"No such meeting has taken place in 2026. Not one. No minutes have been returned. As far as we can establish, that is true across this entire province and most of the country," the post stated.

"The reason given is cost. So let us do the costs, in one county, for one year, out of two sets of accounts that were each presented to their own members.

"One line of Mayo GAA’s expenditure, team administration (€1.35 million), worth every penny of it, is 4.7 times the entire annual expenditure of Mayo LGFA that looks after 7,015 members in 36 clubs and five inter-county teams.

"What does Mayo LGFA own? No pitch, no astro, no clubhouse, no office, no storage container, no shed.

"Our county jerseys spend the off-season in officers’ houses. The cones, balls, first-aid kits, programmes, silverware and flags live in somebody’s spare room.

"When we run a county final, three or four cars set off to three or four houses to collect the county’s belongings. We explain this because for the past week the deficiencies of women’s Gaelic games have been discussed in public as though they were a mystery. They are not a mystery.

"The resources now being described as too costly are the resources our players and volunteers have been doing without for years.

"Then there is the argument about attendance. That ladies football does not entertain. That the crowds are not there, and neither is the revenue.

"Until this season, every LGFA senior, intermediate and junior championship game in County Mayo was fixed for eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning. That was our slot. If you were a reporter you could attend precisely one match. If your club had a junior team and a senior team you had to pick one daughter over another."

The post continued: "This year, Mayo GAA and Mayo LGFA worked together on a new approach to championship scheduling. We built our programme around the men’s fixtures, using different times and, where possible, different days. We worked to avoid clashes between each club’s teams and give reporters room to reach more than one ground.

"Coverage matters. It affects a sport’s ability to attract supporters and sponsors alike. Sport Ireland’s study published in March 2025 found that women’s sport accounted for just 18 per cent of national sports news coverage during 2025. The share is smaller again at a local level.

"After decades of unequal investment, limited promotion and restricted fixture slots, attendance cannot be treated as a verdict on what ladies’ football is worth.

"It also reflects the opportunities the game has been given to reach an audience.

"There is a road in Castlebar where a brother and sister grew up in the same house, play for the same club, do the same five sessions a week and wear the same county jersey, yet inhabit two different footballing universes.

"If the same disparity of opportunity existed in their education or working lives, we would be rightly appalled.

"Our senior county players receive €20 a week towards nutrition during the inter-county season. Their mileage is capped. This year’s training camp was one night in Enniscrone. This is what the LGFA can currently provide for them. It is not remotely what they are worth.

"There are women in Mayo talented enough to play senior inter-county football who have decided not to, and the reason is not that they stopped loving it. The cost is just too high.

"Forty-six Irish women are on AFLW club lists this season, and Mayo supplies more of them than anywhere else.

"Sarah Rowe, Niamh and Grace Kelly, Rachel Kearns, Dayna Finn and Saoirse Lally are now playing football professionally on the other side of the world. Just not our football."