‘Barely an income to survive’: Elite Irish athletes struggling to make ends meet

Several Irish Olympic athletes have laid bare the increasing financial burdens associated with high-performance sport, with sailor Eve McMahon saying there is “barely an income to survive the day-to-day costs of a normal person”.McMahon receives the maximum annual Sport Ireland podium-tier funding of €40,000 – the international carding scheme amount has not changed since 2006, becoming progressively stretched as the cost of living has increased.“I would pay for absolutely all of my entry fees to every competition that I do,” McMahon says. “Every boat charter, sails for new competitions, all my equipment, all my flights, all my accommodation, all my day-to-day expenses, fuel, ferries, drivers to drive all the kit around. “The list is honestly endless, and that is what the carding money goes towards. I’m very fortunate to have additional sponsors, and if I didn’t have them, then I wouldn’t be able to cover that.”READ MOREParis Olympics swimmer Tom Fannon, who at age 28 receives €18,000 in annual funding from Sport Ireland, says his sporting career is “not sustainable” without additional funding from his parents: “If it was just down to Sport Ireland funding, I wouldn’t be able to do it,” he says. “And if you don’t have [the funding], you can’t continue. Especially after a certain age.”Aifric Keogh, who won a bronze rowing medal at the Tokyo Olympics, is chair of the Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI) athletes’ commission. She says athletes are being lost to the system because they can’t afford the cost of placing their lives on hold, either in simple financial terms or because of career opportunities lost.“It can be an anxious time in an athlete’s life when you’re out there trying to perform,” Keogh says. “But there’s a kind of a financial cost or a financial burden associated with your performance too.Illustration: Paul Scott “There’s this perception that if you’re out there winning medals, and I was one of those athletes winning medals back in the day, then you’re doing okay. But getting medals does not equal cash. Essentially you’re still relying on Sport Ireland funding.”One of the few sport-related proposals to the Government in advance of Tuesday’s budget directly concerns the financial health and future wellbeing of elite Irish athletes. Despite significant increases in sports funding in recent years, there is a sense it’s not trickling down to the athletes at anywhere near the same pace.A proposal, essentially a decade in the works, put forward by the athletes’ commission aims to modernise tax measures to better reflect the realities of high-performance sport in Ireland. It would not amount to a lot of money but it would afford athletes the chance to keep a little more of whatever they did earn in their pockets.For most of them, particularly in Olympic sports, it is seen simply as a long overdue tax break like ones that exist elsewhere in professional sport. Given that it is getting harder for many athletes to earn any sort of income beyond funding, and we are in a cost-of-living crisis, this would be a welcome time to introduce such a measure for these athletes. In some sports – such as rowing, swimming and boxing – prize money and additional personal sponsorship rarely if ever come into the equation. Which means athletes aiming to reach the top of their game are entirely dependent on Government funding, distributed by Sport Ireland.Central to this funding model is the international carding scheme, which has three tiers of direct athlete funding, distributed annually: podium-level funding of €40,000; world-class level of €25,000; and international class of €18,000. The podium-level amount has not changed since 2006 even though inflation over the 20 years to August 2026 was 38.4 per cent. Furthermore, although all the funding coming from taxpayers, it is also still further taxable for the athletes.In more recent years, investment in the various sporting organisations has soared, with Sport Ireland allocating €33.36 million in core funding support for 2026. This represents an 87.4 per cent increase on the €17.8 million investment in 2018, when the National Sports Policy was published, and covers the general sporting operations of 57 national governing bodies (NGBs) of sport, including participation and competition programmes.At the high-performance end, the investment for 2026 was €28.5 million, up by €1.8 million on the previous year, while the increase in direct athlete funding for 2025 (€4,424,352) to 2026 (€4,750,000) was just €325,648.[ Let them eat crumbs: Growing wage inequality is bad for both workers and businessesOpens in new window ]In athletics, as a further example, direct athlete funding went from €645,000 in 2025 to €689,000 in 2026, an increase of just €44,000. Over the same period, Athletics Ireland’s overall income grew by €1.2 million, while wages and salaries went from €2.54 million to €2.86m.Sport Ireland is supporting the OFI proposal, saying: “We are mindful that it is the request of the athletes’ commission and that would be meaningful to all Olympic and Paralympic athletes. It is not simply a financial measure but a recognition to the athletes who make such a contribution to Irish sport.”[ Elite athletes’ harsh financial reality: ‘Vast majority are struggling to make ends meet’Opens in new window ]Paul McDermott, director of high performance and NGBs at Sport Ireland, says the top-tier podium funding amount of €40,000, which 29 Irish athletes currently receive, is “always under review”, but that other support pathways, around the Sport Ireland Institute, such as strength and conditioning, physiotherapy and nutrition, have significantly increased in recent years.“All recipient athletes have access to the full array of services provided by the institute, so the performance programme covers nearly everything else, including the coaching. What the athlete has to do with that €40,000 has changed very substantially since that time,“ McDermott says.[ Ciarán Murphy: Mark Zuckerberg’s few coins thrown to the GAA should not fool usOpens in new window ]“The carding scheme is still absolutely vital, to allow athletes to train, but the real difference will be training in the right environment, with the right services, the right coach, the right facilities, all of that.”Tom Fannon: ‘If you don’t have Sport Ireland funding, you end up retiring’Tom Fannon before the race during the 2025 Irish Championships. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho As Ireland’s fastest swimmer, breaking his own 50m freestyle record this summer, Tom Fannon knows exactly what is required to get the best out of himself. At 28, he’s also heavily reliant on his Sport Ireland international-class funding of €18,000, while his parents continue to make up the shortfall necessary to exist in his sport.“If you think about junior swimming, a lot of the funding comes from your parents,” says Fannon. “And that happens for a number of years. Then maybe if you’re going through university, you get universities to fund you as well.“But the moment you’re no longer in that, and you’re still in the chance of fighting for medals at games, if you don’t have a basic level of Sport Ireland funding to see you through, you end up retiring. Which is a shame.“That’s where the funding from Sport Ireland is crucial, it helps you keep going. But I’m also having to get funded by my parents, because if it was just down to Sport Ireland funding, I wouldn’t be able to do it. It’s not sustainable.”Fannon remains intent on swimming at the LA Olympics in 2028. In Paris 2024, he missed out on the 50m final by just 0.1 of second, finishing 10th overall. Based at the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin, Fannon’s accommodation is part-subsidised by Swim Ireland, but he’s not able to earn any additional income himself.“It’s not quite Dublin prices, because we can’t afford Dublin prices, that’s the reason why it’s subsidised. And I’m in the pool twice a day, in the gym in between, so there’s no time in the day to work outside of that.“There’s rarely any prize money, and even sponsorship is not great. Unless you’re winning the Olympic Games, it’s not the easiest. Even Mona McSharry, she’s like the rest of us. It’s a tough gig, but you don’t do it for the money. You do it for the love of it.“Obviously, it would help to have slightly more subsidies. It allows you to actually reach the pinnacle of what your performance could be. But if you have people finishing their career early, you never know what they could have done. Maybe win more medals for Ireland.”Which is where the proposal to create a €50,000 annual tax credit that athletes could use during or after their sporting careers would also help.“Even a small gesture is better than no gesture. It’s not like we’re trying to cheat the system, living these lavish lifestyles. I’d say 95 per cent of every carded athlete are not living lavish lifestyles.“And you can’t keep earning 18 grand, at the age of 28, 30, 32. At some point, something has to give. Because of the level of funding, you have no backing behind you, in terms of investments, or savings. When I eventually finish swimming, the likelihood is I go into the working world at the age of 30, 32, with no financial backing behind me at all.“That’s another sacrifice that we’ve all made, and again, 95 per cent of us are in that same boat.”Eve McMahon on funding for Irish athletes: ‘It will never cover an Olympic campaign’Eve McMahon during the Irish Sailing Medal Race Invitational in 2025. Photograph: Andrew Conan/Inpho The Paris Olympics was among the high points of Eve McMahon’s sailing career to date. Finishing 13th in the ILCA 6, the then 20-year-old realised her Olympic dream with aplomb, and her performance also put her in the shop window for sponsors. She needs financial backing if she’s to excel again in Los Angeles and Brisbane.Without her personal sponsors, it’s hard to see how she could make ends meet.“I am fortunate enough to be on that top level of carding,” McMahon says, referring to her €40,000 “podium” designation under the current system. “It is really important to me, and it is allowing me to compete as a full-time athlete, but it never will cover an Olympic campaign.”While support from Irish Sailing covers costs such as coaching, strength and conditioning, and physiotherapy, the Sport Ireland funding is quickly gobbled up by the demands of her sport.“I would pay for absolutely all of my entry fees to every competition that I do, every boat charter, sails for new competitions, all my equipment, all my flights, all my accommodation, all my day-to-day expenses, fuel, ferries, drivers to drive all the kit around. The list is honestly endless, and that is what the carding money goes towards,” McMahon says.“I’m very fortunate to have additional sponsors, and if I didn’t have them, then I wouldn’t be able to cover that.”With athletes “coming out with barely an income to survive the day-to-day costs of a normal person”, she says, “the reward financially at the end of the day is very little to none.”It amounts to a far less glamorous life than many presume elite sport to be and entails a huge opportunity cost.“I still live at home,” says the 22-year-old. “My brother [Ewan] is competing as well for the Olympic Games, and he’s still living at home, and the two of us are saying we would absolutely love to move out of home.“It is amazing to come home to a family environment and have those people in your corner, but at the end of the day, we are starting to be in those stages in our lives where we have to spread our wings.“But when you’re competing at such a high level with other countries who are so heavily funded and who do have better tax systems, you have to make the sacrifice of going, ‘I can either spend the money on buying an apartment, or I can invest it fully into my campaign’.”Her commitment is yielding results, with McMahon ranked second in the world behind American Charlotte Rose, but sometimes the what-ifs are hard to take.“It’s like a confidence [shaker] to know that another athlete who’s on the start line beside you has got a completely different system and completely different funding.“No matter how much hard work you put in, you [wonder] will the financial element make a difference, which is pretty killer for us as athletes, because we can only do the best we can do.”Aifric Keogh: ‘Getting medals does not equal cash’Aifric Keogh with her Olympic medal in 2022. Photograph: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile After retiring shortly after the Paris 2024 Olympics, Aifric Keogh felt a need to put her rowing experience to further use. Particularly her journey towards winning Olympic bronze with the women’s four at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Games.In April of last year, she was elected chair of the nine-person Olympic Federation of Ireland athletes’ commission, which is behind the proposal to introduce a new tax break for all Irish athletes as one small way of easing the increasing financial burdens associated with high-performance sport.“This conversation first started probably about two commissions ago,” says Keogh, “when the likes of Derval O’Rourke were serving on the commission [in 2017]. The next cohort took over, then we kind of inherited it, and were finally able to put that last piece of the puzzle together in terms of bringing that submission forward.“Without a doubt, all the federations, and all the high-performance programmes, are much better funded now. And we’re obviously seeing that coming through with all the results. Which is fantastic.“But every athlete has a different story. Or a different struggle maybe. If you look at the likes of a rower, for example, if you want to row for Ireland, you have to relocate to Cork. You look at sailing, there’s a huge personal cost there with all the travel and equipment.“In athletics, how many are training abroad, for coaching? That’s all funded by the athlete. There’s this perception that if you’re out there winning medals, and I was one of those athletes who were winning medals back in the day, it’s all okay. But getting medals does not equal cash. Essentially, you’re still relying on that on Sport Ireland funding.”After her Tokyo medal success, Keogh received the annual top-tier funding of €40,000, but for most athletes the struggle is to find any source of funding.“I would definitely say it’s a barrier to entry. I came to that point when I was graduating from university, and was kind of making the decision, do I go down to Cork, try to give this a go? And what if it doesn’t work out?“It is a tough decision, and obviously your family is going to be involved too. Because you’re going to have to rely on them for all the support, financial and just general support. If those opportunities aren’t there for those athletes, where they can rely on others to support them, it’s definitely going to stop them from pursuing that.“I can’t obviously speak for every sport, but I know myself, when I went down to Cork first for rowing, I had to have my own boat. You need a car. You need to be able to eat a lot of food. There is a huge cost to that lifestyle. And there’s also a cost of going abroad, competing, it all adds up. That’s if you’re lucky enough as well to be on one of those carded athletes.“And I never won a cent for rowing. You know that when you get involved, and every sport is quite different in terms of opportunities and funding. But something like this tax relief would be of benefit to all.”Róisín Ní Riain: ‘I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do after college’Róisín Ní Riain with her World Championship medals in September 2025. Photograph: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile Days after winning her three medals at the European Para Swimming Championships in Turkey last month, Róisín Ní Ríain was back in the lecture and study halls at the University of Limerick, starting into her final year of pharmaceutical chemistry. And back in the swimming pool too.At 21, even with 20 international medals already won across various competitions, including silver and bronze at the 2024 Paralympics in Paris, Ní Ríain can afford to feel like her swimming career is only getting going.“I’m really lucky down in UL, where I’m also a sports scholarship athlete,” she says. “It’s a dual scholarship, so the way they look at it, they support both your academics and your sport as well as they can.“And it really helps us to get the best out of both. I’m part of a big training group of swimmers down in Limerick, most of us are in college as well, and also balancing the academics and training to the best of our abilities.”Among the three medals she won last month, Ní Ríain defended her 100m backstroke title in the S13 class for visual impairment, along with silver in the 200m IM and the 100m freestyle. Since her Paralympics success in Paris, she’s also been on the Sport Ireland podium-level funding of €40,000, although she’s not yet sure that will be enough to sustain her in swimming beyond her college years.“Fortunately there is the funding by Sport Ireland, and for me at the moment, I’m also a college student, but I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do after college.“If I’m going to go looking for a job, or something like that, it’s going to be a little bit different, and I’m sure things will change over the coming years. But I’m definitely blessed to also have all the facilities that I do down in Limerick, and with that funding, and support staff, and I have absolutely wonderful people behind me, all that’s helped me get to where I have been.”Of the 139 Irish athletes in receipt of direct Sport Ireland funding for 2026 under the international carding scheme, 29 are in Paralympic sports (21 per cent of overall athletes), including seven pilot/guide athletes from para athletics, para cycling and para triathlon. Derry swimmer Dearbhaile Brady, who won four medals at the European Para Championships last month – three silver and one bronze – also receives the top podium grant €40,000.Ní Ríain recognises that this medal success on the international stage is largely reliant on the increased recognition of Sport Ireland for athlete funding.“I think it’s definitely improved over the last couple of years, absolutely,” she says. “Even from when I first got into para sports, six or seven years ago now, I didn’t have that many to look up to when I was younger.“So I do think we’ve definitely come quite a long way since then. But I also think, as always, there’s probably still plenty more that we would hope to grow, to create more awareness around people with disability in sports.”What is the OFI tax proposal and how would it work?The proposal submitted by the Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI) to Government in advance of Tuesday’s budget outlines two key recommendations designed to reduce the significant financial and career-related opportunity costs faced by Olympic and Sport Ireland carded athletes.Despite Ireland’s growing success on the world sporting stage, many high-performance athletes earn little or no income from their sport.As a result, they cannot access existing tax supports such as the Sportspersons Relief, which was introduced in 2002 to much applause, by then minister for finance Charlie McCreevy. It gives professional and semi-professional athletes in 13 specific sports relief from income tax at up to 40 per cent on their direct sports earnings for up to 10 years (chosen after the year of their retirement) as long as they are living in Ireland, another EU state, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway or Liechtenstein at the time of their retirement.Currently, this only applies to athletics, badminton, boxing, cycling, football, golf, jockeys, motor racing, rugby, squash, swimming, tennis and cricket.The tax relief also only applies to earnings directly from participation in the sport, such as wages or prize money. Any income earned from items such as personal appearances or sponsorship does not qualify.The OFI Athletes’ Commission proposal seeks to update and expand the Sportspersons Relief so that all Olympic sports governed by recognised National Governing Bodies qualify, and allowing sponsorship and philanthropy income – now the primary income source for many athletes – to be included where it is wholly and exclusively derived from the athlete’s professional trade.Parallel to this, they are looking to align Olympic and Sport Ireland carded athletes with the artists’ exemption scheme, which was introduced in 1969 by Charles Haughey to encourage creative work in the State.This would allow athletes to earn €50,000 a year before paying income tax during their sporting careers, directly reducing the opportunity cost of remaining in high-performance sport. It could also encourage athletes to stay resident in Ireland post-retirement.Currently, any direct athlete funding under the Sport Ireland international carding is regarded as taxable income.The focus on these two reliefs is that they build on existing legislation and established legislative definitions (under Section 847AA of the Taxes Consolidation Act) to ensure clarity, ring fencing and ease of implementation.Recent European heptathlon champion Kate O’Connor is among the athletes backing the proposal, saying: “I think that it’s definitely something that the Government needs to look at. It’s such a huge positive for people sitting at home watching athletes do well. So I think it [the tax break] would be a huge benefit, to enjoy all the hard work that we put in, then maybe having some savings to be able to buy a house at the end of it.”