KERRY FOOTBALL:THE KERRY County Board have defended the decision to support the county football team's training camp to Portugal later this month – claiming it will only account for "about 0.5 per cent" of total expenditure for the year, or less than €20,000.

Having missed out on a place in the Division One final, it was confirmed yesterday Kerry would be travelling to Portugal over the Easter weekend, from April 21st-25th, and county board chairman Jerome Conway has outlined the costs involved to his county committee and what he deemed the value of such a trip.

“We are well aware of the economic problems that we have,” said Conway, “and neither the county board nor the clubs are immune from the affects of the recession.

“The benefits of warm weather training are that players can train three times a day.

In normal circumstances, we train three times a week so if they players spent four days in warm weather training, which is now proposed, that is equivalent to four weeks’ training.

“And some senior players have come back late this year, having taken a well earned rest, and that has become the norm in most counties as older players try to prolong their playing careers.

“You can see that it is of great benefit to such players, as it’s important that they would get some intensive training into their legs now. Also, we have our county and club championships coming up in early May and June and the normal squad training will be interrupted by that, as is only right, as players return to their clubs to prepare for the championships.”

Kerry’s trip has been criticised in some circles, including provincial paper The Kerryman, which highlighted GAA president Christy Cooney’s suggestion the country would be better served with teams spending such training holidays at home.

“It is difficult to give an exact figure,” added Conway, “but it certainly will not be anything like the figure that has been touted (suggested at € 40,000).

“In fact, I can say that the cost of the trip will be just 0.5 of one per cent of the board’s total expenditure last year, which was around €3 million.

“So we are well aware of our duty to our country and 99 per cent of our expenditure is spent at home. The management of the team are not irresponsible people and they understand the financial constraints that are placed upon the board.

“They have in consultation with us agreed cost cutting measures in other areas of preparation to such an extent that the Portugal aspect of the trip will be cost neutral.”