Athletics Ireland hit with legal challenge to new running levy

Athletics Ireland has been hit with a legal challenge against their decision to push through a new levy on all non-members wishing to participate in their permitted running and race events.

From January 1st, anyone not registered with an Irish athletics club faced an extra €2 on their entry, for each race they enter, under what Athletics Ireland called a new “one-day licence fee”.

Several prominent clubs had already expressed concern at the decision by the board of Athletics Ireland to push through the levy and not let it go before the association’s congress for an open vote, given the impact across the sport.

Ongoing legal action

At congress in Tullamore on Saturday, at the end of the finance report, a Cork club delegate stated “that a legal action had been raised with the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission”.

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In response, Athletics Ireland said they were unable to comment on an ongoing legal action. In a later statement to Shannonside FM, which first aired the story, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission confirmed: “A complaint has recently been made to the CCPC alleging anti-competitive practices in this sector. Due to the legal nature of this work, we are precluded from providing an indicative timeframe or updates on our examination.”

Pádraig Griffin, Athletics Ireland life vice-president, said there was unhappiness across the association on the one-day licence, given it should have been brought to congress for approval.

The requirement for non-members at all running events in receipt of an Athletics Ireland permit was part of an overhaul in the race entry and result process under a new agreement with Eventmaster. Aimed in part at placing further value on club membership, Athletics Ireland said that “all revenue generated from this initiative will directly support the delivery of our high-performance programme”.

Under the new agreement, Eventmaster also charges a 4.5 per cent fee for each event registration above €14, plus a bank fee of 2 per cent. Previously, other companies that ran events had only charged between 1-2 per cent. Individual club membership can vary from between €100-€170, with Athletics Ireland taking €25 per adult member, and €15 per juvenile.

The €2 levy will affect about 700 events countrywide, involving more than 500,000 runners, from local road races up to mass-participation events such as the Dublin Marathon and the Women’s Mini Marathon.

Rising costs

One prominent Dublin athletics club, which didn’t wish to be named, told The Irish Times the new levy comes at a time when race organisers across the country are already absorbing substantial rises in costs and overheads when putting on running events while trying to keep their race entry fee affordable.

Sunday’s Great Ireland 10km Run in the Phoenix Park, which doubled as the Athletics Ireland National 10km championships, included the one-day licence, club members paying €28 to enter, non-club members paying €30.

Athletics Ireland later issued an apology after all 2,000 runners were misdirected over the course of the race and ended up finishing some 1.5km short of the distance. Given the “unforeseen circumstances”, all results will be declared null and void. There was no prize-giving afterwards.

The problem arose around the 3km mark, when the runners were misdirected and with that missed out on another of the smaller 1.5km laps. As the race progressed from there it was evident they were running short, only it was clearly too late to turn back. It still remains to be seen if Athletics Ireland will be issuing any partial or full refunds.