Aviva Stadium in the red despite All Blacks success and Billy Joel concert
Ireland's rugby victory over the New Zealand All Blacks in November and Billy Joel's summer concert contributed to the Aviva Stadium generating an operating profit of €6.9m last year.
However, such stellar events weren't enough to stop the stadium's operating company falling further into the red, on a pre-tax basis.
Newly-filed accounts for New Stadium DAC show the company incurred a pre-tax loss of €3.3m last year - up from a loss of €3.14m in 2017 - largely driven by a hefty €10.12m non-cash depreciation charge.
The €6.9m in operating profit also represented a marginal year-on-year decline due to rental fees - for the use of the stadium - from both the IRFU and the FAI declining.
The accounts show, however, that New Stadium DAC still paid out €2m in dividends to its shareholders, the IRFU and the FAI.
The firm’s cash pile increased from €4.2m to €4.7m last year and the company’s fixed assets had a book value of €323m. Numbers employed by the company remained the same at 20 with staff costs increasing from €1.36m to €1.4m.
The company’s shareholder funds stood at €159m made up of a share premium of €58.1m, capital contribution of €134.37m and accumulated losses of €32.84m.
The accounts - signed off by the chief executive of the IRFU, Philip Browne and president of the FAI Donal Conway - also confirm that during the year, an agreement was reached seeing Aviva extend its naming rights to the stadium up to 2025.
