Most embarrassing Irish sporting moment?

Paz-CCFC wrote: »

Shamrock Rovers also put a lot of money into getting the site, including €100,000 after the fans had taken over, plus what they put into it in the late 90s/early 00s before the project being stalled and the fans taking over. It was mostly complete in the mid-00s and when the SDCC were to complete the stadium and begin renting it out, there wasn't a whole lot left to do and it would've costed relatively little. Rovers and others that use it pay well for the rent, you can be sure that the SDCC will be making a significant profit over the lifetime of the stadium. That's good for the council and the public, by making a healthy profit from what became in the mid-00s a project that wasn't overly risky when Rovers became a fans-owned entity and committed to using the ground long term. And it's brilliant for the area, getting to regularly host top quality national football, Champions League and Europa League qualifiers and even the Europa League group stages. Imagine 15-20 years ago if you said that Juventus, Copenhagen, Partizan Belgrade, Tottenham Hotspur, Real Madrid etc. would be coming to play in Tallaght.

To be able to accommodate senior Gaelic games, they would have had to increase the pitch size. This would have meant they would have had to knock the existing stand that was nearly finished, which would have significantly increased costs and would have limited future capacity to about 4,500. At the moment, the capacity is 6,000, with plans to increase it to 7,500 and it has an overall potential of 10,000. This would have meant no Europa League Group stages, no Spurs, if it ended up being any less than 4,500 or if the stadium were not completed on time, it would have meant no Juventus, no Copenhagen, no Belgrade etc. It would have been completely unreasonable to expect to limit the stadium's potential and to drastically increase costs and build time just to accomodate Thomas Davis' senior team. It would have also reduced the rent that SDCC could've demanded, it being a smaller stadium, so they'd have been spending more money to end up getting less in rent. The ground can still host junior Gaelic games, as can it host other sports such as American football, rugby etc., which have all been played in Tallaght.

Thomas Davis were funded by the central GAA to take this case. Shamrock Rovers were not similarly funded by the FAI, it was the fans that had fund their battle. The court ruled that Rovers and the SDCC had no case to answer and that Thomas Davis had no legal basis for complaint. The case wasn't taken because they felt they weren't being treated fairly. Which, of course, is nonsense, because around the time that they were taking action, they were receiving grants from the State to the tune of hundreds of thousands. The Minister for Sports even offered to give Thomas Davis State-assistance with developing a 25 acre site, but that wasn't good enough. They wanted the stadium that Shamrock Rovers were going to play in. It wasn't about fairness, it was about trying to prevent Rovers from coming to Tallaght. They felt it was their patch and other sports shouldn't be welcome. They wanted a long-drawn out legal battle, in the hope that Rovers would just give up, not be able to afford or go bust in the process. In communication with the Dublin County Board, they felt that "in any bout with Rovers...the GAA would be the last man standing". The sinister motive was clear.

The actions of Thomas Davis and the GAA were not embarrassing. They were absolutely despicable. Thankfully, the right people won the court case and things turned out pretty well for Shamrock Rovers and the SDCC.