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should the gaa turn professional?

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    #92
    OldMrBrennan83
    Closed Accounts Posts: 26,658 ✭✭✭✭OldMrBrennan83


    This post has been deleted.


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    #93
    iDave
    Registered Users Posts: 3,750 ✭✭✭iDave


    Why resurrect this thread, its not going to happen in our lifetimes.


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    #94
    rebel girl 15
    Registered Users, Moderators, Education Moderators, Sports Moderators, Regional South Moderators Posts: 15,247 Mod ✭✭✭✭rebel girl 15


    iDave wrote: »
    Why resurrect this thread, its not going to happen in our lifetimes.

    I agree, it isn't going to happen. The money is not there to sustain it happening, and if it were to happen, the money that would be used for it wouldn't be going to the local clubs and areas it goes to already.

    This is only resurrected when half a story is brought to the fore by the news outlets, Donaghy is leaving Ulster Bank, which I'm not surprised given the huge number of exams they have to take at the moment in order to keep their jobs. Having to juggle exams, work, new baby on the way and football wouldn't work for him, so he is looking for a new job.


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    #95
    ultrapercy
    Registered Users Posts: 1,605 ✭✭✭ultrapercy


    noonoo104 wrote: »
    To a certain extent definitely. The players should be payed a good wage for playing. Only if there on the squad that is. Most gaa players are in better shape than the highest payed footballers in the premier league so they deserve to be paid for it.

    Will you stop that crazy talk. Premiership players play 2 90 min games a week for 9 months. An inter county footballer plays max 7 70 min games in 5 months. League and club are the soccer equivalent of the pre season friendly. Mayo and Kerry played 2 games in a week last year and it almost killed them. Fitness levels in GAA are the most over hyped thing since ericom shares.


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    #96
    Realt Dearg Sec
    Registered Users Posts: 10,824 ✭✭✭✭Realt Dearg Sec


    Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »
    What's wrong with it , the name.

    Rest of Leinster is not the name of the team. Its just my belief that there may not be enough of a market to sustain more than one team outside of Dublin in Leinster.

    I agree with you. But I also believe that the numbers willing to support such a team would be far, far lower still than the numbers who currently support their counties. Loyalty won't automatically transfer (which is what happened in Wales when they went professional), so the sustainability of a smaller pool of professional teams (which is already pretty doubtful) is even more questionable. If they could sustain four or five teams I'd be shocked. And as you can imagine, if the four pro rugby teams in the country only ever played each other, there'd be very little interest. So even that paltry number wouldn't be sustainable.

    So basically I agree that there isn't enough of a market to sustain more than one team. But I would go further and say that there isn't enough of a market to even sustain one. People are loyal to their counties, not to the quality of the players or the game as such. Otherwise we'd all be glued to the screens for the Fitzgibbon Cup, and football would have been forced to change its rules by now.


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    #97
    davegrohl48
    Registered Users Posts: 1,530 ✭✭✭davegrohl48


    It's very difficult to see how professional GAA can operate. I believe alot of people would not have much interest in watching on tv or attending matches where players play for pay.
    Much simpler to better look after the players under amateur conditions.
    Dessie Farrell stated many years ago he had a long term aim of professionalism.
    - He contradicted the viewpoint that there is a fixtures crisis of too many games with him saying it was really only for those players playing Sigerson and U21 and only for a short few weeks window of time.
    - He came out in the media and put forward the ridiculous notion we will lose our players to other sports if we try to cap training volume. By contrast even the full time athletes in the NFL have a cap on number of mandatory and voluntary training sessions.
    The GPA has all these counselling services but they are remedies to the illness. I have yet to hear of a proposal from the GPA that seriously helps the welfare of the players. Two big parts of this being:
    - Reduced fixture schedule (Dessie Farrell said really no issue)
    - Reduced mandatory training volume (There has been an improvement in relation to the off-season with a training session being any time a player is requested to be at a specific place at a specific time)
    It has been said that some teams have got their players to sign legals NDA's not to disclose anything about training. Again the GPA have done nothing about that.
    In the long term I just simply think the GPA is comfortable with the genuine hardship that is on players now as it burst the dam that we should not go professional.
    The GAA is not about which team wins the All Ireland. The GAA is a voluntary community.


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    #98
    The Lost Sheep
    Registered Users Posts: 14,967 ✭✭✭✭The Lost Sheep


    ultrapercy wrote: »
    Will you stop that crazy talk. Premiership players play 2 90 min games a week for 9 months. An inter county footballer plays max 7 70 min games in 5 months. League and club are the soccer equivalent of the pre season friendly. Mayo and Kerry played 2 games in a week last year and it almost killed them. Fitness levels in GAA are the most over hyped thing since ericom shares.
    Most premiership players play 1 90 minute game a week and to say league and club games are soccer equivalent of pre season friendlies is ridiculous. How can you say that especially of club games???
    Fitness levels are over hyped to an extent I will agree there.


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    #99
    davegrohl48
    Registered Users Posts: 1,530 ✭✭✭davegrohl48


    ultrapercy wrote: »
    Will you stop that crazy talk. Premiership players play 2 90 min games a week for 9 months. An inter county footballer plays max 7 70 min games in 5 months. League and club are the soccer equivalent of the pre season friendly. Mayo and Kerry played 2 games in a week last year and it almost killed them. Fitness levels in GAA are the most over hyped thing since ericom shares.
    They are different fitness types.
    - There is much less heavy physical contact in soccer
    - There are significant passages of play in soccer where the players are operating at jogging pace (example watch when a goalie rolls a ball out to his defenders, these days the other team has usually pulled back)
    Yes it nearly killed Mayo and Kerry but GAA is high tempo all over the pitch from start to finish with heavy contact.
    Robbie Keane and Andreas Pirlo are still playing at professional level at the very end of their careers. Due to the nature of Gaelic Football your fitness can only dip so much before you simply can't contribute anymore.
    BTW Pirlo stated in his autobiography that non stop 1 to 1 man marking when it was done on rare occasions totally ruined his ability to contribute. He couldn't get open for passes. Gaelic Football is either tight 1 to 1 or tight blanket. Now we are actually starting to see sometimes players jogging out with the ball sometimess from their own defence if the other team has dropped back, but it wasn't the case in those Mayo - Kerry games. Even when they are able to do this it doesn't last very long.


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    #100
    ultrapercy
    Registered Users Posts: 1,605 ✭✭✭ultrapercy


    davegrohl48 wrote: »
    They are different fitness types.
    - There is much less heavy physical contact in soccer
    - There are significant passages of play in soccer where the players are operating at jogging pace (example watch when a goalie rolls a ball out to his defenders, these days the other team has usually pulled back)
    Yes it nearly killed Mayo and Kerry but GAA is high tempo all over the pitch from start to finish with heavy contact.
    Robbie Keane and Andreas Pirlo are still playing at professional level at the very end of their careers. Due to the nature of Gaelic Football your fitness can only dip so much before you simply can't contribute anymore.
    BTW Pirlo stated in his autobiography that non stop 1 to 1 man marking when it was done on rare occasions totally ruined his ability to contribute. He couldn't get open for passes. Gaelic Football is either tight 1 to 1 or tight blanket. Now we are actually starting to see sometimes players jogging out with the ball sometimess from their own defence if the other team has dropped back, but it wasn't the case in those Mayo - Kerry games. Even when they are able to do this it doesn't last very long.

    Players play longer in soccer because it's their career, they are full time and are paid to play not because it is any physicaly easier. Soccer players have more ground per player to cover with 11 players versus 15 in GAA all be it on a slightly smaller pitch.There is plenty of walking / jogging in GAA too. Of course top level GAA players are fit, no question about it but the silly comparisons and over hype are bull****.


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    #101
    ultrapercy
    Registered Users Posts: 1,605 ✭✭✭ultrapercy


    The Lost Sheep wrote: »
    Most premiership players play 1 90 minute game a week and to say league and club games are soccer equivalent of pre season friendlies is ridiculous. How can you say that especially of club games???
    Fitness levels are over hyped to an extent I will agree there.

    For a player with county standard conditioning most club games are not very intense. I mean that in terms of the recovery required (which is the real measure of fitness) not the intensity level of the game itself.


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    #102
    Realt Dearg Sec
    Registered Users Posts: 10,824 ✭✭✭✭Realt Dearg Sec


    ultrapercy wrote: »
    a slightly smaller pitch.

    Slightly smaller? A GAA pitch averages at 15000 metres squared, a soccer pitch averages about 7,500 metres squared. I'm not going to comment on whether GAA players are as fit as professional soccer players (almost certainly the answer is no, of course not, and why would they be?), but the idea that soccer players have more pitch to cover is simply b0llocks.

    "Soccer players have more ground per player to cover with 11 players versus 15 in GAA" That's just not true. GAA involves 1000 square metres of ground per player, Soccer involves 670 square metres per player.


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    #103
    ultrapercy
    Registered Users Posts: 1,605 ✭✭✭ultrapercy


    Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »
    Slightly smaller? A GAA pitch averages at 15000 metres squared, a soccer pitch averages about 7,500 metres squared. I'm not going to comment on whether GAA players are as fit as professional soccer players (almost certainly the answer is no, of course not, and why would they be?), but the idea that soccer players have more pitch to cover is simply b0llocks.

    "Soccer players have more ground per player to cover with 11 players versus 15 in GAA" That's just not true. GAA involves 1000 square metres of ground per player, Soccer involves 670 square metres per player.

    I stand corrected the maximum ground per player in each sport is GAA 870 Soccer 730 when this is multiplied by minutes per game it's GAA 60900 Soccer 65700 so a 9% more ground to cover for the soccer player.. I find this interesting but don't think it either supports or undermines my point very much especially since it's a criteria and formula I thought up myself..


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    #104
    Mal-Adjusted
    Registered Users Posts: 3,575 ✭✭✭Mal-Adjusted


    I don't want to backseat mod, but we all know the fitness argument is just going to go in circles like it always does.

    Back on topic, a poster a few pages back said that professionalism is an eventuality. how? There simply isn't the money there. There also isn't the interest. You can get 40,000 people to a clash of two big teams but how big a crowd will you have for a PRO12 style league, 11 home and 11 away games?


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    #105
    Realt Dearg Sec
    Registered Users Posts: 10,824 ✭✭✭✭Realt Dearg Sec


    ultrapercy wrote: »
    I stand corrected the maximum ground per player in each sport is GAA 870 Soccer 730 when this is multiplied by minutes per game it's GAA 60900 Soccer 65700 so a 9% more ground to cover for the soccer player.. I find this interesting but don't think it either supports or undermines my point very much especially since it's a criteria and formula I thought up myself..

    I don't think it's relevant either. The players aren't as fit because they can't engage in a properly professional training regime involving full recovery, and all of the resources available to a professional operation. They can get pretty close, but only by putting immense pressure on the personal and working lives of their players, which is exactly the reason that there is pressure to professionalise.

    As someone pointed out above, the emphasis should be on rowing back from that move towards greater pressure on personal and working life, but the GPA haven't shown much interest in actually protecting their players in this regard. Of course, they don't really protect themselves. In seeking an edge for their team, players are willing to make endless sacrifices in terms of training expectations etc. The combination of non-disclosure agreements, and the lack of any real commitment to collective bargaining regarding training expectation, means that you have to make every sacrifice that your manager asks, no matter how ridiculous. And the players, via the GPA, have done nothing to halt that. A proper collective bargaining agreement which set real limits on inter county squad training would benefit them all together, and they wouldn't need to keep seeking the edge by training more and more and more. But they don't do that. And then they wonder where their social and family life has disappeared to, and why their career is completely stalled when they hit their thirties. The pressure shouldn't be towards professionalism at all (which will actually worsen those issues), it should be in the other direction, where playing for your county is just a part of a well-balanced life.


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    #106
    Greendiamond
    Registered Users Posts: 94 ✭✭Greendiamond


    You have to look at the GAA as a whole when considering professionalising the sport. Intercounty GAA players have become such 'good ' players through a combination of natural skill and coaching. Coaching that most likely started aged 5 at a GAA club nursery - they were developed as players through regular trainng sessions, tournaments, availing of facilities in their clubs such as hurling walls. Developed further through the school systems sports competitions.

    All the above were provided to a player by volunteers. The coaches that leave work and kill themselves to get to a 6pm training session for the unglamorous under 9 B team. The committee members who turn out to meetings, who ensure pitches are available, who turn up 3 hours ahead of a game to bucket water off a pitch so an under 12 game can go ahead. Parents who make sambos for feile, who fundraise for the club etc etc

    None of these are paid - some gaa volunteers give up to 10 hours plus to help their club - there is no payment - they do it for the love of the game - for the sense of community.

    Paying players would ruin this. Would destroy the game we all love. For every inter county player that's under pressure to make training sessions there is another juvenile coach under similar pressures - but without any hope of the same glory


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    #107
    The Lost Sheep
    Registered Users Posts: 14,967 ✭✭✭✭The Lost Sheep


    Greendiamond wrote: »
    You have to look at the GAA as a whole when considering professionalising the sport. Intercounty GAA players have become such 'good ' players through a combination of natural skill and coaching. Coaching that most likely started aged 5 at a GAA club nursery - they were developed as players through regular trainng sessions, tournaments, availing of facilities in their clubs such as hurling walls. Developed further through the school systems sports competitions.

    All the above were provided to a player by volunteers. The coaches that leave work and kill themselves to get to a 6pm training session for the unglamorous under 9 B team. The committee members who turn out to meetings, who ensure pitches are available, who turn up 3 hours ahead of a game to bucket water off a pitch so an under 12 game can go ahead. Parents who make sambos for feile, who fundraise for the club etc etc

    None of these are paid - some gaa volunteers give up to 10 hours plus to help their club - there is no payment - they do it for the love of the game - for the sense of community.

    Paying players would ruin this. Would destroy the game we all love. For every inter county player that's under pressure to make training sessions there is another juvenile coach under similar pressures - but without any hope of the same glory
    How would professionalism ruin all that you describe? In what ways would the intro of pay for play ruin those things? I coach age grade sport and can you really say all the sacrifices made asa coach of age grade teams are the same as the number of sacrifices the elite inter county players make as I most certainly don't
    With that kind of argument no sport ever should be or could be a professional sport.


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    #108
    Darkest Horse
    Registered Users Posts: 497 ✭✭Darkest Horse


    Greendiamond wrote: »
    You have to look at the GAA as a whole when considering professionalising the sport. Intercounty GAA players have become such 'good ' players through a combination of natural skill and coaching. Coaching that most likely started aged 5 at a GAA club nursery - they were developed as players through regular trainng sessions, tournaments, availing of facilities in their clubs such as hurling walls. Developed further through the school systems sports competitions.

    All the above were provided to a player by volunteers. The coaches that leave work and kill themselves to get to a 6pm training session for the unglamorous under 9 B team. The committee members who turn out to meetings, who ensure pitches are available, who turn up 3 hours ahead of a game to bucket water off a pitch so an under 12 game can go ahead. Parents who make sambos for feile, who fundraise for the club etc etc

    None of these are paid - some gaa volunteers give up to 10 hours plus to help their club - there is no payment - they do it for the love of the game - for the sense of community.

    Paying players would ruin this. Would destroy the game we all love. For every inter county player that's under pressure to make training sessions there is another juvenile coach under similar pressures - but without any hope of the same glory

    You've made a point but not backed it up with any argument. The amateur game would still exist.


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    #109
    CrabRevolution
    Registered Users Posts: 2,801 ✭✭✭CrabRevolution


    I could see '000s of people walking away from the association if it went professional. It would lose a huge amount of goodwill.

    The point is irrelevant though, since there isn't the money there to even pay players minimum wage. They'd likely be on short, 5 month contracts and then on the dole during the off season.


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    #110
    Greendiamond
    Registered Users Posts: 94 ✭✭Greendiamond


    Darkest Horse wrote: »
    You've made a point but not backed it up with any argument. The amateur game would still exist.

    The point is that you may not get the same element of volunteer support if the game went professional - the stalwarts who put in so much time to running a club, coaching a team etc may not be so inclined if players are changing club & county . Professionalism changes the whole concept of the gaa and this will filter down through all levels of the GAA structure - will you have parents choosing a particular club as it will give their child a better chance to make it as a professional gaa player ? Has huge implications for the game as whole


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    #111
    The Lost Sheep
    Registered Users Posts: 14,967 ✭✭✭✭The Lost Sheep


    CrabRevolution wrote: »
    I could see '000s of people walking away from the association if it went professional. It would lose a huge amount of goodwill.

    The point is irrelevant though, since there isn't the money there to even pay players minimum wage. They'd likely be on short, 5 month contracts and then on the dole during the off season.
    Why would they walk away? Thats scaremongering at a seriously OTT level. How would it lose goodwill? With changes to how games are ran etc and improving number of games to some element of pay for play is certainly possibly.
    Greendiamond wrote: »
    The point is that you may not get the same element of volunteer support if the game went professional - the stalwarts who put in so much time to running a club, coaching a team etc may not be so inclined if players are changing club & county. Professionalism changes the whole concept of the gaa and this will filter down through all levels of the GAA structure - will you have parents choosing a particular club as it will give their child a better chance to make it as a professional gaa player? Has huge implications for the game as whole
    Why would volunteer numbers drop? Didnt change much in relation to rugby when rugby went pro and players were changing province so why would GAA be so different. Parish rule would still be counted at junior level/age grade. Top level may be different with pay for play


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