Stadium Ireland Should it have been built??

thejollyrodger

In light of the shockingly poor performance of the Irish athelehes in Greece shouldn’t the Irish government pressed ahead with Stadium Ireland at abbotstown. The facilities in this country are at best 3rd world.

Those ministers who were dead against were obviously dead against any sports being properly developed in this country. Bertie Ahern should press ahead with the remainder of Stadium Ireland (i.e without the stadium) immeidately.

daveirl

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Sparks

No, not with the plans that they had. However, the Sports Campus Ireland project has pressed ahead, and that's looking to be much better than the Bertiebowl plans did. The aquatic center, for example, has come in on time and under budget.

AngelofFire

Is there any chance a private investor could finance it, i would normally disagree with that type of thing but in the context of sport i think that its ok.Our sporting infastructure is 3rd world.

1. I think we need a new stadium accomodating Football, GAA and Rugby and track and field games.

2.I think that Croker should be open to Football and Rugby with the GAA having first preference on fixtures. Im a GAA member myself and i would have no problem with it.

sceptre

daveirl wrote:

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Track could really do with a resurfacing. Last time it was done was when I was competing on it (as opposed to walking across it as a shortcut) AFAIK and that was a little over a decade ago. Other than that you're right (and it's still far better than Santry was after the same period of lack of care).

While there are certainly sports in Ireland that are underfunded and underdeveloped, as Dave said, a big shiny stadium in Abbotstown or anywhere else won't benefit the athletes any more than say, developing a big stadium and adding a hotel on in Drumcondra would for anyone playing hurling or pick-up-the-ball-and-run-with-it-occasionally-bouncing-it-but-not-counting-your-steps football. Actually funding promotion and coaching of sport (and providing facilities for sports that need them) would benefit the regular participants far more than building a stadium with seats for us all.

Note that I'm not saying we shouldn't build a stadium, I'm just saying that the idea that building a stadium would make any real difference to the atheletes or their performance is laughable.

thejollyrodger

Well tell me how having a large Stadium that would be making a loss would benefit our Track and Field Athletes.........The facilites in places like UL are second to none, so that's not a real excuse. A large stadium wouldn't help them.

I was on about the rest of the facilities apart from the stadium (which should have went ahead). For track and field. The facilities down in UL are 2nd rate at best so dont try and tell me that they reach any sort of international standard!!

The only money that was spent on this country just happened to be in Ahern's, Mc Crevy and O donohue constituienty. Everwhere else in Ireland has been pretty much shafted unless your into GAA. With all its virtues is only a ametur sport which doesnt have an international element. And it soaks up all the money.

There is no support for training of athlethes (just look at robbie keane, potential a great skriker but lacks a lot of coaching), or money to finance them!

The horses that won gold and silver were bred in Ireland, so obviously there are severe problems in any sort of planning. Its just not good enough

Sparks

We do need to see some facilities built though sceptre. Target Shooting desperately needs facilities, for example, and a national shooting center would be of immense use, so long as it was located somewhere like Abbotstown. Shooting outside the Pale is reasonably provided for in terms of large facilities, but anyone in Dublin who wants to shoot and who isn't a college student in UCD or TCD is pretty much screwed right now; also we have to go to Northern Ireland to host the National Championships in the 50m discipline. Which, I admit, is not such a bad thing since target shooting, like rugby, runs on a 32-county basis; but we're still screwed for the 10m air rifle event right now, we have to set up a temporary range in a community hall to host it, and that's a lot of heavy labour and it also means the range can't be used the rest of the year for training.

Archery, as I understand it, is in a similar situation, as are most minority sports; and as this shows, this is understood at a high level in sports administration.

sceptre

Sparks wrote:

We do need to see some facilities built though sceptre.

Absolutely - and you've given an excellent example. What I'm getting at (apparently badly:)) is that from the point of view of the athletes, they need the facilities to compete in their chosen sports. Adding seats to those facilities is (apart from the interest (which is obviously important as well) raised by being able to watch the sport) effectively an extra that doesn't greatly directly benefit the athlete. From the point of view of the competitor (and not just Olympic hopefuls, regular kids and regular people too), facilities first, exhibition centres second. And as you say, we need these facilities in this country rather than having to cross the border to even train, let alone compete.

thejollyrodger

1/4 of the population live in dublin so it makes sense to build on the existing infastrucuture... i.e the swimining facilities and locate the sports infastructure out there.. the Metro will be running close to it so it will all fit together.

thejollyrodger

the fact that our Eircom League has effectively been shunded by government money is yet another disgrace. Fair play to Shelbourne tonight, they have got that far in europe without any help from the government. Unlike the GAA and rugby

StickyMcGinty

thejollyrodger wrote:

the fact that our Eircom League has effectively been shunded by government money is yet another disgrace. Fair play to Shelbourne tonight, they have got that far in europe without any help from the government. Unlike the GAA and rugby

agree totally

the only excuse i've heard from the gaa people for not opening croker is "what happened to the moneey the fai got between 85-89"!


harney is the biggest opposer to using taxpayers money on abbotstown is she not?

Flukey

Well the FAI should have built a stadium years ago. That was always the real issue, not whether Croke Park should be opened or not. Basically the GAA were getting the blame for the FAI not having built their own stadium. The government gave the GAA a lot of money to do it, but the GAA matched it with their own and a lot of the government expense would be regained through tax, employment etc. Another reason the GAA got money was that they put a proposal together and went and looked for it. The FAI have basically sat on their laurels using the IRFU stadium and when it began to fail to meet their needs, they went looking to use someone else's instead of building their own. Eircom Park should have happened. The government did mess the FAI around a bit by getting them to shelve that in favour of the government proposal. Nevertheless, the core problem is still the FAI not having their won stadium. That is not the governments fault, the IRFU's fault and not the GAA's fault, though the whole Croke Park issue has been used to take the focus away from the FAI.

Imposter

Great, another GAA bashing thread on the issue.

I think the campus Ireland project (without the stadium) needs to go ahead if Ireland is ever to compete successfully at international level. Minority sports do need these facilities and are not in a position (at least initially) to fund them themselves.

Here is the grants given to sport for 2004. Most of this came from Lotto money and the like. You will notice that it is not all GAA and Rugby. In fact even the FAI themselves (not an club or anything else) also got 100,000. Minority sports also did quite well and probably got a fair share based on the number of participants. While this does not address the initial funding a lot of sports needs to get off the ground it does show that money for sports is divided pretty well based on the membership of the various clubs and societies.

thejollyrodger

Well GAA is all well and very good. The fact remains that the government has always gave it number 1 priority . It was pumping cash into it since day 1 as it was one of the key aspects which identified our culture and heritage.

But it has totally shunned the E.L. and FAI. The FAI wanted to go ahead with Eircom park and it would have been built long ago if the government would have help finance it.

One example the government could help interveen in is the 10million Euro out in Tallaght. Shamrock rovers are having problems raising the rest of the cash and the government could easily sort out some loan arrangement for the remainder of the cash.

Minority sports do need these facilities and are not in a position (at least initially) to fund them themselves.

Well said, how is shooting or rowing say going to finance itself? Abbotstown has already the swiming pool so it makes sense to keep building out there.

Also the GAA should be forced to open Croker. They are always whinging about how bad they are getting it, just take a look at the rest of other sports around the country and you will see that they are in the best position

Zombrex

sceptre wrote:

Track could really do with a resurfacing. Last time it was done was when I was competing on it (as opposed to walking across it as a shortcut) AFAIK and that was a little over a decade ago. Other than that you're right (and it's still far better than Santry was after the same period of lack of care).

Saw them resurfacing the track over the weekend

I guess every decade isn't too bad

daveirl

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thejollyrodger

I dont know if Johnny was talking about Ireland... if he was maybe he was being polite.

why shouldn't it be the number 1 beneficiary of funding

I have nothing against the GAA getting funding, my problem is the way other sports in Ireland are being totally shafted.

The government should help the likes of Shamrock rovers build their own new stadiums like the one in tallaght. Say they offer 100 to clubs in loans to help build the 10million Euro stadium. This is the only real way a club can generate revenue, by gate receipts. Its a catch 22.

The GAA have been treated well, the least thing they could do is open Croke park to other field sports. They will surely do it for concerts, American football etc

sceptre

Wicknight wrote:

Saw them resurfacing the track over the weekend

I guess every decade isn't too bad

Ah, good. Thanks Wicknight


/thinks of running spikes hidden at back of cupboard. Convinces self that feet have probably grown anyway

Imposter

thejollyrodger wrote:

I have nothing against the GAA getting funding, my problem is the way other sports in Ireland are being totally shafted.

Not true, look at the link I posted and check for the other years as well.

The government should help the likes of Shamrock rovers build their own new stadiums like the one in tallaght. Say they offer 100 to clubs in loans to help build the 10million Euro stadium. This is the only real way a club can generate revenue, by gate receipts. Its a catch 22.

I agree that the government should in general help out clubs looking to build the infrastructure within the club. However when it comes to soccer and even rugby clubs in Ireland I have the following questino. Are Shamrock rovers professional or even semi-pro? If so then why should their stadium be financed by the public when they seem to think they can afford to pay players? The GAA has the infrastructure it has in place, because it invested in it and communities, instead of deciding to pay players. Imo soccer in Ireland would be better now if it had done the same for the last 15 plus years.

The GAA have been treated well, the least thing they could do is open Croke park to other field sports. They will surely do it for concerts, American football etc

There's a thread in Soccer at the moment discussing this (even though it started about Lansdowne) but it's their choice and not the choice of the FAI, the government, the media or the average soccer or rugby fan on the street.

PH01

I voted 'Yes', but I'm not really in favour of building it but the money should have been allocated and spent on building up the sporting infrastructure in this county on sports other than Rugby, Soccer, Horse Racing and GAA.

thejollyrodger

im not talkiing about the actual stadium going ahead, im on about the rest of the stadium ireland project.

Eircom league clubs are trying to go professional not to pay the players, but so they can compete with teams in europe. Everyone is amature in GAA so it doesnt matter for them.

Mighty_Mouse

<Rant>Oh lovely! More €60 shirt-wearing Man United fans ranting about how they're gonna march to the amateur sporting stadium of Croke Park if a world class soccer stadium isn't built to accomodate the professional sports: soccer and rugby!

March to fecking FAI headquaters/Dail Eireann if your feeling so energetic! I don't know how people still manage to even link the GAA, with problems associated with inefficient soccer and rugby organisations have experienced over the years.

I don't recall soccer fans screaming for Croker to be opened when it was a pile of rubbles built on top of 1916 rubble not so many years ago. Its seems the Green-eyed tiger is alive and well in Ireland 2004!! </Rant>

ps: this topic has been discussed to death a million times!

sceptre

Mighty_Mouse wrote:

Oh lovely! Another €60 shirt-wearing Man United fan ranting about how they're gonna march to the amateur sporting stadium of Croke Park if a world class soccer stadium isn't built to accomodate the professional sports: soccer and rugby!

I must have missed thejollyroger saying any of that. Link me back to it willya? Especially the bits about the Man United jersey (just the jersey, I don't care how much they cost) and the march

Imposter

PH01 wrote:

I voted 'Yes', but I'm not really in favour of building it but the money should have been allocated and spent on building up the sporting infrastructure in this county on sports other than Rugby, Soccer, Horse Racing and GAA.

But the money is spent on minority sports as well. Aside from world class facilities every sport does get grants that more or less equal it's popularity (over the long term). These grants usually support the sport's investments (largely in infrastructure but also in people). It's the world class facilities that's lacking and that would be what campus Ireland would provide.

AngelofFire

I agree that use of the Croke park by other sports should be at the discretion of the GAA and that the FAI have no one to blame for themselves for their lack of a saduim. However I think that it would be a good idea if the GAA allowed soccer matches to be played there, they would make a lot of money from it and they would have first preference on fixtures. The NFL in america allowed their stadiums to be used by FIFA during the 1994 world cup, i dont see why the GAA wont allow their stadiums to be used.

I accept that Croke Park is a place of Cultural importance to the GAA, but i dont think that allowing soccer and rugby in would dilute that.

Sparks

Imposter wrote:

Here is the grants given to sport for 2004. Most of this came from Lotto money and the like. You will notice that it is not all GAA and Rugby. In fact even the FAI themselves (not an club or anything else) also got 100,000. Minority sports also did quite well and probably got a fair share based on the number of participants.

To clarify - those are the figures for the Sports Capital Grant programme. This programme is not under the control of the Sports Council or the Olympic Council, but the Department of Sport. And those amounts of money cannot be used to directly support athletes through buying coaching, consumables, or anything that doesn't last for at least five years. It's given out to clubs for building facilities or buying capital equipment only; and you have to own the land the club is on, or have a lease exceeding 25 years before you qualify to apply. College clubs can't apply, though there is some confusion this year with the UCD boat club. And it's not always a 100% grant - the club has to match the money put up by the government, though in some cases (where the facility would be of regional benefit for example), the grant is made a 100% one.

And minority sports didn't do so well, because unless they have long-term established clubs they couldn't even apply. Not one target shooting club got a grant from this programme since it's inception, for example. And, in typical "you have to have money to get money" fashion, many of the successful proposals cost a fair amount of time and effort to put together.

Sparks

Imposter wrote:

But the money is spent on minority sports as well. Aside from world class facilities every sport does get grants that more or less equal it's popularity (over the long term).

No, we don't. The Irish Clay Pigeon Shooting Association, for example, produced a team which has taken medals at World Cups, a gold at the World Championships, and narrowly missed the finals for the Olympics this time. They get between 18k and 20k per year. Athletes get individual carding grants once they win a competition, and those come to between 1600 euro (for juniors) and around 30k per year (for the highest level of grant, which they've never gotten). Everything else comes out of the athlete's own pockets. Some (like David Malone, who won the gold at the Cairo World Cup in April), have to work two jobs to pay for that. Others (the Junior team, who took several individual medals in the British Open championships and who've beaten nearly all the international Junior teams), depend on their local clubs running table quizzes and the like, donations from their parents, and so on.

It's a half-assed way to fund a sport, it really is. And the bitch of it is, the guys who could really make a difference, the Sports Council (who are a seriously professional bunch and probably one of the best things to happen in sports administration in this country ever), don't get the funding they need, and so can't do what they know they need to in terms of supporting sport. And they get the blame when it all goes wrong. Typical Irish setup, really...

Imposter

Sparks wrote:

unless they have long-term established clubs they couldn't even apply. Not one target shooting club got a grant from this programme since it's inception...

Why not (on both points)?

How many members does The Irish Clay Pigeon Shooting Association have?

I'm not saying they shouldn't get more money or that our better sportspeople shouldn't get better support than they do currently, but every sport has to fund a large percentage of it's operations itself (This includes GAA, Rugby, Soccer etc..). If shooting is a particularly costly pasttime then it's going to cost the participants more than other sports.

Villain

ITS SIMPLE - Either the GAA Open croker for 4 to 5 years while Landsdowne is being redeveloped with funding from the government, or the GAA take the take the funding and Open croker full time.

Unpossible

depend on their local clubs running table quizzes and the like, donations from their parents, and so on.

in fairness ive seen GAA clubs have to raise money this way as well.


I think we could use the facilities, but it needs to be done properly ie quickly and cost effective. The government just seem to be throwing money at their friends and in the end we've spent millions and still don't even have construction underway (yes I am anti-FF).

Mighty_Mouse

ITS SIMPLE - Either the GAA Open croker for 4 to 5 years while Landsdowne is being redeveloped with funding from the government, or the GAA take the take the funding and Open croker full time.

c) GAA take money owed and promised to them given that they are THE most significant nationwide national sporting organisation and contribute significantly to Irish society, while at the sametime retaining the right to decide how their amateur/private organisation should be run.

Villain

Mighty_Mouse wrote:

c) GAA take money owed and promised to them given that they are THE most significant nationwide national sporting organisation and contribute significantly to Irish society, while at the sametime retaining the right to decide how their amateur/private organisation should be run.

Thats only a good deal for the GAA not the Irish people, Tax payers money should NOT be spent on a project that can only be used by one Organisation (or the odd concert or American Football game).

If tax payers money is to be used it has to be for the majority of people. The FAI and IRFU are happy to allow others use their ground. The GAA are being completely ignorant they wouldn't even allow a debate at their annual Meeting.

Big Ears

Imposter wrote:

I agree that the government should in general help out clubs looking to build the infrastructure within the club. However when it comes to soccer and even rugby clubs in Ireland I have the following questino. Are Shamrock rovers professional or even semi-pro? If so then why should their stadium be financed by the public when they seem to think they can afford to pay players? The GAA has the infrastructure it has in place, because it invested in it and communities, instead of deciding to pay players. Imo soccer in Ireland would be better now if it had done the same for the last 15 plus years.

But soccer and Rugby in this country had to turn pro to get to a decent level(Shams are semi-pro by the way) , because the best of Irish players are alll going abroad , and something had to be done to stop this , plyers are obviuosly going to play for a foreign club that pays them a healthy wage over an amateur club that dosen't pay them anything .

In Rugby this has worked as most Irish Internationels now play with one of the provinces , but in soccer it is much more dificult as Roy Keane and Damien Duff aren't going to go from their £100,000 a week plus Champions League football beyond the group stages pretty much every year to £2,000 a week at the most from a top side like Shels or Bohs and just Champs league qualifying or early round UEFA CUp .

But slowly things are improving (the move to a summer league seems to have worked) and players that would be in the lower English divisions or reserves at bigger clubs are now playing at home .

Some LOI players are getting capped by Ireland (although at the moment this is just like a reward for doing well in the Irish League and the players only earn one cap , well thats being the story so far )

But Wes Houlihan (of Shelbourne) was able to keep Andy Reid(of Notts Forest , and who has got a lot of interest from Prem clubs , Tottenham , to name just one who had a bid turned down) out of the Irish U 21 squad .

If we keep players like Houlihan , and get more players to come home the standard of Alan Moore(former Irish internationel with 8 caps , used to play for Middlesbrough and Burnley , and is only in his late 20's) then the league will start to grow in standard imensenly and we will eventually be keeping a lot of our best players at home .

I know Gaelic football has a small amount of players that leave for Aussie Rules but thats not a similar situation .
In the end Proffesionalism is working in Rugby and is slowly working in soccer .

Sparks

Imposter wrote:

Why not (on both points)?

They can't apply because only long-term established clubs have long-term leases or own their own land, new clubs tend to have short-term leases (or exist on an informal handshake-with-the-farmer basis) because land is bloody expensive. And we don't have a national facility that we could rent out to starting clubs to use until they get settled (if there was a facility in abbotstown, you could for example hire out the range for two hours each tuesday evening to the Rathmines Rifle Club and two hours each Wednesday to the Rathgar Rifle Club, and an hour every other day to the DIT rifle club and so on, until those clubs managed to get enough membership and funds to set up their own ranges).

And as to why they've never gotten a grant, there are reasons I can point to - not owning the land, not having a professionally prepared application, and so on - but I can't tell you exactly why not, because I've not seen the minutes of the Department committee making the decisions. I suspect it may not be wholly objective, mind, given the recent shenanigans in Kerry with the Grant programme, and in Donegal under the last Minister. The parish pump still holds a lot of influence in this country.

How many members does The Irish Clay Pigeon Shooting Association have?

I don't have that number - I'm in the National Target Shooting Association (we look after olympic rifle and pistol shooting, they look after olympic and non-olympic shotgun shooting), but my estimate would be somewhere over 20,000 people. Those are all participants, by the way, not spectators, but the vast majority wouldn't be competing in olympic disciplines. And then there are more clay pigeon shooters with the National Association of Regional Game Councils (they look after hunting amongst other things, but also run some nonolympic clay pigeon competitions). There are 230,000 licenced firearms in the Republic, don't forget, and while some people will hold more than one (I own two myself, a .22 rifle and an air rifle, both for olympic events), there are still somewhere north of 150,000 people with firearms in the state. And somewhere north of 100,000 people in the North (olympic target shooting is a 32-county body like rugby - in fact two of our three olympians have come from up North to represent us in smallbore, because due to better facilities, they have better shooters for that event).

If shooting is a particularly costly pasttime then it's going to cost the participants more than other sports.

Which sounds fine, until you realise that this means that the grants given out to support athletes with medal chances are discriminatory in that they're of less help to some sports than to others, purely dependant on the equipment costs of your sport. So if you run, your equipment costs are low compared to shooting (where capital equipment costs alone have run me personally to about seven thousand euros, and I'm not even a high-level shooter). That means you have more money from the grant left for subsistence, travel, and other such costs. That means more people can run than can shoot purely for financial reasons.

Which, from the medal-winning point of view (which is the point of view from which the grant scheme is administered), is a bad thing because we have a great advantage when we compete in target shooting, namely, we know there will be an even playing field. No drugs, no judges, no genetic variations. But we don't encourage target shooting. Or archery. Or the other sports where it's not how fast or strong you are that counts, but what level of mind-body control you have. And it's those sports - the control sports - that see our greatest promise through the likes of Derek Burnett, Dave Malone, Philip Murphy, Richard Stapleton, Liam Spillane and many others like them, all of whom have proven medal-winning ability, but who've never received the level of support that they truly need.

Imposter

Big Ears,
I agree with most of what you said but I think the FAI and the IRFU made a bad decision not to invest in stadiums first or as they were going professional. After all attendences is where most of your income should be coming from.

Sparks,
Again I agree about the elite competitors but with the start-ups would they not get a grant towards buying land to get started (yes I know it's expensive even with a grant). Also surely any facility in Campus Ireland would be mainly for the use of the elite sportspeople too?

How do you propose more funding is made available to these sports? Aside from the government giving sport in general more money how would it be allocated so as to be fair, or do you think the allocations are fair at the moment and it's just that not enough money is available? Also I didn't realise shooting had 20k plus members! I would imagine a lot of those firearms would be for hunting though?

Sparks

No Imposter, the grants programme specifically states that the grant may not be used to pay for land.

And a sports campus shooting facility would be large - at least thirty firing points for 50m, at least thirty for 10m, and similar levels for the olympic shotgun disciplines as well. So you could have elite athletes training at one end and regular joes just there to plink away for fun at the other end. You could even rope or wall off three or four firing points exclusively for elite training if you wanted. But in order to drive up the level of the elite shooters, you need a larger competitive base for the grassroots as well, which is where we want to be focussing for the next two to four years at least (which isn't to say we should stop training elite level shooters, just that we need to bring in more people, especially juniors, to the sport at this stage).

How do you propose more funding is made available to these sports? Aside from the government giving sport in general more money how would it be allocated so as to be fair, or do you think the allocations are fair at the moment and it's just that not enough money is available?

The carding grant amounts could stand to be increased, or seperated into seperate grants for equipment/training/travel and subsistence costs, or both.
The capital grants scheme could stand to see more involvement from the Sports Council rather than the Department of Sport. The terms regarding lease times and land ownership could be relaxed for new clubs, or small grant amounts (if you're asking for 5,000 euros for a new coat of paint and some new windows for a club, demanding a 25-year lease is a bit silly since that's longer than the objects bought by the grant are expected to last).
The total amount invested could stand to be increased somewhat, including the amount given to the NGBs for administrative work - many, if not most olympic NGBs in this country are all volunteer because we can't afford to hire anyone - and the amount required to buy a licence from the Sports Council for the use of the SportsHQ building in ParkWest could be looked at - since most of the money would be coming from the Sports Council grant to the NGB in the first place.
And the Government could just give the ISC and the OCI the money they need to do the job they're capable of doing - the ISC is being hamstrung by a lack of funding, especially after the SCI stadium became the Bertiebowl fiasco.

Also I didn't realise shooting had 20k plus members!

Target shooting is pretty much one of the largest participatory sports in the country, we're just one of the smallest from the spectator's point of view, and the media doesn't love us because there's rarely any spectacular photos to be taken. (No injuries since 1801 is a good thing for the shooters, but a bad thing for the media. Things have been improving of late, however with particular credit due to the Evening Herald's minority sports column by Lindie Naughton, as well as to the people in RTE Sports, so I'm hopeful for the future).

I would imagine a lot of those firearms would be for hunting though?

Of the 230,000 licenced firearms? Yes. Of the 20,000 people in the ICPSA, or the one to two thousand in the NTSA (we've been smaller than shotgun since our sport was gutted by the Department of Justice in 1972)? No, they'd all be target shooters. Hunters are in the NARGC, a different body. You might have some crossover, but such shooters wouldn't be the majority, and most would have seperate firearms for target shooting and hunting because the two tasks demand very different things from a rifle - you would be rather hard-pressed to hunt rabbits with my smallbore rifle, for example, because it's very heavy and unwieldy compared to a light hunting rifle.

Lennoxschips

I think the government should build two modern medium-sized 30,000 seater stadia - one in Cork and one in Limerick - that could be used for soccer, GAA and rugby. The GAA could only be allowed to use these new stadia if they agreed to open up Croke Park to soccer and rugby. They'd agree to it I think, because it would be a fair deal. All associations would benefit and not just in Dublin either.

As for the original poll, I don't see how a multi-billion euro Olympic stadium is going to make our athletes run any faster. A track is a track is a track, no matter how many seats are around it. Ireland hasn't done too bad in the Olympics anyway, look at Israel - they won their first ever gold medal today.

thejollyrodger

the fact that we havent won any medal at the olympics is a further example of the injustice sports are being done in Ireland. We should have a clay pigeon shooting team out there for a start with all the people who have shotguns in this nation. We were unlucky to not get to the final, only a professional training regime will right this wrong. Starting with grass roots and building it up.

I don't see how a multi-billion euro Olympic stadium is going to make our athletes run any faster. A track is a track is a track, no matter how many seats are around it.

you dont need seats around the facilites but the facilites have to be built. Having the seats there means we can hold national championships there etc. you cant have a world leading professional training set up in a bare bones 3rd world track in the bog.

We had a tiny number of athletes there in Greece and we should be entering as many competions as possible. Build the infastructure, make the funds available to athlethes and put in a world class training regime (like what the aussies did 20 years ago). Then we can be pround of our nation.

Imposter

Lennoxschips wrote:

I think the government should build two modern medium-sized 30,000 seater stadia - one in Cork and one in Limerick - that could be used for soccer, GAA and rugby. The GAA could only be allowed to use these new stadia if they agreed to open up Croke Park to soccer and rugby. They'd agree to it I think, because it would be a fair deal. All associations would benefit and not just in Dublin either.

That has to be one of the stupidest ideas I have heard on this issue. One stadium in Munster might be an idea but 2 is ridiculous. The GAA has just redeveloped a 50,000 (I think) stadium in Limerick and Pairc Ui Chaoimh in Cork holds around 30k (again I think) so they won't be too pushed on your very generous offer.

In Rugby, munster have but one team in Rugby, all the clubs have ok stadiums for their size at the moment. They are hardly likely to get much bigger but the provincial side may.

And finally Soccer. Why do they need such a stadium. Are Cork City, Cobh Ramblers or even Limerick City ever likely to require that sort of capacity? I think not, or at least not for a long time.

thejollyrodger

maybe there is a case for 1 stadium in munster, an all seater 30,000 seater + training pitches for rugby and soccer. The stadium could be shared by a couple E.L clubs (like Milan & Inter)since neither will have more than 15,000 supporters. The GAA could use it too but I dont think they would somehow. Even at that, it would be lying closed a lot of the time.

Flukey

thejollyrodger, the GAA has given a huge lot to this country in all sorts of ways, so it is not a case of the GAA getting a lot from the government with no return. Unlike the FAI and IRFU the GAA is amateur, but it is able to get things done. as they say the GAA is an amateur organisation run by professionals whereas the FAI is a professional organisation run by amateurs. Other sports are no more shafted than the GAA. Croke Park is there in its current form because the GAA got up and made it happen. No one asked them too. The money they got from the government was only a small proportion of what was needed. The rest came mainly from their own resources and members. The FAI is the problem. The FAI don't have their own stadium. That is not the GAA's fault, so why do they constantly get the flack over it all?

There is always this idea of GAA fans and Rugby fans and Soccers fans, as if they were different people. The people standing on Hill 16 one day are the same people on the West Stand another day. They are the same people. So there is no GAA People v Soccer People. They are for the most part the same people. GAA is my main thing, but I watch rugby and soccer and have been in Lansdowne to see both played.

The GAA doesn't have the kind of international profile or outlets that soccer and rugby have. That is a big advantage the FAI and IRFU have. Not many people outside of Ireland would have ever even heard of Croke Park, the GAA, Gaelic Football, Hurling etc. That is something the FAI and IRFU can tap into, that the GAA can't. They have two international sports wiht huge opportunities. The GAA is just a tiny organisation, that is plodding along unknown to the world. Yet they have been able to make a damn good job of it. The IRFU do well, but the FAI have shown time and time again their ability to shoot themselves in the foot. With a good FAI behind them our international soccer team could be in a far stronger position than it is. The Saipan debacle wasn't Roy Keane's fault and it wasn't Mick McCarthy's fault. It was the FAI's fault. Let the FAI clean up its own act and let the GAA and the IRFU to themselves instead of trying to bum off them and their facilities, when they could easily have their own. If Lansdowne joined in with Croke Park and said no to the FAI too, the FAI would not be long in building themselves a ground! Since they stopped using Dalymount, they have never done a thing with it. Instead of putting fans bums on seats in a stadium they have put executive bums on seats on airplanes. There is no reason why the GAA should and the IRFU should continue to bail them out. If they keep doing so, the FAI will never get its act together! It is time for the FAI to stand on their own 2 feet for a change.

The GAA have a stadium.
The IRFU have one which they are going to redevelop.
The FAI should get their own.

If your house was nicer than your neighbour's, would you want them to move in with you or get their own place renovated?

Probably more appropriately in this case, if some homeless guy, squatting in your neighbours house, thought you had a lovely house would you think he should move in with you or go and get his own place?

Your house is the GAA's place.
The IRFU are the neighbours who will improve their own house.
The FAI are the homeless guy and should go and get their own place!!!!!!

Big Ears

Lennoxschips wrote:

I think the government should build two modern medium-sized 30,000 seater stadia - one in Cork and one in Limerick - that could be used for soccer, GAA and rugby. The GAA could only be allowed to use these new stadia if they agreed to open up Croke Park to soccer and rugby. They'd agree to it I think, because it would be a fair deal. All associations would benefit and not just in Dublin either.

As for the original poll, I don't see how a multi-billion euro Olympic stadium is going to make our athletes run any faster. A track is a track is a track, no matter how many seats are around it. Ireland hasn't done too bad in the Olympics anyway, look at Israel - they won their first ever gold medal today.

Imposter dealed with this in the most part , but anyway .
Why do the GAA need a 30,000 seater stadium , when they have a 40,000 capacity in Parc í Caoimh(well not quite 40,000 but bordering on it) , a 53,000 + capacity stadium in Semple and a 50,000 capacity stadium in the Gaelic gorunds .

Cork City would struggle to fill a 30,000 stadium on a European night and Cobh Ramblers and Limerick City would struggle to break 4,000 for their biggest games .

Its too small for soccer or Rugby Internationels that aren't friendlies , although the perfect size for friendlies as when we are not playing Brazil or the Czech Republic attendance is usually in the low to mid 30's .

Munster want to develope both they're stadia , but they could only get 30,000 for Heiniken Cup games and these are all played in just Limerick and not Cork .

So why the hell does anyone really need two 30,000 all seater stadiums in Cork and Limrick .

We are mostly talking about the facilities in the stadium and not the seats in it .

Maybe a 20,000 all seater stadium(just the one) in Limerick , that could hold Atheletics and we could hold national athletic avents here .
Munster could play here , although they are looking for a slighly bigger stadium I think , and if Ireland lacks a stadium for soccer at the time , friendlies could be held here , with additionel extra seatinf bringing the stadium up to around the 28,000 mark , although with athletics being around there , would be a lot of room , and maybe a capacity of over 30,000 could be achieved with temporary seating .
If Cork City get to as big a European occasion as the Nantes game or bigger they could play here .

and thats still a huge maybe . :cool:

Mighty_Mouse

Thats only a good deal for the GAA not the Irish people, Tax payers money should NOT be spent on a project that can only be used by one Organisation (or the odd concert or American Football game).

Every tax payer can use Croke Park. Buy a ticket for the weekend matches!!
Again, you maintain that if an organisation receives funding from the government, that organisation has to follow whatever instructions the government have , both now and into the future!!! (even if at the time the government gave the loan "no strings attached")

Big Ears - I think the argument that professionalism has been good for both soccer and rugby in Ireland is flawed.
While both sporting codes might not of had much choice in relation to turning professional, most league of Ireland clubs are struggling desperately to make ends meet.

Specifically from articles I've read by people like Tony Ward etc club rugby (in its current format) is Ireland is dying a slow and painful death.

thejollyrodger

The GAA is just a tiny organisation, that is plodding along unknown to the world.

The GAA is the biggest organisation on this island. It has the most assets and the biggest fan base.

There may well be a few stadia down in Munster but most of them look substandard for the 21st century. At least one of them should get a major over haul to bring it to 30,000 seater for all sports with a roof.

Some matches we will have 80,000 people wanted to watch it .. eg Irish vs France/England in rugby or Ireland vs France in soccer. It makes finanical sense for everyone to play the game in the biggest ground available. The GAA might have a smaller match to play and may want to use 55,000 seats. I just think all stadia should be open to all sports.

Mighty_Mouse

I just think all stadia should be open to all sports.

And they probably will. Just as soon as you can refer to Irish sporting infrastructure as "all stadia". At the moment we have a singular stadium.

Hairy Homer

Flukey wrote:

There is no reason why the GAA should and the IRFU should continue to bail them out. If they keep doing so, the FAI will never get its act together! It is time for the FAI to stand on their own 2 feet for a change.

The GAA have a stadium.
The IRFU have one which they are going to redevelop.
The FAI should get their own.

If your house was nicer than your neighbour's, would you want them to move in with you or get their own place renovated?

Probably more appropriately in this case, if some homeless guy, squatting in your neighbours house, thought you had a lovely house would you think he should move in with you or go and get his own place?

Your house is the GAA's place.
The IRFU are the neighbours who will improve their own house.
The FAI are the homeless guy and should go and get their own place!!!!!!

Not a fair analogy. Should every beer drinker have their own pub? Should every sick person get their own hospital? There are certain expensive items of infrastructure that should be shared by the greatest number of people (for appropriate compensation to the owners of course) for maximum benefit.

Having a rule on your statute books that prohibits that is an offence to society.

Big Ears

Mighty_Mouse wrote:

Big Ears - I think the argument that professionalism has been good for both soccer and rugby in Ireland is flawed.
While both sporting codes might not of had much choice in relation to turning professional, most league of Ireland clubs are struggling desperately to make ends meet.

Without proffesionalism the standard would not have gottena ny better but gotten worse , as result of British team taking players , and as a result of that there would be less fans of Rugby and Soccer at home , also leading to finniacial problems .
So which would you rather , a low standard with debt , or a fairly high standard getting higher with debt .

Although there are a lot of clubs sorting they're finniacial problems , so Proffessionalism seems to be working in a lot of ways .

Flukey

thejollrodger, the GAA is indeed the biggest sporting organisation in the country, but that is as far as it goes. The IRFU and FAI are part of international sports. Outside of Ireland, with the exception of Irish people, the GAA is practically unknown. Apart from tenuous links with Aussie Rules and Shinty, which result in a handful of games, it has no international outlets. The national sports of many countries have international outlets. So the FAI and the IRFU have options that the GAA can never have. In that sense they are plouging a fairly lonely furrow!


Homer, is it unreasonable to expect that one of the largest sporting organisations in the country should have a decent facility of its own? There is no reason why the FAI should not have had their own stadium years ago. The issue is not whether soccer or rugby should be played in Croke Park or not, but why doesn't the FAI have their own stadium? The Croke Park issue has been used to divert us from the real question: Why don't the FAI have their own stadium? The IRFU have one and the GAA have one. They both have gone out and looked after their own. But the FAI has never done that, preferring to effectively bum off the IRFU for years and, now that Lansdowne is no longer suitable, they want to use Croke Park. They should get their own stadium. I don't have a problem with them using Croke Park, but I do think they should have had their own facility.

As a good example, look at Dalymount Park, once the home of international soccer, left to rot as they moved to Lansdowne. Nothing has been done with it in years. Even some of the the GAA's poorest county facilities are better than it. 10 minutes up the road you have Croke Park, where the effort was made to put in a world class stadium. The FAI has done absolutely nothing to even help Bohemians to improve Dalymount. It certainly has the potential to have a lot done with it. All you have there is two stands and basically a pile of rubble at each end. I am not proposing it as a site for their main stadium, but as an example as how little the FAI have done to help out. It may be Boh's ground, but the FAI held fit to use it in the 70's but have not lifted a finger to improve it since.

We can have the debate forever as to whether Croke Park should be opened or not but the real problem lies with the FAI never bothering to build themselves a stadium. That is where all this really comes from!!!!

Mighty_Mouse

Big Ears wrote:

Without professionalism the standard would not have gottena ny better but gotten worse , as result of British team taking players

Ok, So they were forced into turning professional. I didn't dispute this.

and as a result of that there would be less fans of Rugby and Soccer at home, also leading to finniacial problems .

hmm? See your focusing on the big teams here. Ok Ireland national team is ok. But professionalism has not been good for Irish club rugby.

http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2003/10/12/story278508878.asp

http://www.rugby.ie/sixnations/sixnationsguide/donallenihan.asp#feb18

I'm not arguing that professionalism doesn't have some benefits. But it definitely has a lot of negatives.

ps. I take it we are discussing this in the context of the GAA? My argument is that the GAA should never turn professional. There is no motivation for it. Obviously soccer and rugby had to compete with foreign professional leagues but GAA doesn’t

Sparks

This thread does illustrate an important point - we started discussing Stadium Ireland and Campus Ireland and how they could help sport in Ireland - and we wound up talking only about the GAA, IRFU and FAI.
Oddly enough, that's exactly what happens to the money in Irish Sport as well - you start off with 110 million to give out in the year, and somehow "small minority sports" like archery and target shooting (which bring home medals) get 20,000 euro or so, while the GAA/FAI/IRFU get six and seven figure sums, if not more.

Big Ears

because there is more interest in them , and if the big sports wearn't getting the money they get there would be public outcry leading to the all important................................less votes for Fianna fail or whoever is in power at the time of this happening .

Do you honestly beleive that money should be taken from Soccer , Rugby and GAA to fund target shooting ? , try to answer this without a bias for you're favourite sport .

Im not in favour of turning GAA proffesionel , although I am in favour of expenses being paid , and that players that win the all-Ireland should be rewarded with a nice fee for doing so .