Ireland is a pretend football country

Did you smash it

Reading on RTE.ie that the public purse will be used to fund a white water rafting complex in the ifsc to the tune of 25 million.

This while “the home of Irish football” Dalymount park is a half condemned ruin.

It amuses me that people think Ireland is a football country because it has the highest participation rate of any sport.

Truth is we have no football economy really beyond a really small time one and no matter what the FAI do they’ll never have the ability to upgrade it as there is no financial investment or wealth in football in the country.

The public’s investment in football amounts to sky sports subscriptions and trips cross channel.

EmmetSpiceland

The FAI had no interest in domestic soccer. They only seemed to look after themselves and the National side, one a lot more than the other.

With the state of their finances now it will be a long time before they can focus on the League of Ireland, that’s if they haven’t got the same type of people running it.

Wilhelm III

It is a pretend country.

French Toast

It's interesting how our expectations have yet to fall to the level that the national team is playing at.

0-0 draws with the likes of Georgia shouldn't surprise anyone any more.

TimL1974

Everyone wants to blame the likes of John Delaney, and they should, but Irish soccer is rotten to the core. I've always found coaches at youth level are as much of an issue. Of course they are volunteers and so draw no criticism but even at this level, the way they protect their own interests leads to a nation of kids who do not participate at an organized level

Hyperbollix

I'm not sure how you could expect anything else. We are an island of 5 million, located right beside one of the biggest football countries in the world, where all of our top talent, not to mention all our journeymen can travel to, to make a very decent living. We are also a top tier rugby nation and we have our own national sports which command huge participation, funding and interest from the public.

The Charlton/McCarthy years were a stroke of luck. A golden generation of footballers from this island and Britain which came about because of societal circumstances aka "poverty = good players"
If we want to repeat that success from now on, the FAI is going to have to get positively Germanic in its organizational and long tern planning abilities.

Yeah.

johnnyskeleton

Did you smash it wrote: »

Reading on RTE.ie that the public purse will be used to fund a white water rafting complex in the ifsc to the tune of 25 million.

This while “the home of Irish football” Dalymount park is a half condemned ruin.

The home of Irish football is the well maintained Semple Stadium, no?

whisky_galore

White water rafting is our national sport, that's why.

Breezin

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

The home of Irish football is the well maintained Semple Stadium, no?

There's always one...

Bobblehats

French Toast wrote: »

It's interesting how our expectations have yet to fall to the level that the national team is playing at.

0-0 draws with the likes of Georgia shouldn't surprise anyone any more.

There’ll be plenty of those. What are we now, 3rd or 4th in the pecking order?

..and then there’s the seeding but if these kids we are rearing with quadruple nationality are any use they’ll be opting for England/Brasil//Cameroon/Nigeria or wherever anyway. I wouldn’t get too invested in it anymore

Breezin

Did you smash it wrote: »

Reading on RTE.ie that the public purse will be used to fund a white water rafting complex in the ifsc to the tune of 25 million.

This while “the home of Irish football” Dalymount park is a half condemned ruin.

There are plans for a rebuild of Dalymount, which the council is backing, apparently. A huge opportunity to have an absolute gem -- a decent footie stadium in a major city centre.

Let's hope it happens!

Zebra3

Breezin wrote: »

There are plans for a rebuild of Dalymount, which the council is backing, apparently. A huge opportunity to have an absolute gem -- a decent footie stadium in a major city centre.

Let's hope it happens!

Mooted capacity of 6,000.

Game changer all right.

Your Face

Pretend football, fake hands - its PC culture gone mad.

Breezin

Zebra3 wrote: »

Mooted capacity of 6,000.

Game changer all right.

Gotta start somewhere. What capacity will the rafting white elephant have?

Did you smash it

Hyperbollix wrote: »

I'm not sure how you could expect anything else. We are an island of 5 million, located right beside one of the biggest football countries in the world, where all of our top talent, not to mention all our journeymen can travel to, to make a very decent living. D

Portugal and Denmark are next door to far more successful countries than England and have similar populations to Ireland. Doesn’t stop them.

Our size is a convenient excuse that doesn’t quite explain why our league is similar in size to Malta and far inferior to Cyprus and many others.

Did you smash it

Zebra3 wrote: »

Mooted capacity of 6,000.

Game changer all right.

Correct. It’s better than nothing but it’s unambitious

Bobblehats

They’re changing direction of the pitch too. Gone; will be the goal ends where all the magic happened. For Ireland at least, don’t care about bohs lol. Or Bob Marley!

nullzero

White water rafting is for the high paid foreign workers who all live in the docklands isn't it?

It has little to do with Ireland or the Irish people, just giving those mentioned above a reason to spend their weekends here and spend an extra few quid in our economy instead of going somewhere else in Europe for a couple of days.

As for investment in Irish domestic soccer, the OP is right, Irish football is in a pitiful state. Huge numbers taking part in amateur level soccer doesn't mean it's the biggest sport in the country.

Soccer is the poor relation in terms of elite level sport behind Gaelic football hurling and rugby, a lot of people who participate in those sports at a serious level also participate in soccer at a social level.
Irish football has always been in that position and always will be unfortunately.

pgj2015

Bobblehats wrote: »

There’ll be plenty of those. What are we now, 3rd or 4th in the pecking order?

..and then there’s the seeding but if these kids we are rearing with quadruple nationality are any use they’ll be opting for England/Brasil//Cameroon/Nigeria or wherever anyway. I wouldn’t get too invested in it anymore

we are so bad at the moment and only getting worse that id say we will have Irish lads, born and reared here with Irish parents opting to play for other countries.

TimL1974

When I was a kid we played football day and night. There was one team in the area and literally hundreds of kids wanting to play. everybody would end up playing gaa or other sports because at the end kids want to play an organized sport with nets and jerseys. I played gaa and literally there was nobody on the team who had any real interest in the sport, would know the names of the senior team or Dublin players,etc... Premier league and Ireland was all anyone followed. We'd meet up before the manager arrived for training and matches so we could play soccer amongst ourselves. When we were in our mid teens a couple professional players from England(everton) and a scout happened across our pre match game by chance and were blown away by the level. They ended up stopping the game to speak with us were absolutely shocked to find out that nobody held our registration. They ended up bringing 6 of the starting 15 over to Everton to train as schoolboys either full time or during the school holidays and were really interested in a few others whose parents wouldn't allow them, as at the time it meant not "finishing your education". In the end none of the lads made any big impact in England and most were back after about a year, which obviously happens more often than not. What shocked me most was the struggle they had to get to try and find soccer teams when they returned. The local team which was run by a couple of the players dads was an absolutely closed shop. Of course if they knew any better they might have gone off and looked a bit further afield but it didn't really occur to young lads who were not from the soccer scene. The experience of seeing them all drop out of the sport really summed up the grass roots at the time

Shakey_jake

All was going fine until the GAA banned everything for games no other country plays.

Hell cricket was f**king massive here until the gaa had to ruin it and im sure soccer would have been in a better place too had it not been frowned upon by the narrow minded

Stihl waters

England = football
Ireland = soccer

Bobblehats

pgj2015 wrote: »

we are so bad at the moment and only getting worse that id say we will have Irish lads, born and reared here with Irish parents opting to play for other countries.

It’s sorta gettin like that feels like I’m seeing more English sporting folk with Irish names than visa versus remember when we had the swagger; the pride. They’d be on the ferry with a two fingers and a “f*ck the queen”!

tastyt

We will never be a football country, we may have a decent team every now and then but our league will unfortunately never take off .

Sport is tribal, it’s about place in 90% off sport , even professional across the world. Take out the day trippers to the premier league every week and even then it’s about mostly where people come from. Go down the leagues in England and that’s what it’s all about , Barnsley , Portsmouth, Sunderland, Millwall. You support your team because it’s representing you, it’s ingrained in your school, clubs , neighbourhoods of the area you grow up.

We have the exact same thing here , it’s the GAA . The country is obsessed with GAA identity. It’s in every village , town and city up and down the country. All the schools buy into it and kids wear the county jersey to school some days and get visits from county players . It then progresses to the university with huge interest and covers given to Fitzgibbon and Sigirdson cups.

Add to that the huge buy in from national broadcasters , big business sponsorships and political allegiance to the sport and you just have an unstoppable machine . As someone said it’s great that Dalymount has plans to be redeveloped, but it’s 6k seater in the middle of a city of 1.5 million people.

Meanwhile places like Tullamore , Portlaoise, Castlebar , Thurles , Ennis have stadiums with 20/30/40 + thousand capacity.

Before anyone thinks I’m bashing the GAA, I’m absolutely not, it’s the opposite actually, fair play to them for getting their house in order.

But we are not a football country, never will be . Our culture is soaked in GAA and it’s only getting stronger

Did you smash it

tastyt wrote: »

We will never be a football country, we may have a decent team every now and then but our league will unfortunately never take off .

Sport is tribal, it’s about place in 90% off sport , even professional across the world. Take out the day trippers to the premier league every week and even then it’s about mostly where people come from. Go down the leagues in England and that’s what it’s all about , Barnsley , Portsmouth, Sunderland, Millwall. You support your team because it’s representing you, it’s ingrained in your school, clubs , neighbourhoods of the area you grow up.

We have the exact same thing here , it’s the GAA . The country is obsessed with GAA identity. It’s in every village , town and city up and down the country. All the schools buy into it and kids wear the county jersey to school some days and get visits from county players . It then progresses to the university with huge interest and covers given to Fitzgibbon and Sigirdson cups.

Add to that the huge buy in from national broadcasters , big business sponsorships and political allegiance to the sport and you just have an unstoppable machine . As someone said it’s great that Dalymount has plans to be redeveloped, but it’s 6k seater in the middle of a city of 1.5 million people.

Meanwhile places like Tullamore , Portlaoise, Castlebar , Thurles , Ennis have stadiums with 20/30/40 + thousand capacity.

Before anyone thinks I’m bashing the GAA, I’m absolutely not, it’s the opposite actually, fair play to them for getting their house in order.

But we are not a football country, never will be . Our culture is soaked in GAA and it’s only getting stronger

Good post but there could have been more done to support the game. The 6k redevelopment of dalymount sums it up. Half arsed bull**** that won’t happen for years.

Bobblehats

Did you smash it wrote: »

Good post but there could have been more done to support the game. The 6k redevelopment of dalymount sums it up. Half arsed bull**** that won’t happen for years.

Yeh and the Richmond Arrrena... feckin pipe dreams making the sporting headlines, they had me goin there for a moment.

Hamsterchops

Stihl waters wrote: »

England = football
Ireland = soccer

You wish.

GAA heads call it soccer so that Garlic Football (basically handball) gets the football moniker

Did you smash it

Did you smash it wrote: »

Correct. It’s better than nothing but it’s unambitious

And it’ll never happen.

Dr. Bre

Ireland is also a pretend rugby country

Thrashssacre

Long may it continue, football is sh1te to watch, much rather us be competitive at rugby then go to the gaa in the summer.

beauf

I think you see massive numbers playing soccer vs GAA but casually not in the clubs. Whereas in the clubs its the opposite massive numbers in clubs GAA vs Soccer.
GAA is in the community, and that even true in the suburbs as it is nationwide.
GAA far more inclusive outsider of top tier at every age group. Soccer is exclusive at every tier at every age group.

I would agree it wasn't always like this. When I was a kid, there was much more of playing the same players in GAA, and others not getting a game and spending all season on the sideline. Not so much these days.
But soccer always was like this. I remember as kid, 17 or so, all the younger players were getting fed up of the old regulars always being played. So we challenged them to a match. Slaughtered them 10-1 something that. Still didn't get a game. All the younger players left. I think I only ever played 5 a side after that. Work teams, and occasionally people would ask you to play for them.

When my kids play GAA its unrecognizable from my youth. The Soccer though is the same.

statesaver

Has planning permission been granted for that silly water thing ?

Das Reich

Did you smash it wrote: »

Portugal and Denmark are next door to far more successful countries than England and have similar populations to Ireland. Doesn’t stop them.

Our size is a convenient excuse that doesn’t quite explain why our league is similar in size to Malta and far inferior to Cyprus and many others.

Portugal have more than teice of Irish population, with many of its players coming from ex colonies.

FTA69

I remember reading an article before that laid the problem facing us. Irish soccer is still geared toward the English leagues, and we send over umpteen teenagers every year for trials. These teenagers are often far behind their counterparts in other countries in terms of training hours and physical development. Something ridiculous like 95% of these teenagers wash out after a year and the vast majority of them never play soccer again. On top of that the Premier League can now draw players from all over the world, Africa and the like, which just wasn’t the case in the 1990s to the same degree.

Where we should be cultivating our young papers in a domestic league we end up scrapheaping them in England at a very young age. On top of that the domestic league is poorly managed by the FAI and unfortunately poorly supported by the majority of Irish soccer “fans”.

I’m not an expert on soccer by any means but it’s an analysis that made a lot of sense to me.

dotsman

nullzero wrote: »

White water rafting is for the high paid foreign workers who all live in the docklands isn't it?

It has little to do with Ireland or the Irish people, just giving those mentioned above a reason to spend their weekends here and spend an extra few quid in our economy instead of going somewhere else in Europe for a couple of days.

It is the last thing the "high paid" people (Irish or foreign) living in the docklands want, and is, and has been for the past number of years, a disaster for the area.

I have no idea why you think this, nor how you think it somehow impacts what people do at the weekends or where they spend their money

This is epic stupidity on the part of DCC, nothing more, nothing less.

Hamsterchops

“Football, she’s a cruel mistress. She’s more than a mistress. She’s a wife, she’s a mother, she’s a daughter, she’s an errant child.”

“She can make you laugh, she can make you cry. She can bring tears to me eyes. She can bring blood to me shoulders. She can… bring the kettle to the boil.

“Cause football is about nothing, unless it’s about something and what it is about… is football.”

Alan Latchley (Peter Cook).

dxhound2005

Did you smash it wrote: »

Portugal and Denmark are next door to far more successful countries than England and have similar populations to Ireland. Doesn’t stop them.

Our size is a convenient excuse that doesn’t quite explain why our league is similar in size to Malta and far inferior to Cyprus and many others.

Just like in Scotland, it is a select few clubs in Portugal and Denmark which get decent crowds. Some average attendances are below that of Rovers and Bohs.

https://www.worldfootball.net/attendance/por-primeira-liga-2018-2019/1/

https://www.worldfootball.net/attendance/den-superliga-2018-2019/1/

cj maxx

As someone already said , the Jack Charlton years were a bit of a freak. A golden generation of Irish footballers, who all played in Britain, boosted by few good English/Scottish imports (the granny rule) boosted by good luck.
The same goes for NI.

Richard Hillman

Dalymount Park is to be redeveloped and will be a home for Bohs and Shelbournem.

I don't get the fuss against the potential white water rafting facility. We are allowed to have nice things too. I would love to have a go at it. I would be more focused in financial waste going to the inner circle at shady NGOs and Lobby groups. Only a select few get to benefit that.

Its also an Olympic sport in a sport that we could possibly compete in.

Did you smash it

Richard Hillman wrote: »

Dalymount Park is to be redeveloped and will be a home for Bohs and Shelbournem.

I don't get the fuss against the potential white water rafting facility. We are allowed to have nice things too. I would love to have a go at it. I would be more focused in financial waste going to the inner circle at shady NGOs and Lobby groups. Only a select few get to benefit that.

Its also an Olympic sport in a sport that we could possibly compete in.

It shouldn’t have a priority over dalymount

Did you smash it

Das Reich wrote: »

Portugal have more than teice of Irish population, with many of its players coming from ex colonies.

Twice I take it you mean?

Indeed, but Ireland isn’t exactly playing off the population of the country either. We take players off the north and “from” not off England.

Smee_Again

Shakey_jake wrote: »

All was going fine until the GAA banned everything for games no other country plays.

Hell cricket was f**king massive here until the gaa had to ruin it and im sure soccer would have been in a better place too had it not been frowned upon by the narrow minded

The biggest barrier to football succeeding in Ireland is the FAI, not the GAA.

Did you smash it

Smee_Again wrote: »

The biggest barrier to football succeeding in Ireland is the FAI, not the GAA.

A popular sentiment but not exactly sure it’s a true one.

Not sure it makes any difference who’s in charge. Ultimately There is no proof there is money in Irish football.

Smee_Again

Did you smash it wrote: »

A popular sentiment but not exactly sure it’s a true one.

Not sure it makes any difference who’s in charge. Ultimately There is no proof there is money in Irish football.

Of course it does, look at the difference in facilities between most GAA/Rugby clubs and soccer clubs, there’s money there but the FAI just squander it.

There may not be Premier League type money but there’s potential for more growth.

Dyr

TimL1974 wrote: »

Everyone wants to blame the likes of John Delaney, and they should, but Irish soccer is rotten to the core.

This is the correct answer.

Government should have cut the lifeline and let soccer start again from scratch if it wanted.

Just look at the Aviva.

IRFU had their share paid off long before the FAI (is it even paid off yet?)

Strumms

Zebra3 wrote: »

Mooted capacity of 6,000.

Game changer all right.

If it happens and in fairness it’s looking possible... Dalymount rebuilds have been talked about for 25 years.. plans, talking, designs, silence has been the repeated way...

If you have a comfortable facility to enjoy and watch the sport, more people will come and regularly... for that, investment needs to be forthcoming....should have been forthcoming a decade ago....

I think initially 6,000 would be ok, hopefully the design of the stadium will be such that expansion could happen should in 10 years, the fortunes of Bohemians and the league encourage more people to come, hopefully that’s the case.

super_furry

The biggest game in Irish football in on right now. No goals between Liverpool and United yet.

Did you smash it

Smee_Again wrote: »

There may not be Premier League type money but there’s potential for more growth.

There MAY not be?

Yes and I may not go to bed between scarlet Johansson and Jessica Alba tonight.

Breezin

super_furry wrote: »

The biggest game in Irish football in on right now. No goals between Liverpool and United yet.

True. And tragically pathetic.

Boomer Rant

Did you smash it wrote: »

There MAY not be?

Yes and I may not go to bed between scarlet Johansson and Jessica Alba tonight.

If you do you'll fairly smash it.