Moving my kids to another GAA club

appledrop

Basicially what it all started over was there was a tournament that only a 'select' few kids where told and invited too and then the other parents found out and then it all escalated.

Uncle Pierre

Well, if this discussion had gone quiet for a while, it's certainly livened up since I last checked in here!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122004268#Comment_122004268

Also to be fair, that's a good post too, and very reasonably put from your point of view. I'm guessing you're in Dublin, if your club has that many underage teams, and since it seems the only thing stopping that child from transferring when he first wanted to was that his parents hadn't submitted the transfer application on time? (That's based on how he was apparently allowed transfer with no problem 11 months later). Appears to be the case that if the application had been in on time, he'd have been allowed to move then all right.

And before the inevitable comparisons with soccer are made again, I know that the Schoolboys Soccer League here in Wexford has a transfer deadline at the start of each season too. Can't speak for other places.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122005444#Comment_122005444

One of a number of posts, including by @Tombo2001, which acknowledges the situation is different in Dublin than in predominantly rural counties.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122006904#Comment_122006904

I remember reading that one at the time. Seems as strange now as it did then. Bottom line there was that when the club and the family negotiated things properly between themselves, they sorted it out, with no need for an actual court ruling. Was just a pity it ended up in court before those negotiations took place.

heftie

Agree 100%

heftie

Yep but it's the same old story , the GAA tough it out hoping you go away and assume that you haven't the wherewithal to go to court to get justice for your child.My problem is that his transfer is bulletproof, the CCC made a mistake and are hiding behind the rulebook ( which ironically provides for appeals against appeals and rectifying formalities for both sides).I can see why people resort to the legal avenues when nobody is listening.As it stands we lose a year's participation and end up in the same place with the GAA playing God all over again.

whelan2

Currently on our underage soccer team we have one player who can't play until the transfer window opens again in July. His paperwork wasn't processed in time, another player who's previous club held out on paperwork until the last day was luckier.

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122006904#Comment_122006904

maybe I’m just unlucky in the soccer clubs near me but it is absolutely my own experience with my own child, including at the club I played as a kid myself.

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122006361#Comment_122006361

Is the process complicated; or is the process inflexible….. not the same thing.

Again- I wouldnt underemphasise the importance of resources here, or lack of.

Both the soccer and gaa at county level depend on volunteers - there are not that many people willing to give up their time to do unseen paperwork that nobody will thank them for.

Which means in turn that these processes have to be low maintenance; I'd say the 'attitude' of the GAA or soccer doesnt come into it all that much.

Leroy42

The process could be really simple. Both clubs and the child agree, then forget about the need for duplicates and co-signs and powers of attorney and simply wave it through.

The GAA, in their desire to control the 'community' aspect, makes it particularly difficult. Why should an underage player need permission from their current club to join another? Why should they even have to give a reason, or on what basis should the county board even be involved, save from the administration of it?

The only thing the county board needs to be concerned about is if certain clubs are harvesting players, which will become pretty obvious with a review of the number of transfers.

Are you going to get some kids moved about to get onto the better teams? Yes, of course, that will happen. But it already happens. At adult, commute distance is perfectly acceptable to move from one club to another, but a child feeling left out and unappreciated is not sufficient grounds?

Kids only get a few years playing juvenile, yet the GAA want to remove perhaps 11 months of that from a player just for the sin of wanting to go somewhere else other than their local club. It would be hard to get that amount of gardening leave for a top CEO but for kids playing an amateur, and juvenile, sport, the GAA think that is the right approach.

Kid A is unhappy with their club. Instead of looking to enable that child to continue to play and maybe get to love the sport the GAA want forms and signatures. And a vote at the county board level. Give me a break. Well-run clubs will continue to grow, and less well-run will struggle. Forcing a child to stay at a badly run club simply so that the club can continue to operate is wrong.

Rather than making it more difficult, someone should have helped this parent get the proper paperwork. 'Its past the deadline' is such a load of nonsense. It was clear that this process had been in train on time and only the smallest detail was missing. But it was decided that the rules, created by the county board, were more important than the wants and needs of the child. That has nothing to do with a lack of resources, that is a lack of empathy.

Uncle Pierre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122008687#Comment_122008687

I think a couple of things are being conflated here. First, the restrictions on where you can actually move to, which applies only in GAA, and which I know there's no point in trying to change people's minds on. But also the restrictions on when you can move, which generally speaking, applies equally in soccer.

The transfer application deadlines (in both GAA & soccer) exist for good reason, and in the interests of fairness. A team is generally graded on the basis of the players it has at the start of the season and how they're likely to perform. So, for example, if a team is graded Div. 3 but then after one or two matches can take in stronger players who they'd have been graded as Div. 2 with if they had them at the start of the year, that's unfair on all other teams in Div. 3

Don't say 'that wouldn't happen, because why would a stronger player join a weaker team?'. The stronger players could be with a club that has teams at Div. 1 and Div. 5, for example. They're just barely missing the cut for Div. 1 but don't want to drop all the way down to 5, so they see an opportunity to play at Div. 3 instead.

With regard to the particular case you mention - if it's the one first mentioned by @Tombo2001, then seems it was a case of the application just not being in on time, rather than 'somebody should have helped get them the correct paperwork'. Nor could the club actually tell them about a deadline before it passed, if the parents didn't actually indicate they were looking for a move until that date had already passed.

If it's the case that @heftie was hoping to have resolved, then the transfer refusal wasn't down to paperwork at all, and was instead for some reason I've already said I don't understand and which wasn't explained to him properly either. Was unfortunate that the appeal form was ruled out of order because it was signed by a parent rather than the player, and have already stated my view there should be provision for a parent to sign in the case of under-18s. Carlow GAA could even have played that one differently themselves, by simply saying 'give us the form again, with the same date, but with the player's signature this time'. It wouldn't have been the first time that a bit of discretion and common sense was applied to sorting out such an error.

Uncle Pierre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122006904#Comment_122006904

By the way, on what you say about the soccer club accommodating everybody by having five or six teams -

Occurs to me that it's a bit of a numbers game. Will take the example of my younger son, currently finishing up a soccer season at U13, and starting a GAA season at U14.

The soccer club carried a squad of 26 to 28 players at that age for the season, so was relatively easy to maintain two teams and make sure everybody got plenty of game time. The GAA club is also carrying a squad of 26 to 28, which is clearly not enough for two teams. We try to make up for that in Wexford by organising regular separate 'Rising Stars' games where the lads who don't normally make the first team are the first to be picked, but not every club enters, and some who do enter don't actually enter into the proper spirit of it.

On the other hand, if the squads only had about 20 players each, would be far easier for the GAA club to manage plenty of game time for all, and the soccer club would struggle with giving plenty of game time to everyone.

Uncle Pierre

My final input for now, because I honestly didn't mean to write so much when I started, and it's going back to @Leroy42 -

You actually answer your own question here. Only thing is, I'd say it's to protect the community aspect, rather than control it.

So, shut the stable door after the horse has bolted? And have a no-win choice of either having to tolerate a situation where such clubs are allowed keep the players they've already harvested, or else 'forcing' those players to move back to where they came from in the first place? That would be a whole other can of worms.

Iscreamkone

Transfers are illegal but transfers happen all the time. From Christy Ring to Larry Tompkins, clubs find a way to make it happen for a special player. Registering a player at a grandmother’s address or a rental property in the city. It goes on (as does paying of coaches).
It’s ridiculous that the GAA tries to tie underage players to a club for life, and is allowed to get away with this legally.

You can change your wife or religion but not your gaa club?

Make all transfers legal but you could easily have a limit of say 4 incoming transfers to an age group at any one club. This would help against poaching.

Uncle Pierre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122010275#Comment_122010275

Transfers are not illegal. They can be granted subject to certain criteria and rules being met, and there are probably thousands of them granted across the country every year. Certain criteria and rules have to be met for transfers in soccer, rugby, etc., too (albeit not as stringent).

Yes, people find ways around the rules. We've had a couple of high-profile cases in Wexford in recent years. Other controversial ones (e.g. Shane Walsh to Kilmacud Crokes) can actually be completely within the rules. But all goes to show that transfers are in fact allowed, and are deemed 'legal' in order to proceed, even in the cases where there are suspicions (but not proof) that somebody is pulling a fast one.

So, it's clearly not the case that you're not allowed to change your GAA club at any stage in life.

The suggestion in your last line at first appears to have merit, but on further consideration, is fraught with difficulties too. Most obvious example is what happens if there are six genuine cases of families with let's say a 14-year-old GAA-loving boy moving into a club's catchment area in the same year, and all six want to join the club? How do you decide which four to pick, and which two have to be told 'sorry' ?

heftie

Well said! just wish some common sense prevailed here.

Iscreamkone

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122010746#Comment_122010746

The gaa try to make any transfer as difficult as possible. Shane Walsh had every right to move to a club in Dublin but still his home club in Galway wouldn’t shut up about it - and probably never will.

I know when loi clubs pick players from local underage soccer teams that there is a limit to how many they can select from one club. Every rule has a work around- the 4th best player could transfer to another club before moving to loi.

All players should be free to walk to another club in approved transfer windows.

Former Former Former

..

Uncle Pierre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122011131#Comment_122011131

Possibly my final say on it here, and am probably starting to regret I re-started this discussion at all!

The GAA do not make any transfer as difficult as possible. Any transfer application where the player is actually entitled to the move he's seeking is a very straightforward process. It just becomes difficult when somebody seeks a transfer that the rules don't allow.

I don't see how your 'workaround' would actually work in the GAA example I asked about above. You'd still be telling the fifth, sixth and any other player that no, you can't join the club you want this year. You have to go join another club instead, try again next year, and hope that another four or five families with boys your age haven't moved in during the meantime.

Your last line goes back to the post I put up which re-started things. I pointed out that if it really was a case 'you should be able to play where you like', there's no guarantee that some clubs would ever have more than a handful of players at all.

Maybe some of these clubs are badly run and in a way don't deserve to have players. But in others, it could be a small club that's genuinely doing its best, with a panel of 18 players at a certain underage level. Then six or eight of these decide to up sticks and move, just because they feel like it, and because they can. What are the others to do?

heftie

So a player is bound to his first club forever even if his / her circumstances change? While county board officials have power to decide who goes where,dont they also have responsibilities to interpret , administer and implement them in a fair ,consistent and transparent manner? I'm not sure this happens everywhere in the GAA

Iscreamkone

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122011428#Comment_122011428

”Just because they feel like it”.

Yes - you should be allowed to move for this reason alone. In 2024, to tie a player to a particular club is wrong. It’s easier to get out of a marriage than a gaa club these days.

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122011131#Comment_122011131

This is a bit much - "wouldnt shut up about it and probably never will"?

What makes you think you can put the boot in like this on a public forum?

This is a real club, with real people running it; what you've said is unfair at a number of levels.

Iscreamkone

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122049162#Comment_122049162

Why didn’t they just wish him well and leave the door open for him if he ever wants to come back.

Uncle Pierre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122049130#Comment_122049130

As I first stated in post #127 on page 5, some people consider the GAA rules on transfers to be one of its great strengths, as a community-based organisation as well as a sporting one. Some people consider them a fault and a weakness.

I'm long enough knocking around to know that there's no point in trying to change the mind of somebody on either side of that divide, so we'll just have to agree to differ.

Forge83

2 boys age 10 and 12 who live in Parish A.

They go to school and have all their friends in neighbouring Parish B.

They play football in Parish C as neither A or B have a team.

They have never played hurling as they don’t want anything to do with Parish A club even though they live there.

They have never registered with any hurling club as they have been told that Parish A club will make a complaint on parish rules to stop them playing with Parish B team and even Parish C team?

Would the fact that they are not transferring club make it worth pursuing or is that irrelevant?

Seems madness that a rule exists to stop kids playing.

Uncle Pierre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122054612#Comment_122054612

If neither Parish A club nor Parish B club is offering football, and all the boys want to play is football, then there shouldn't be any impediment to the boys playing football with Parish C club.

The exact process to make it all "legal" would depend on certain circumstances and county bye-laws, but there should be provision for cases like that all right.

I presume there are other boys in their Parish B school who play hurling with the Parish B club - presume some of these also play football as well, and if so, where? With the same Parish C club as the two boys in question here?

Forge83

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122054742#Comment_122054742

Sorry I may not have been clear. There is no issue with football. The issue is they want to play hurling with Team B preferably or at worst team C. Team A would rather they played with nobody if they won’t play with them.As I said, they have never registered or played with team A.

Uncle Pierre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122054997#Comment_122054997

Ah, I see.

Will send you a PM.

heftie

Best of luck with that ! The GAA are less interested in child participation than they make out.They seem to have a problem for every solution and children are suffering as a result.

Nil ait duinn uilig ann

heftie

How did you get on I'm in the same situation here??

realdanbreen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119251542#Comment_119251542

Why the need for the "sickening part of the Gaa" ? That sort of scumbag behaviour towards your son is not the fault of the Gaa . In fact as you say the abuse was delivered at a soccer match. I presume you went over and sorted them.