Who you know and GAA politics.

pgj2015

When talking to lots of people about their time playing gaelic football, I often hear yes I used to play but the GAA is all about who you know, who you are related to and I hate the politics of it all. So they tell me they didnt get picked much or not at all because of they had no relations in the club.

is this true or is the reason they weren't picked because they weren't good enough?

I had no family in my GAA club, my parents were blow ins, but I was nearly always picked to play, was captain loads of times etc. So that is why I never understood the above arguments about the GAA.

Fr Tod Umptious

Politics plays a big part in local sports groups, it's not unique to the GAA.

And some people do feel that they don't get picked for x, y and z reason not related to performance.

But it's a how long is a piece of string type debate.

pgj2015

I don't know, I never remember good players on the bench when worse players were on the field playing.

threeball

Fringe players always feel hard done by when relegated to the bench. Often some connection may tip the balance in favour of one fringe player over another but you'll rarely see obviously worthy players sitting on a bench whilst a muppet takes his place.

callaway92

Politics go far beyond just players playing because of family.

Very typical of people to stop donating money to their club if their child isn’t getting game time; things like sponsors not coming in if certain players aren’t getting game time at county level; management in county level feeling pressure to play players from their own club etc.

A lot of the reasons above (and more) why I think more clubs/counties need to get their management from people based outside of the locality.

Uncle Pierre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121964673#Comment_121964673

I think this sums it up all right. If there's little to choose between two players for one position on the pitch, then the one left out will always feel aggrieved, and sometimes it's easy for him to say that other lad's only getting picked because he's from that family, or because his Dad's on the committee, or because he drinks in whatever pub, or some other spurious reason.

Very very rare to see any manager leave off an obviously better player for the sake of somebody fitting into one of those descriptions.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121964733#Comment_121964733

Can sometimes be the case all right that parents of underage players stop paying membership or supporting club fundraisers if their child isn't getting game time, as they don't understand that anything over U11 is not Go Games and it's not the case that everybody is guaranteed a run.

But I seriously doubt that any inter-county manager would tolerate being told that they have to pick a certain player because the sponsors want them in the team, and I seriously doubt that any County Board official would even pass on that message in the first place, because they know what the response would be.

Somewhat similarly, I think it's more the case that an inter-county manager knows he could stand accused of picking "too many" players from his own club, and in marginal cases, is often more likely to opt for a player from somewhere else.