Ireland is a pretend football country

Did you smash it · 17-01-2021 2:20pm #1

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 · 17-01-2021 2:32pm

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 · 17-01-2021 3:07pm

It is a pretend country.

French Toast · 17-01-2021 3:11pm

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 · 17-01-2021 3:24pm

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 · 17-01-2021 3:25pm

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 · 17-01-2021 3:27pm

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 · 17-01-2021 3:29pm

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

Breezin · 17-01-2021 3:30pm

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

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

There's always one...

Bobblehats · 17-01-2021 3:38pm

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 · 17-01-2021 3:49pm

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 · 17-01-2021 3:52pm

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 · 17-01-2021 3:56pm

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

Breezin · 17-01-2021 3:57pm

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 · 17-01-2021 3:58pm

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 · 17-01-2021 4:00pm

Zebra3 wrote: »

Mooted capacity of 6,000.

Game changer all right.

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

Bobblehats · 17-01-2021 4:03pm

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 · 17-01-2021 4:04pm

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 · 17-01-2021 4:04pm

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 · 17-01-2021 4:07pm

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 · 17-01-2021 4:10pm

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 · 17-01-2021 4:10pm

England = football
Ireland = soccer

Bobblehats · 17-01-2021 4:13pm

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 · 17-01-2021 4:13pm

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 · 17-01-2021 4:19pm

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 · 17-01-2021 4:22pm

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 · 17-01-2021 4:25pm

Stihl waters wrote: »

England = football
Ireland = soccer

You wish.

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

17-01-2021 4:27pm

Did you smash it wrote: »

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

And it’ll never happen.

Dr. Bre · 17-01-2021 4:28pm

Ireland is also a pretend rugby country

Thrashssacre · 17-01-2021 4:36pm

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 · 17-01-2021 4:40pm

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.

Ireland is a pretend football country

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