Buying Gaelic footballs

Crystalsun · 10-02-2021 10:50am #1

Hi ,

I've been tasked with buying 20 footballs ( size 5) for the local GAA club. I've seen O'Neills online on sale for between 50euro and 69 euro. Are there any other suppliers of Gaelic Footballs other than ONeills ? Has anyone experience of other manufacturers ?

Thanks

KIB4Life · 10-02-2021 11:55am

Crystalsun wrote: »

Hi ,

I've been tasked with buying 20 footballs ( size 5) for the local GAA club. I've seen O'Neills online on sale for between 50euro and 69 euro. Are there any other suppliers of Gaelic Footballs other than ONeills ? Has anyone experience of other manufacturers ?

Thanks

I ordered Gaelic Footballs from All Star Sports last year in June. I ordered the O’Neills Inter County Training Balls, I think you can get these in packs of 12 for around 175. One thing is the delivery for them was very fast I ordered them Friday evening and they had arrived on Tuesday, but not sure are they going to be as fast with delivery now. I think McKeever also supply Gaelic Footballs as well I think but haven’t had any experience with them.

franglan · 10-02-2021 1:38pm

50 euro for an oneill's match ball is the standard. Might get it for less with vat taken off. Don't buy anything else, even the oneill's training balls are not near to the 50 euro ball standard. Havent tried the mckeever alternative but have tried the karykal (think they do racket sports stuff and GAA balls?) and they are rubbish, was warming up before a game with them and they were never seen again. You won't be thanked for buying balls but you'll be laughed at for buying bad ones! I'm talking about adult football experiences here BTW as your ball price range alludes to adult sized balls - anyone charging 69 euro for a ball with an rrp of 50 is robbing.

wirelessdude01 · 10-02-2021 1:59pm

Crystalsun wrote: »

Hi ,

I've been tasked with buying 20 footballs ( size 5) for the local GAA club. I've seen O'Neills online on sale for between 50euro and 69 euro. Are there any other suppliers of Gaelic Footballs other than ONeills ? Has anyone experience of other manufacturers ?

Thanks

What are they for?

We use the training balls for training and have a few match balls then. Training balls are great for drills and then like as they are cheaper and if they puncture or go missing then you aren't massively out of pocket. Match balls are heavier and better quality but you are looking at 60-70e each. Won't really get much if any discount for a purchase of 20.

Crystalsun · 10-02-2021 2:24pm

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

What are they for?

We use the training balls for training and have a few match balls then. Training balls are great for drills and then like as they are cheaper and if they puncture or go missing then you aren't massively out of pocket. Match balls are heavier and better quality but you are looking at 60-70e each. Won't really get much if any discount for a purchase of 20.

They'll be used for training (Senior men club team). Is there much difference between match ball standard and training balls. For the sake of training and cost I'd just as easily get training balls. Would you say there's any problem using training balls for a lot of kicking practice (kicking points) thanks for the info

sligopaul · 10-02-2021 2:33pm

match balls go for the 50 euro o Neills and for training even the Karakal size 5
Elverys currently have the match balls @ 50 Euro and on the training balls are buy one get one half price ( plus extra 15% OFF code ex15off ) so 2 training balls are 15.30( 12 euro each ) , they are not match ball quality but you can buy plenty of them, we use them here

Hesh's Umpire · 10-02-2021 3:50pm

€50 for a proper O'Neills match ball. Don't buy anything else. Talk to your local O'Neills rep and he might be able to knock off a few quid for bulk buying like that.

KIB4Life · 10-02-2021 4:21pm

KIB4Life wrote: »

I ordered Gaelic Footballs from All Star Sports last year in June. I ordered the O’Neills Inter County Training Balls, I think you can get these in packs of 12 for around 175. One thing is the delivery for them was very fast I ordered them Friday evening and they had arrived on Tuesday, but not sure are they going to be as fast with delivery now. I think McKeever also supply Gaelic Footballs as well I think but haven’t had any experience with them.

I meant All Sport Store in Donegal instead of All Star Sports. I’d say get the training balls and ordered a few maybe 4 or 5 Match balls. Hopefully it won’t be too long before the footballs will be in use again.

Patsy167 · 10-02-2021 4:26pm

I know of a local Junior club team that get the footballs that fail the quality standard tests in O'Neills at a heavily discounted rate

sligopaul · 10-02-2021 4:31pm

I think the OP needs to have an idea of budget, not all clubs can spend 1000 on 20 footballs purely for training purposes

Crystalsun · 10-02-2021 4:55pm

sligopaul wrote: »

I think the OP needs to have an idea of budget, not all clubs can spend 1000 on 20 footballs purely for training purposes

I know sure , but I'll just give them all the options and prices and see what top brass say before I buy anything . So it looks like O Neills and Mckeeer are only lads making gaelic standard footballs.
BTW, found myself on a Chinese online shop last night called Alibaba great selction of GAA balls and very cheap but I had to buy minimum of 50 balls.

Big Ears · 12-02-2021 6:29pm

Crystalsun wrote: »

They'll be used for training (Senior men club team). Is there much difference between match ball standard and training balls. For the sake of training and cost I'd just as easily get training balls. Would you say there's any problem using training balls for a lot of kicking practice (kicking points) thanks for the info

There is a considerable difference in the quality of ball for practicing your shooting.

The O'Neill's match ball is the only thing that'll feel the same as shooting in a game.
Training balls are considerably different to kick and you'll even feel a difference catching and hand passing them.
But of course it's finances dependent.

If you can afford 20 new match balls you should probably do that, if you can't you'll need a mix depending on your budget, but you'll want 4-5 match balls at the very least.

Fine Cheers · 13-02-2021 4:25pm

ONeills have reps that deal directly with clubs on a county by county basis, might be a bulk discount. If 1k is over budget then the next option is what's the min you will on match day ? Maybe 6 so then get the rest in trainers type. My experience is that ONeills are best both trainer and match ones.
Oneills will print club name on balls too but there is a min quantity, not sure how many.

thefa · 13-02-2021 7:58pm

Small club with an account with O’Neills. €5 off the rrp on a 20 plus order last year between size 4 and 5 last year. Went half match balls and half training balls as times were/are tight.

beggars_bush · 13-02-2021 9:21pm

Most of the gaelic footballs are made in Pakistan and just labelled in Dublin or NI

Crystalsun · 13-02-2021 9:30pm

beggars_bush wrote: »

Most of the gaelic footballs are made in Pakistan and just labelled in Dublin or NI

What do yee think of this? $5 for a size 5 gaelic football but minimum order is 50 so $250 for 50 balls. Id say Pk at the bottom means pakistan

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/GAA-Footballs-gaelic-footballs-custom-gaelic_50039882371.html?spm=a2700.7724857.normal_offer.d_image.4198562a7luSpY
Are alibaba (Chinese) reliable? has anyone bought anything from them ? anything at all

beggars_bush · 14-02-2021 1:17am

No.
You can order them direct from Pakistan

Big Ears · 14-02-2021 1:20am

Crystalsun wrote: »

What do yee think of this? $5 for a size 5 gaelic football but minimum order is 50 so $250 for 50 balls. Id say Pk at the bottom means pakistan

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/GAA-Footballs-gaelic-footballs-custom-gaelic_50039882371.html?spm=a2700.7724857.normal_offer.d_image.4198562a7luSpY
Are alibaba (Chinese) reliable? has anyone bought anything from them ? anything at all

Alibaba is like eBay for businesses.
It's the seller you want to be careful of, not the site itself.

It's common to order samples (less than the minimum order quantity) from there, but it's probably best you check out the company selling them first.

Google things to look for when buying from Alibaba and you'll get a better idea of what you need to be wary of and suss if the company is genuine or not.

ciarriaithuaidh · 17-02-2021 2:45am

I'd be very interested to hear if anyone has bought those balls from Pakistan and if so, what the verdict was? The price seems too good to be true although minimum of 50 per order of course.

Fine Cheers · 17-02-2021 11:37am

Can't see the footballs being the exact same but I am a doubting Thomas.
I guess there's only one way to find out, not a huge outlay at €250 for 50.
However, normally when something is too good to be true......
Can always pass on to U17 and U15 for training etc.

recyclebin · 17-02-2021 2:53pm

I'm surprised no one has tracked down the factory that oneills uses and done a deal with the manufacturer.

ciarriaithuaidh · 17-02-2021 5:07pm

recyclebin wrote: »

I'm surprised no one has tracked down the factory that oneills uses and done a deal with the manufacturer.

Very true..if the balls are made in Pakistan or somewhere in the Indian subcontinent, then there's nothing stopping anyone from importing similarly manufactured materials like O'Neills are doing. Anyone know the story with O'Neills balls - where ARE they made?

I do know the ST did a piece on O'Neills using a sweatshop in Bangladesh a few years ago.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/oneills-hurled-into-row-over-low-paid-staff-rcwv8539w8l

Buying Gaelic footballs

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