"John Delaney could run anything. He could run UEFA. Easily. "

guest2014 · 12-09-2014 11:55PM

eyescreamcone wrote: »

A lot of bullsh1t being talked here.

Do people remember internationals in Dalymount - are we not in a better position now?
More kids playing football than GAA and rugby combined. International players from all over Ireland and not just Dublin.

Delaney isn't perfect.
But who would you like in charge?
How much would you pay him?

And what would this miracle worker do to get LOI teams into the champions league + the national team to qualify for ALL tournaments + the Aviva debt to be paid off in a few years!!

i doubt the bit in bold is true.

MightyMandarin · 13-09-2014 12:00AM

eyescreamcone wrote: »

A lot of bullsh1t being talked here.

Do people remember internationals in Dalymount - are we not in a better position now?
More kids playing football than GAA and rugby combined. International players from all over Ireland and not just Dublin.

Delaney isn't perfect.
But who would you like in charge?
How much would you pay him?

And what would this miracle worker do to get LOI teams into the champions league + the national team to qualify for ALL tournaments + the Aviva debt to be paid off in a few years!!

Seriously? John Delaney is not only an absolute tosser who makes a mockery of our national team when he goes abroad but he has ravaged our domestic league, brought wreck to the finances of the FAI whilst overseeing the appointments of 2 failed managers and a declining national side.

LOI teams aren't going to win the Champions League anytime soon, but if Apoel Limassol could get to the quarter-finals 2 years ago, only to be knocked out by Real Madrid, then why can't LOI teams even reach the group stages. Forget about this example if you want, but just look at some of the teams in the group stages this year; the countries which they come from are no better than us by any means.

If I was Denis O'Brien, I'd sack him in the morning and never let him near the FAI again.

Billy86 · 13-09-2014 12:00AM

John Delaney was the youngest ever treasurer of the FAI at 33 years of age, and I believe also the youngest ever (or at least in decades) director of the FAI only shortly after turning 37. Now how could that to someone so blatantly inept?

Oh, yes, right. Daddy Joe Delaney was the FAI treasurer only five years previously. He lost his spot due to a another tragically comical example of FAI ineptness ( http://www.rte.ie/tv/20moments/moment_90s_merriongate.html ) and lost his position due to being entirely at fault. But hey, at least we have the peace of mind that he wasn't forced out without a good auld sweetener.

And I bet nobody is even remotely surprised about this. I wasn't.

eyescreamcone · 13-09-2014 12:01AM

guest2014 wrote: »

i doubt the bit in bold is true.

Participation in football is much greater than GAA and rugby.
The GAA and rugby heads like to think they are way more popular because they can pack out Thurles or Thomond Park a few times a year.

guest2014 · 13-09-2014 12:04AM

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Participation in football is much greater than GAA and rugby.
The GAA and rugby heads like to think they are way more popular because they can pack out Thurles or Thomond Park a few times a year.

in the countryside every parish has a gaa team, not so with soccer teams to say the least. gaa is by far the most played sport in ireland as far as i know.

eyescreamcone · 13-09-2014 12:04AM

guest2014 wrote: »

in the countryside every parish has a gaa team, not so with soccer teams to say the least. gaa is by far the most played sport in ireland as far as i know.

Shows how little you know

Grandeeod · 13-09-2014 12:06AM

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Participation in football is much greater than GAA and rugby.
The GAA and rugby heads like to think they are way more popular because they can pack out Thurles or Thomond Park a few times a year.

What exactly is your point? Irish football is in serious decline at all levels. GAA is thriving and the Rugby is delivering across the board.

Billy86 · 13-09-2014 12:13AM

Football is marginally ahead of GAA sports and both are a fair bit ahead of rugby. However it is nowhere close to being ahead of both combined. http://gaabanter.ie/gaa-second-soccer-according-sports-council-report/

Personally I think we have the Premiership to thank for that far more than the LoI, national team or anything Delaney and co have any control over. And then we have to look into development of these kids... in rugby we have several top, top class players and just saw the retirement of someone legitimately in dis ission for the greatest player in the history of the whole game. The vast majority of our best players do so within Ireland and have been trained and developed here, and we have two sides as successful as any in Europe over the last 15 odd years.

GAA sports are harder to quantify in that sense, but they have done very well in the mixed rules competitions with the (professiona) AFL guys, now approach the sport pretty much as professional athletes, and this year have made a big breakthrough into the international market with the Sky deal that it has to be said has gone very well (I was quote sceptical of how it might be picked up).

In football we have fallen further and further behind, there is a systemic issue from the corruption at the top all the way down to a rejection of modern approaches among many in the game, are producing very little at home and have a league that is struggling immensely both in terms of competitiveness and financial security.

Basically it's all Welbeck's land good to have a lot of young kids playing a sport because we live next door to the biggest league in the world. But what are we doing with it?

eyescreamcone · 13-09-2014 12:14AM

Grandeeod wrote: »

What exactly is your point? Irish football is in serious decline at all levels. GAA is thriving and the Rugby is delivering across the board.

I don't agree that "Irish football is in serious decline at all levels".

The international team has come second in it's group in 2 out of the last 3 qualifying tournaments. I'd take that in any 3 tournament cycle.

LOI has a funding problem as is natural in a recession. (what was the wage bill of that Apoel Limassol team that reached the CL QF?)

Schoolboy football is thriving with much better coaches and facilities than when I was playing underage.

But the CEO has a big salary so everything is sh1t?

eyescreamcone · 13-09-2014 12:25AM

Comparison with rugby is a joke.
Rugby is a minority sport in every country it's played in (bar NZ) and that's not a lot.
It's much easier to be a "top" player or international in such a minority sport.
Only 9 serious countries play the sport yet Ireland have never got in the top 4 in a "world cup". The football team getting to the QF in Italia 90 is a bigger achievement than beating NZ in the rugby "world cup" final by 20 points!!!

Hazys · 13-09-2014 12:29AM

Compare the standard of players we had in 1990, 1994, 2002 against the standard of players we've developed for the last 10 or so years under John Delaney's leadership...i dont need to tell you the quality has greatly diminished.

The guys is destroy soccer in Ireland.

eyescreamcone · 13-09-2014 12:38AM

Hazys wrote: »

Compare the standard of players we had in 1990, 1994, 2002 against the standard of players we've developed for the last 10 or so years under John Delaney's leadership...i dont need to tell you the quality has greatly diminished.

The guys is destroy soccer in Ireland.

Haha
You have to laugh
The 1990 team was half English anyway

Football has changed - nothing John Delaney or anyone can do will create a bundle of CL level players for us.

Are we ranked way below countries with a similar population as us? I think not.
We're not top (Belgium at the moment) - but we're certainly not bottom.

Billy86 · 13-09-2014 12:40AM

You are making a reference to something in football that happened 24 years ago. And weren't we the first (or one of the first) teams to ever get that far without winning a single game?

Meanwhile Irish teams make up 5 of the last 9 European Cup winners in Europe on the back of majoritavely homegrown teams despite being comfortably out spent by many of their competitors. Only two years back there was an all-zirish final, and one of the two big teams from here wasn't even in it.

Football will always be a more popular sport globally than rugby, but that's no excuse for it to be so shoddily ran while Irish rugby has embraced innovation, modernism and made a conscious effort to get as much help from outside (in terms of coaching and organisation) as possible to go from a laughing stock 15 odd years ago to where they are today.

Hazys · 13-09-2014 12:43AM

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Haha
You have to laugh
The 1990 team was half English anyway

Football has changed - nothing John Delaney or anyone can do will create a bundle of CL level players for us.

Are we ranked way below countries with a similar population as us? I think not.
We're not top (Belgium at the moment) - but we're certainly not bottom.

"Football has changed"

You have to laugh. You think a CEO of company making 400k a year would be able to come up with a new strategy when his market place changes to remain competitive.

Grandeeod · 13-09-2014 12:43AM

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Comparison with rugby is a joke.
Rugby is a minority sport in every country it's played in (bar NZ) and that's not a lot.
It's much easier to be a "top" player or international in such a minority sport.
Only 9 serious countries play the sport yet Ireland have never got in the top 4 in a "world cup". The football team getting to the QF in Italia 90 is a bigger achievement than beating NZ in the rugby "world cup" final by 20 points!!!

Oh dear!

MightyMandarin · 13-09-2014 12:46AM

eyescreamcone wrote: »

I don't agree that "Irish football is in serious decline at all levels".

The international team has come second in it's group in 2 out of the last 3 qualifying tournaments. I'd take that in any 3 tournament cycle.

Greece have qualified for pretty much every tournament in the past 10 years, they reached the knockout stages of this years world cup, yet their squad is only slightly better than ours, if even and their country is in total financial ruin. Even Bosnia qualified for the WC and we've beaten them before.

eyescreamcone wrote: »

LOI has a funding problem as is natural in a recession. (what was the wage bill of that Apoel Limassol team that reached the CL QF?)

Whilst we are in a recession, LOI clubs are in a catch22 situation, where players only have 1 year contracts because of finaces and when players like Coleman or Long go to England, they go for pittance, leaving clubs with little money after. Apoel may be a bigger club than any LOI team, but how has the Cypriot league grown bigger than ours, when our natl. side has beaten them countless times? because their FA has built a strong domestic league.

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Schoolboy football is thriving with much better coaches and facilities than when I was playing underage.

The facilities and coaching have improved, but only slightly. There is no centre of excellence in the country, unlike most other European countries. The methods of selection and promotion of players through the pyramid system are not changing and are similar to the FA 10 years ago. Go to any u18's game on a saturday and you'll see small, technical players be kicked off the field by bigger guys. We select more players at an early age for their physicality and height, rather than their technical skills. This system pales in comparison to that of continental countries and is the main reason why our national team has more physical players than skillful players. We are over-reliant on English clubs to produce players whilst praying that any young, talented British player is somehow related to Ireland and is willing to play for us. Schoolboy football is not 'thriving' by any means.

eyescreamcone · 13-09-2014 12:52AM

"European Cup" in rugby hahaha
Winners from 3 countries EVER
In the big scheme of things it's not very popular - even the very top players get paid Championship level wages - says a lot.

Next you'll be on about the hurling world champions Kilkenny!

Grandeeod · 13-09-2014 12:53AM

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Haha
You have to laugh
The 1990 team was half English anyway

Football has changed - nothing John Delaney or anyone can do will create a bundle of CL level players for us.

Are we ranked way below countries with a similar population as us? I think not.
We're not top (Belgium at the moment) - but we're certainly not bottom.

The half English reference is actually part of the problem and always has been. However, prior to 1988/1990, that could be forgiven. We then went on to inspire a lot of homegrown players circa 1998 at underage level. Since then nothing. One could think that the "Celtic Tiger" attitude took over and emulated its destructiveness in football.

How we play football has changed and the FAI has failed to keep up. The reliance on England was a bad idea as can be seen from their own problems Delaney is only intetrested in building international success at any cost in order to generate cash. His method is to completely ignore the lack of talent currently available to us and to endorse managers that can somehow produce miracles.

Billy86 · 13-09-2014 01:03AM

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Haha
You have to laugh
The 1990 team was half English anyway

Football has changed - nothing John Delaney or anyone can do will create a bundle of CL level players for us.

This attitude is the exact problem. It is defeatist and gets is nowhere. We need to get the absolute best out of what we have got, but Irish football has been increasingly finding itself stuck in the past due to a nonsensical refusal to adjust both on and off the pitch.

Meanwhile rugby has taken the exact opposite approach and is thriving as a result, while though in a different situation (a domestic sport) the GAA is doing what it can to expand the sport off the pitch and increase the level of play on it.

And this isn't some "us vs them" argument either. I'm not much of a fan of the GAA sports and my favourite of the three is footbalk/soccer. But it is what it is and you're in denial if you think otherwise.

Are we ranked way below countries with a similar population as us? I think not.
We're not top (Belgium at the moment) - but we're certainly not bottom.

Belgium has a population of 11mn?

Anyway, the following all have close population to us (under 6mn) and are higher ranked: Scotland, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, New Zealand.

Billy86 · 13-09-2014 01:19AM

eyescreamcone wrote: »

"European Cup" in rugby hahaha
Winners from 3 countries EVER
In the big scheme of things it's not very popular - even the very top players get paid Championship level wages - says a lot.

Next you'll be on about the hurling world champions Kilkenny!

You see, here's this "us vs them" attitude again that shows how blinkered you are and unable to level any of the deserved criticism at the direction Irish football has taken in the last while because you view it as "your side". It's childish and self defeating, to be honest because all it does is ignore the very obvious problems facing Irish football.

By the way, since the inception of the Heineken Cup, there have been winners from three countries yes. And in that time, there has only been one Champions League winner from outside the four big leagues (Porto 03/04, who had a lot of luck in just getting to the final).

It's not exactly a world of difference if that's the criteria you want to go by, but you will notice that in rugby Ireland have been one of those three leagues. Meanwhile in football, we have never even had a team in the Champions League and far more damming, have only once had a team in the UEFA/Europa group stages in that time, thigh they failed to get a single point and things have gone sharply backward in the years since.

osarusan · 13-09-2014 01:45AM

Billy86 wrote: »

while Irish rugby has embraced innovation, modernism and made a conscious effort to get as much help from outside (in terms of coaching and organisation) as possible to go from a laughing stock 15 odd years ago to where they are today.

I don't disagree with anything you say about the FAI, but European rugby finally got its version of the champions League tournament formed, with Irish teams as a central part of it.

The importance of that cannot be overstated, and there wouldn't have been anywhere near the improvement in Irish rugby without it, regardless of how much they embraced innovation and outside expertise (which they wouldn't have had the money to do without the new tournament).

That is something that couldn't happen in LOI - that ship has sailed.

Highflyer13 · 13-09-2014 02:13AM

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Participation in football is much greater than GAA and rugby.
The GAA and rugby heads like to think they are way more popular because they can pack out Thurles or Thomond Park a few times a year.

At least the GAA spreads the wealth throughout the clubs across the country. If the FAI is pulling in so much money why are so many teams still getting changed in containers? Where is the FAI money going?

Highflyer13 · 13-09-2014 02:16AM

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Participation in football is much greater than GAA and rugby.
The GAA and rugby heads like to think they are way more popular because they can pack out Thurles or Thomond Park a few times a year.

At least the GAA spreads the wealth throughout the clubs across the country. If the FAI is pulling in so much money why are so many teams still getting changed in containers? Where is the FAI money going?

eyescreamcone · 13-09-2014 09:54AM

Football is traditionally strongest in the poorer urban areas and is playing catch up with the cash rich organisations that the GAA and IRFU are. There have been major improvements in facilities recently. Nobody could argue against this. Always room for improvement though.

Maybe the Fai should amalgamate all the LOI clubs into 2 teams and enter them into European competitions. This tactic seems to have worked for the IRFU.

dan1895 · 13-09-2014 09:56AM

eyescreamcone wrote: »

Maybe the Fai should amalgamate all the LOI clubs into 2 teams and enter them into European competitions. This tactic seems to have worked for the IRFU.

This confirms you don't have a clue what your on about. Such ideas are so stupid that I think you'd get banned on certain forums for suggesting this kind of thing.

eyescreamcone · 13-09-2014 10:13AM

dan1895 wrote: »

This confirms you don't have a clue what your on about. Such ideas are so stupid that I think you'd get banned on certain forums for suggesting this kind of thing.

I'm not suggesting it
I'm mocking the IRFU model

Heaven forbid Cork City would join up with anyone else

dan1895 · 13-09-2014 10:16AM

eyescreamcone wrote: »

I'm not suggesting it
I'm mocking the IRFU model

Heaven forbid Cork City would join up with anyone else

Sorry didn't realise.

guest2014 · 13-09-2014 10:22AM

eyescreamcone wrote: »

I'm not suggesting it
I'm mocking the IRFU model

Heaven forbid Cork City would join up with anyone else

why would you mock the IRFU model? munster and leinster have done really well in europe so the joke is on you really.

eyescreamcone · 13-09-2014 12:01PM

guest2014 wrote: »

why would you mock the IRFU model? munster and leinster have done really well in europe so the joke is on you really.

I think you'll find that Europe goes a lot further than The south of France and The Stoop.

Henlars67 · 13-09-2014 12:16PM

Over the last few years several of the international squad have been players who started in the LOI.

Arguably the best current player, Coleman started with Sligo Rovers.

This is a trend, which in my view will continue, as Premiership clubs no longer look to Ireland as much when scouting promising teenagers.
In the future a lot of players will therefore try to make a name for themselves in the LOI, in order to get their move.

It is in the best interests of Irish football for these players to be as well developed as possible before moving.

This means that putting the proper structures and facilities in place in LOI clubs is vital. There needs to be a long-term strategy by the FAI to put this in place.

There isn't money in the league, as attendances are pitiful and there is no marketing done whatsover.

Those who cry about the state of Irish football but don't support it are part of the problem.

The last Euros was a chance for an advertising campaign for the LOI. with ads featuring the members of the international squad who had played in the LOI, but the FAI did nothing.

There are loads of people in this country with a massive interest in football, so surely, if marketed correctly over a sustained period of time it couldn'tbe too hardto get some of them to start going to games here.

It's the only way forward for Irish football.

Alas I don't think it'll ever happen.

the excuses like 'LOI is sh1te' are very common.
True the quality that you would see on TV isn't there, but two evenly matched teams can still provide great entertainment at any level of football.

If people won't support football in this country then in my view they have no right to complain about it.

"John Delaney could run anything. He could run UEFA. Easily. "

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