Meaningless Friendlies - FAI RIP-OFF

[republic]

First, some facts. Over the past 18 months the Republic has played 12 international friendlies. These are listed below:

Australia (H) 2-1
Turkey (H) 2-2
Canada (H) 3-0
Brazil (H) 0-0
Czech Rep. (H) 2-1
Poland (A) 0-0
Romania (H) 1-0
Holland (A) 1-0
Bulgaria (H) 1-1
Croatia (H) 1-0
Portugal (H) 1-0
China (H) 1-0

(I have not included last year's Nigeria & Jamaica games as strictly speaking they were part of the competitive Unity Cup tournament played in London)

Of the 12 friendly matches listed above only *two* were played away from home. Amazing, isn't it? However, it merely reflects a trend which has been evident for almost a decade - effectively since the time of the eircom Park proposals and the FAI's increasing need to fund their ultimately fruitless development plans.

We all agree with the need to develop young players in non-competitive games and give fringe players the chance to stake a claim for a future regular place. However the fact that so many of these games are played at home can not be good and only indicates the greed of the FAI. Can anyone reasonably explain the purpose of last nights game and games against Canada and Australia? Surely it couldn't be money, could it?

Now the FAI have come up with their latest brainwave. All block bookers who are unable to take tickets for *any* friendly automatically lose those tickets for future competitive games. This leads to the ridiculous situation whereby block bookers who live outside Dublin (and many of those are outside Ireland), must buy friendly tickets to have the honour of buying tickets for competitive games. Many of those people were in Tel Aviv, Paris & Basle. Some thanks they receive from the FAI indeed.

While it is obvious that the FAI need money to develop the game and (ahem) administer it, yet again the loyalty of the fans is being exploited.

[eirebhoy]

Forget about whether you think friendlies are meaningless or not, if they were they wouldn't be played and Portugal would not have got the final of the Euro's.

I didn't know that block bookers were forced to buy tickets for last nights game, that is absolutely ridiculous and something must surely be done about it.

With regards to all the home games. Lansdowne is going to be closed down for 2 years so the FAI need to make their money while they have the chance.

[pete]

I don't know if much value in playing away from home friendlies as in recent years Poland and Greece were completely non-events with home sides not playing competitively at all. Easier to keep players close to home so not travelling whioch means club managers not moaning when they return.

€40 gets you terrace tickets for china and italy which seems pretty good value to me.

[Dawn_Run]

€40 gets you terrace tickets for china and italy which seems pretty good value to me.

I agree - but thats not the point. Forcing these on people is wrong.

[OwlsFan]

The only people I have sympathy with here is the fans who live in the country and have to travel up for the games.

I hate the fan who picks and chooses his games. I've gone to every home friendly (if not away) way before the days of block booking and do it gladly. Alas a proportion of our fans would like to go only to the Italian, Swiss and French games and possibly the Israel one now they're in contention. To them I say: tough if you're "forced" to go and support your country in a non-glamorous game against China etc

The FAI has two sources of income: home internationals and sponsorship. They have every right to maximize their profits as any other organisation has. The very people who moan about this would be the ones who moan that the players' aren't being afforded the best resources, facilities etc etc. Where are these supposed to come from ? Thin air ?

The people who want everything but want to pay the minimum.

[Donal81]

I have to say, today really is the day for knee-jerk threads.

'Meaningless' friendlies, as well as being an opportunity to give players a run and give them some experience within the team, allow supporters like ourselves another opportunity to see the team we love.

Not only that, it gives us an opportunity to actually get a seat in a pub beforehand and afterwards as about 5,000 people decided the game was meaningless and didn't go.

[TheJamaicanP.M.]

The only people I have sympathy with here is the fans who live in the country and have to travel up for the games.

I hate the fan who picks and chooses his games. I've gone to every home friendly (if not away) way before the days of block booking and do it gladly. Alas a proportion of our fans would like to go only to the Italian, Swiss and French games and possibly the Israel one now they're in contention. To them I say: tough if you're "forced" to go and support your country in a non-glamorous game against China etc

The FAI has two sources of income: home internationals and sponsorship. They have every right to maximize their profits as any other organisation has. The very people who moan about this would be the ones who moan that the players' aren't being afforded the best resources, facilities etc etc. Where are these supposed to come from ? Thin air ?

The people who want everything but want to pay the minimum.

Good post OwlsFan. I know its hard on people to afford every game, particularly those coming from the countryside. However, I think it is only fair that those people who wish to go to the competitive games should attend friendly games too. I'm from the country and I've missed one home game in just over 10 year. That was a Euro qualifier against Macedonia in June 1999. I couldnt get to it as I was sitting my Junior Cet at the time. I wouldn't miss a home game for all the money in the world. It's a privilege to get to see Ireland play, regardless of whether it is a friendly or not. I think it is only right that those people who call themselves fans should be expected to attend friendly games. The same people often complain that some of our players dont do friendlies. What about our fans? Many of them dont do friendlies. For instance, in November 2003, just over 18,000 turned up at Lansdowne to see us play Canada. This was just not good enough, and as far as I'm concerned, those 18,000 should all be guaranteed tickets for the France game and other big games.
BTW, I dont think there is such thing as a "meaningless" friendly. Just ask Stephen Elliott, Graham Kavanagh, Paddy Kenny and Clinton Morrison after last night.

[tiktok]

BTW, I dont think there is such thing as a "meaningless" friendly.

I'm afraid that's the exactly the term Duff is reported to have used about the China game this morning.

[eirebhoy]

I'm afraid that's the exactly the term Duff is reported to have used about the China game this morning.
Duff was just annoyed to have a game so shortly after the match in Israel. A lot of it comes down to the FAI allowing Sky to move the game to a Tuesday.

Anyway, it certainly wasn't meaningless.
Dunne got to test out his partnership with Cunningham and O'Brien (a centre half partnership is vital as we know).

As did Elliott with Keane. What if we hadn't got this game and Morrison was injured for the Israel game. Kerr would not know how Elliott and Keane play together up front so he would have went with Gary Doherty. At least Elliott got to show if he could link up with Keane and also got a bit of practice playing with him (which is vital with Keane).

Kavanagh got more experience in a role which he isn't used to and has given Kerr a difficult choice of partnering Kilbane in the Israel game. He also has the confidence now after getting MOM.

Paddy Kenny got a start and feels he has more confidence of the Irish crowd after a decent game.

Maybury won't start at right back again any time soon. Its better to prove this in a friendly than in a competitive.

O'Shea will have to sort out his passing.

Morrison has got that little bit more confidence after a poor finish to the game in Israel (albeit a lovely goal).

We will have to work on set pieces and breaking teams down.

There are many many more things to take from this game that we probably wouldn't know about without this game.

[NeilMcD]

Was it not kerr that wanted it on a tuesday so he could go to the game in Tel Aviv tonight

[Karlos]

Was it not kerr that wanted it on a tuesday so he could go to the game in Tel Aviv tonight

Yes the fixture was scheduled for a tuesday at the request of the Irish Management Team to enable them to travel to watch our next opponents in action not in fact by Sky Sports who have rights to show the home games regardless of what night it's played

[eirebhoy]

Yes the fixture was scheduled for a tuesday at the request of the Irish Management Team to enable them to travel to watch our next opponents in action not in fact by Sky Sports who have rights to show the home games regardless of what night it's played
Yes but they're not going to get as many viewers the night England are on BBC. Most matches are on Tuesday's because of Sky.

[Karlos]

Yes but they're not going to get as many viewers the night England are on BBC. Most matches are on Tuesday's because of Sky.

Correct they won't but that's not the reason why the game was scheduled for a Tuesday - it always was from the day the FAI annouced the fixture

In recent times only our friendlies have been moved to tuesday - Croatia being the most recent case. In the Croatia instance their were competitive qualifiers scheduled in our group which Kerr attended - Cyprus Vs Israel if memory serves me correct. No competitve Ireland fixtures have been moved even though they still won't pull an massive audience if England are on the same time. Other friendlies haven't been moved also even when they clashed with other big games on rival stations - our recent game Vs Portugal for example clashed with the BBC's live coverage of the England-Holland game but wasn't moved

[TheJamaicanP.M.]

Yes but they're not going to get as many viewers the night England are on BBC. Most matches are on Tuesday's because of Sky.

I think you might be correct on this one eirebhoy. Although the official reason for the games being changed is that Brian Kerr wants to see our group opponents in action, I think Sky also have an influence with regard to the scheduling of friendly games. If my memory serves me correct, we first played on a Tuesday night against Australia in Lansdowne in August 2003. From what I can remember, Kerr did not travel to see our opponents the following day as they had no competitive games. The official reason given by the FAI was that it suited BSkyB to show the Ireland game on a Tuesday, so it would not clash with their other coverage. As far as I can remember, the FAI got a lot of stick over that decision, which probably explains why we haven't heard them mention Sky since. The same happened two weeks later when we played Turkey in a friendly. Also, we played Canada on a Tuesday night in November 2003 even though we were out of the European Championships and Kerr had no game to watch.

[tetsujin1979]

I think you might be correct on this one eirebhoy. Although the official reason for the games being changed is that Brian Kerr wants to see our group opponents in action, I think Sky also have an influence with regard to the scheduling of friendly games. If my memory serves me correct, we first played on a Tuesday night against Australia in Lansdowne in August 2003. From what I can remember, Kerr did not travel to see our opponents the following day as they had no competitive games. The official reason given by the FAI was that it suited BSkyB to show the Ireland game on a Tuesday, so it would not clash with their other coverage. As far as I can remember, the FAI got a lot of stick over that decision, which probably explains why we haven't heard them mention Sky since. The same happened two weeks later when we played Turkey in a friendly. Also, we played Canada on a Tuesday night in November 2003 even though we were out of the European Championships and Kerr had no game to watch.

The Austrailia game was moved because Metallica were playing the RDS on wednesday - the gardai didn't think they could control a football stadium full of fans and a load of metal fans in the same square mile.

[Karlos]

Yes I do believe that Sky have moved some games because of audiences and probably rightly so - Australia, Canada and Turkey wouldn't be a huge return on their investment and like any company they are entitled to do that.

I think it's fair to say though that in the last year Kerr has specifically used both the Croatia & China games to get to see our opposition play and considering the argument that our games have been moved by the broadcaster to avoid clash with england and rival tv stations it makes no sence that Sky wouldn't switch our game Vs Portugal to a tuesday when England V Holland is one of the biggest games in european football and being shown on a rival broadcaster. The reality is that it would have no benefit to us as none of our rivals where playing competitively that night. Sky can't change the fixtures without the FAI's full consent which the management team must have been happy with and also without the consent of our opposition's association who may well have asked for this luxury also.

Just laying the blame at the door of Sky as a motive for Duffers responce is unfounded.

[Mr_T]

The only people I have sympathy with here is the fans who live in the country and have to travel up for the games.

I hate the fan who picks and chooses his games. I've gone to every home friendly (if not away) way before the days of block booking and do it gladly. Alas a proportion of our fans would like to go only to the Italian, Swiss and French games and possibly the Israel one now they're in contention. To them I say: tough if you're "forced" to go and support your country in a non-glamorous game against China etc

The FAI has two sources of income: home internationals and sponsorship. They have every right to maximize their profits as any other organisation has. The very people who moan about this would be the ones who moan that the players' aren't being afforded the best resources, facilities etc etc. Where are these supposed to come from ? Thin air ?

The people who want everything but want to pay the minimum.

Interesting thread, but I think Owlsfan is the voice of common sense.

I think the FAI have every right to maximise the income the get from their product, i.e. football matches, even down to linking Italy to China and Brazil to 2 other less attractive games. Its money for Irish football and moaning about it smacks of the attitude of the Irish "fans" who went mental when the FAI did the best deal they could for TV rights with SKY. God we love Ireland, and won't it be great craic if they get to the world cup but God forbid we have to actually contribute any euros towards the enterprise.

Last night I tore up and threw in the bin 2 West Upper tickets for Ireland v China. I have these on block book and due to being based in Donegal and most games being midweek I have not got to a home game yet this campaign, Basel last year and Paris in October were the last competitive games I've seen!!! Thankfully this is only about the third time I've not got somebody to take the tickets but it is still a pain in the arse for those of us based 4odd hours from Dublin. But, I'm not gonna give up my tickets, nor will I be moaning when the tickets for Israel, Italy, France and Switzerland come through the letterbox. Its just unfortunate that I've not been able to at least use the tickets for some games due to being geographically challenged, although on the bright side, by the sounds of it I would have actually paid €72 NOT to be there for the muck on display last night. :) :rolleyes: