FAI seek permission for training game at Croke Park

[co. down green]

Just spotted this, any truth in it.

http://hoganstand.com/ArticleForm.aspx?ID=68528

It has been reported that the FAI have asked GAA officials for permission to play a training game at Croke Park before the Euro 2008 qualifier against San Marino on November 15th.

That means that the first soccer match to be played at GAA headquarters could well be in ten days time on Sunday November 12th or Monday 13th and not next March when Ireland are due to play Wales in a European qualifier.

Rugby was expected to be the first ’foreign’ sport played at Croke Park when Ireland play France on February 11th, but sources close to the FAI and the IRFU have revealed that both soccer boss Steve Staunton and his rugby counterpart Eddie O’Sullivan are keen to see their sides have a run out at the Jones Road venue before their respective competitive matches.

Ireland are due to play a ’B’ international against Scotland the night before the match against San Marino and this would be the ideal opportunity for Staunton to play a friendly match in Croke Park, but as yet GAA officials have not given the go-ahead for the game.

[gspain]

It has been turned down according to today's Metro.

[CollegeTillIDie]

They'd stand a better chance with a friendly after Xmas. After all the GAA pledged to make it available in 2007 once the bulldozers go in to Lansdowne Road.

[Superhoops]

They'd stand a better chance with a friendly after Xmas. After all the GAA pledged to make it available in 2007 once the bulldozers go in to Lansdowne Road.

Only problem is there is no international date before 24 March 2007

[geysir]

They'd stand a better chance with a friendly after Xmas. After all the GAA pledged to make it available in 2007 once the bulldozers go in to Lansdowne Road.

Will it be "allowed" for friendlies to be played in Croke Pk?
I assumed that the hallowed turf will be available for competitive matches only.

[gspain]

This request was more for a training match. we often play these i nthe runup to an International.

The motion passed at GAA congress would have allowed friendlies but the central council signed a deal for competitive Internationals only.

That is OK for 2007 but the deal for 2008 etc will be interesting. The IRFU are playing 3 "tests" in the next 3 weekends. We'd probably call these friendlies but they may not be allowed to play these in 2008 at Croke Park. The deal also did not include Munster and Leinster Heineken Cup games so any home quarter final for an Irish team goes abroad.

We will want to play friendlies in 2008 & 2009. We may end up playing them all away or host a home friendly in England. It may not make financial sense to play home friendlies at Croke Park either given the deal. The GAA get a minimum guarantee so we'd probably need a 30,000 crowd to break even.

[endabob1]

Isn't there some UEFA stipulation that the away team have to be allowed train on the pitch prior to the game? It would be so ironic if the away team were allowed train there but not the home team!

[elroy]

This request was more for a training match. we often play these i nthe runup to an International.

The motion passed at GAA congress would have allowed friendlies but the central council signed a deal for competitive Internationals only.

That is OK for 2007 but the deal for 2008 etc will be interesting. The IRFU are playing 3 "tests" in the next 3 weekends. We'd probably call these friendlies but they may not be allowed to play these in 2008 at Croke Park. The deal also did not include Munster and Leinster Heineken Cup games so any home quarter final for an Irish team goes abroad.

We will want to play friendlies in 2008 & 2009. We may end up playing them all away or host a home friendly in England. It may not make financial sense to play home friendlies at Croke Park either given the deal. The GAA get a minimum guarantee so we'd probably need a 30,000 crowd to break even.

I think we'd easily get 50,000 for friendlies at croke park, we get about that as it is in lansdowne for most friendlies and i guarantee alot more people would come simply because of the croke park factor as well.

[gspain]

Wales and oursleves will have to be allowed train there before the game in March. This request is to train there next week. Nothing is ever simple when dealing with the GAA.

As for friendlies well it depends on the finance. The GAA pocket something like €1.2 million per game. Then there is the guarantee for the away team. So there is a breakeven point and then a point when it really becomes worthwhile. I've no idea of the figures but it could be a risk and much easier to take a match guarantee for an away game or do an agreement for home and away friendlies with the home game at Lansdowne after 2009.

The good news is that the friendlies likely to be worthwhile at Croke Park will probably be against Brazil, Argentina, England or Italy.

[oconghc2]

Wales and oursleves will have to be allowed train there before the game in March. This request is to train there next week. Nothing is ever simple when dealing with the GAA.


Can you not see that this is typical FAI though Gspain! - they have their chance to negotiate, but do not seem to have the foresight to look for a training match in november. (maybe they did but obviously not strong enough and now play it out in the papers!)

The GAA are doing FAI a favour (you might disagree) - but the GAA cannot be seen to be giving in to additional FAI demands or it looks extremely bad on their part.

Nothing is ever simple when dealing with the FAI

[gspain]

Can you not see that this is typical FAI though Gspain! - they have their chance to negotiate, but do not seem to have the foresight to look for a training match in november. (maybe they did but obviously not strong enough and now play it out in the papers!)

The GAA are doing FAI a favour (you might disagree) - but the GAA cannot be seen to be giving in to additional FAI demands or it looks extremely bad on their part.

Nothing is ever simple when dealing with the FAI

Will you ever get real. They asked the GAA to allow a training session in Croke Park this week. It is hardly an earth shattering request,.

I appreciate we drape Union Jacks all around our training sessions and have God Save the Queen blaring over the tannoy so it couldn't be accomodated. :rolleyes:

The GAA are the only sporting organisation on this planet that has rules about use of their grounds.

Do you really believe it was an unreasonable request to have a training session in Croke Park? You could ring up any rugby club, hockey club now and they'd gladly accomodate you this afternoon if they could.

You have Linfield accomodating camoige teams. Any chance they could train at Casement Park?

At least the minority rump of bigots in the GAA get another chance for a last stand.

[co. down green]

Without the GAA we would be travelling to England or Scotland for our 'home' games.

Its very unlikely that the FAI ever mentioned the use of the stadium for training , friendlies etc..

gspain

I think you spending to much time over on the n.i football forum, its all getting very political !!

[Jerry The Saint]

The GAA are the only sporting organisation on this planet that has rules about use of their grounds.

I agree with you to a point but not really sure what this means:confused:

[gspain]

I think blaming the F.A.I. for this is ridiculous. I mean have they asked to use the dressingrooms for the Wales game?

Do you think it was an unreasonable request?

Why do you think it was refused?

Is it really that bad to help our national football team prepare for a vital qualifier?

Yet again this will hardly be reported in the media as criticising the GAA is still the last taboo left in Irish society.

[EalingGreen]

Without the GAA we would be travelling to England or Scotland for our 'home' games.

Its very unlikely that the FAI ever mentioned the use of the stadium for training , friendlies etc..

gspain

I think you spending to much time over on the n.i football forum, its all getting very political !!

Hmmm, I'm not sure who's making this whole issue of renting facilities between codes "very political", but I don't think the blame lies particularly at the door of the FAI, somehow.

Anyhow, can you imagine a situation whereby e.g. the national rugby or soccer stadium in Australia was unavailable, so they approached the Aussie Rules or Cricket guys and asked to use one of their stadia (sooner than play in NZ) at a cost of €1.2 million a time, only for them to be told: "Yes, but you can't actually practice on the pitch beforehand"?
And especially if the Rules or Cricket stadium had been built with the aid of a significant chunk of Australian taxpayers' money?
Step back and look at this situation with a degree of perspective. It's quite simply unthinkable, anywhere else but Ireland, and with any other sporting organisation but the GAA.

[Billsthoughts]

what next ?
arguments over walking down roads?
only in Ireland I tells ya...only in Ireland.....:rolleyes:

[cooee]

This is a thread over nothing.
Firstly it has been a long and hard job to get the hardline anti-other sport GAA officials to approve the use of Croke Park for international rugby and soccer. Many GAA officials and members are still virulently against this......so tread carefully until they become more isolated and their concerns are put to sleep.

Then some dopey blazer in the FAI - an organisation so inept that it defies credulity, with no stadium worth the name - decides that a photo opportunity in Croker pre-San marino would be nice.

The FAI don't need to use Croker until next March - a friendly/training run in Feb/March the run upto that game is fine and will naturally be accomodated. The GAA are totally correct declining this spurious request.

Methinks that the FAI wanted to get in ahead if the rugby lads so they could be the first "English" game in Croker.......

[paul_oshea]

gspain: unlike the F.A.I the G.A.A have a structure in place, hence what makes it a very professional organisatoin unlike again the F.A.I, any change to the laws within the game have to be debated by congress and/or potentially central council, therefore the decision was made to play games ONLY when landsdowne was being re-constructed.....for the year 2007, nothing is mentioned about anything else.

structure is in place whether or not you like it, its their for a reason, its not changed on a whim, which makes the G.A.A a well structured, organised association unlike their association football cousins.....changing it on a whim is cowboy like, something you would see in teh F.A.I, surely unless you are in that boat, you wouldn't like cowboys to be running an organisation?!?!?!

Having said that I would like to see an exception made in this case for the sake of a game of training....

[elroy]

I dont think anyone is denying here that the gaa are a better run organisation but perspective needs to be taken of the two associations. The Fai's game has only in the last 20-30 years being available to those who also take part in gaa games. For many years, anyone who played gaa was forbidden from playing football. This had a deterimental effect on the development of the sport at the time. Therefore, it would be expected that the gaa would be a stronger and more well run sport than the fai.

Secondly, the gaa got its act together a few years back and put a plan together to build croke park to what it is today. Neither the irfu or the fai (eircom park aside) did anything similar. However, many a gaa fan will have you believe that this was achieved with little or no external assistance, this is simply not the case. The government played a large part in its development. This i feel is the strongest argument for the use of croke park by other sports.

Finally, alot of this just boils down to plain common sense, which I hope will prevail once the media circus of the first few games being played in croke park has passed.
Its common sense for the gaa to allow rugby/football played in croke park, financially they will very much benefit. it is also common sense that red tape does not have to be adhered to each time the irish rugby/football team wish to train in croke park. Was it outrageous for the fai to play a training match there this week, i think not. Would it really have hurt that much??!?!?!
And suggestions that the fai just merely wanted to be the first "foreign game" to be played in croke park are just downright ludricious. After all, american football achieved that many years ago!!

Whatever code you follow, just take a step back and look how incredulous this all is, as mentioned above we are the only nation that anything like this has taken place, a bit of common sense is all thats required.

[Dodge]

Spot on elroy. Great, common sense, post

[paul_oshea]

The Fai's game has only in the last 20-30 years being available to those who also take part in gaa games.


Spot on dodge, not true one of the first games to be played in the west of ireland was soccer, by castlerea celtic,there is a picture dating back from before 1900's ( if i can find it ill post it ), this was played hand in hand with gaelic for the last 100 years......the local gaelic team were one of the best in the county for many years and still are....as are the soccer team in the RDL.

gaelic was played with football throughout, the problem being was that gaelic was played EARLIER than soccer and caused a lot of controversy, because the gaelic lads would somtimes not bother getting up for the gaelic match and then go playing soccer, so a "ban" was put in place, it wasnt a ban it was you are playing one or the other not both, my cousin had the problem and was told by the g.a.a at home eitehr play one or the other, a lot of people took this to mean "no foreign" games, this simply wasnt the case, I am not saying this didnt exist ( but not to the scale everyone says, more so in ballygobackward places in cork etc), but this is often mistaken as a ban my many ignoramoses out there/on here. Again there was better financial support for the gaa teams as they could compete on a bigger level at county etc so it got better support at grass roots.


Therefore, it would be expected that the gaa would be a stronger and more well run sport than the fai.


its the people in the organisation that make the organisation, thats the problem, it has nothing to do with the funding.....if a cowboy faction exists with no proper council in place like their gaa counterparts this is going to happen a la the FAI. The general members in the congress don't get paid, if you have an organisation full of people who get paid for sitting on their arses, they are hardly going to remove themselves are they? power should be gotten from ground level....Structure has nothing to do with funding.....

I like your last sentence though...good point.

[Billsthoughts]

Your first part of your post is factually inaccurate to say the least.
There was a ban in place and it wasnt anything to do with one or the other like some sort of dual players decision. succesive goverments wouldnt be seen near an irish international for years for fear of upsetting the hardline gaa heads yet there was haughey doing a lap of honour in Rome in 1990 like he had won it himself...:rolleyes:

[paul_oshea]

bill i agree with what you are saying, i realise that ban was in place, but in terms of how it was enforced was different, that is how the ban was "interpreted" at roots level.....Again Im going with clubs under the connaucht council, I can't speak for anywhere else....

Growing up, I played both, we were a decent sized town ( lads that played one played the other ), in gaelic we were far more successful, we won titles at two underage categories, but football we weren't near the best, becuase other towns ( whose lads we would meet again in the gaelic ) had better football structures in place than us, in terms of training etc....i cant speak for what happened in 50's, 60',70's but my uncles used to play both, and when they reached 21, 22 focused more on the soccer....same thing in place

[elroy]

I've heard some pretty bad stories from my dads youth and he is a predominantly gaa man.

I'm only in my 20s and I well remember when I was playing underage gaelic and before training having a kick around and the reaction from our trainers was less than savoury to say the least. It was made pretty clear to us that they didnt want us playing football, the funny thing is they didnt have a problem with rugby.
I know of a young guy from our local club who is a gifted football and gaelic player, was called up to the cork u16 team, a great achievement from the small club he's from. However, when it was discovered that he was captain of the local soccer team, he was told he would be no longer selected for the cork team. And that is less than three years ago.
Now I know these days (well I hope) those sort of incidents are isolated but it merely goes to illustrate that the much more hardened attitudes that existed in the past did affect the development of football in Ireland.

[EalingGreen]

it wasnt a ban it was you are playing one or the other not both


Unusual interpretation of the language there, to say the least!

If some one was found playing football or rugby etc, they were liable to banned from playing GAA (indeed were banned).

To imply that the GAA was in some way giving people a choice, as per your "one or the other" comment is false, since it was not within their power to permit or arrange for people to play another game (i.e. like a parent telling a child he may have either an apple, or an orange, but not both).

Besides, no other game that I've ever heard imposed a reciprocal ban. When I was playing football as a lad, football teams were often glad to get GAA players (on the quiet, if need be), since they were usually pretty good and football was a Saturday game and GAA is played on Sundays.

And in the present day, if other sports took the same attitude to GAA over use of facilities etc, there'd be plenty of GAA clubs outside Ireland with nowhere to play, since they rely on football, rugby, cricket, baseball clubs etc to help them out.

[gspain]

The request was for a training session with the squad in Croke Park not for a photo op. This could easily have been accomodated as a "closed doors" session eg no press.

The Ban was rigidly enforced AKAIK. Liam Brady was expelled from school for captaining the Irish schoolboys. Con Martin won a Leinster final with Dublin but was banned from the all Ireland when he was caught playing football. It took over 30 years for him to get his Leinster medal.

Very very few people got away with it. Mick Mackey in Limerick insisted on going to Thomond Park. The GAA had "watchers" checking for people attending foreign games. After ignoring a final warning they bigots had to make him a watcher to report on other people. Mick O'Connell used to support Cork Hibs and The Examiner put a photo on their front page and tried to goad Kerry into banning him. They accused "Da Paper" of doctoring a photo.

The F.A.I. and IRFU had to allow players to play under false names but many got caught and banned by the GAA.

Thankfully the bigotry is now confined to a minority of hardliners but this is uniquely a GAA problem. I've never even heard of anyone in rugby for example arguing against letting out thomond Park or Lansdowne Road.