GAA approve FAI and IRFU applications

From rte.ie:

At its meeting today the Central Council of the GAA provisionally approved an application from the FAI and IRFU respectively to play two friendly/ranking games each in Croke Park in 2008.

The Central Council's decision is contingent on agreement being reached with the respective governing bodies on terms and dates.

The competitive games already approved for 2008 are on February 2nd, February 23rd and March 8th (rugby) and October 11th and 15th (soccer).

Will be interesting to see if this materialises. If it does, hopefully the FAI will get two big name opponents and get decent crowds. What about Italy, England or Argentina?

No chance of England. :D

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Originally Posted by eirebhoy

No chance of England. :D

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I think the english and irish fa's would wish to avoid playing each other as it could well turn into a headache security wise. while i would like to see it i wouldnt hold out any hope of us beating them

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What about Italy, England or Argentina?

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Jaysus, waht planet are you from???:rolleyes:

Yeah as if England would ever play in Croke Park!

Which one is the sarcastic smilie?

Would the GAA get all the gate receipts, TV money etc or just a percentage of it?

Would assume the arrangements would be similar to the qualifiers. Think the rental was somewhere in the region of €1.25 million or 27% of the revenue, whichever is greater. Open to correction on the exact figures though.

The only viable option would be a big name as per the GAA's cash guarantee. The FAI would need a guaranteed sellout.

I don't see why the English football team would be such an issue now for GAA hardliners given the rugby team have already played there.

Anyway as I've said before the big issue for the GAA would not be England at Croke Park but Northern Ireland. GSTQ might be a much bigger issue then.

I can only see us playing England next in a competitive fixture that neither team can get out of ... I don't think the Croke Park issue has any bearing on this - there will be a lot of people in the English FA and in the FAI who remember 1995.

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Originally Posted by GavinZac

Yeah as if England would ever play in Croke Park!

Which one is the sarcastic smilie?

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Huge difference between Rugby and Football.

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Originally Posted by gspain

I don't see why the English football team would be such an issue now for GAA hardliners given the rugby team have already played there.

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Like I said already, comparing the English Rugby team with their educated, jolly, friendly supporters to the English football team and their violent, Racist, knuckledraggers, is simply not viable.

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Originally Posted by Torn-Ado

Like I said already, comparing the English Rugby team with their educated, jolly, friendly supporters to the English football team and their violent, Racist, knuckledraggers, is simply not viable.

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Actually English football supporters are much better behaved these days. They have a proper travel club, good organisation and have reclaimed their national team. I' attended 2 England games in the last world cup and 1 in 2002 wearing an Ireland shirt without any problems whatsoever. It was a totally different experience to the dark days of the 90's.

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Originally Posted by gspain

Actually English football supporters are much better behaved these days. They have a proper travel club, good organisation and have reclaimed their national team. I' attended 2 England games in the last world cup and 1 in 2002 wearing an Ireland shirt without any problems whatsoever. It was a totally different experience to the dark days of the 90's.

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There has been a crackdown on a lot of hooligans getting into stadia etc so they usually kick off elsewhere in the city. Panorama did a documentary on them in last years world cup and they were the same old supporters we are all used to seeing. However I'm sure you're not naive enough to think that English fans have changed altogether.

With security getting into Ireland from Britain being non existent and the general incompetence of the FAI, there surely would be a lot of trouble. With all the hype about foreign sports etc, these guys would make it their mission in life to wreck Croke park and cause mayhem.

Back of The Star today says the FAI will go for the game against England. They surely cant be this stupid. This talk about their fans behaviour getting better is rubbish. When we talked to anybody in Stuttgart when we played Germany last year they had nothing good to say about them. Panorama programme last year I thought would surely put the FAI off.

The main significance is that Croke pk. subject to terms, is open for hire for friendlies. That marks a change even if the Central Council was given the power to authorise the renting of Croke Park for events other than those controlled by the Association, while Lansdowne Rd. is closed.
There were some grounds to believe that the GAA CC were only interested to consider competitive games.
The main movers would appear to be the IRFU who already have the ALL Blacks lined up.
I doubt that the FA would be keen on "friendlies" with Ireland or Scotland for the same reason.
Northern Ireland, imo, could be ideal.

FAI statement "Friendly matches count towards our FIFA ranking, so the opportunity to have two additional home games in 2008 in Croke Park is very welcome."
and what does the FIFA ranking count for? feck all it would appear.
Friendlies, first and foremost should be used to advance the teams competitive standard and then secondly for financial gain.

I didn't see the Panorama programme so can't comment on the content.

However I have experienced England fans firsthand on many occasions over the last 29 years since they came to Lansdowne in 1978. There is absolutely no comparison between the racist thugs of the 1990s with the generally well behaved fans of today.

The hooligans by and large have been weeded out and the decent football fans who abandoned their country in droves in the 80's and 90's have reclaimed their team. Full credit to the FSA for what they've done.

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Originally Posted by gspain

I didn't see the Panorama programme so can't comment on the content.

However I have experienced England fans firsthand on many occasions over the last 29 years since they came to Lansdowne in 1978. There is absolutely no comparison between the racist thugs of the 1990s with the generally well behaved fans of today.

The hooligans by and large have been weeded out and the decent football fans who abandoned their country in droves in the 80's and 90's have reclaimed their team. Full credit to the FSA for what they've done.

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The difference is that the decent fans are ones who get the tickets to the games. Its too dangerous for hooligans to cause trouble in stadia. They do it in the city centre like Stuttgart.

The fact of the matter is that a friendly game between Ireland and England is not, and for the near future, will not be on the cards.

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Originally Posted by Torn-Ado

The fact of the matter is that a friendly game between Ireland and England is not, and for the near future, will not be on the cards.

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Right so, John.

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Originally Posted by gspain

Actually English football supporters are much better behaved these days. They have a proper travel club, good organisation and have reclaimed their national team. I' attended 2 England games in the last world cup and 1 in 2002 wearing an Ireland shirt without any problems whatsoever. It was a totally different experience to the dark days of the 90's.

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The English hooligans obtained their tickets through the official England Travel Club in 95 according to the investigation.

gspain

We were on the North terrace that evening, there were a couple of hundred England fans in a small segregated section at the end of terrace, any ideas if they had tickets or did the guards just take them off the streets.

I've always wondered.

It's okay CDG, that's in the past, now we are told they are better behaved.
Therefore this can't be true.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5112364.stm
Erwin Hetger, head of the state police, said: "We had no problems at all with the French, Swiss and Dutch fans that were having a great party here.
"It all changed when the English fans arrived. The atmosphere changed. The incidents began late yesterday evening."
Estimated 300 English fans were arrested in Stuttgart.
Over 400 were detained after troubles another night.
Guess estimates were that a few thousand were involved in violence in Germany, about the same number again wouldn't go no furthur than singing "I'd rather be a paki than a kraut".
Maybe here they would rather be a kraut than a paddy.

Certainly they looked lovely in that game against Andorra.

Then we have the dastardly victimisation against English fans by the Greek police, the Spanish police, the French police, the Italian police and now the Croat police.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/SPORT/fo...ges/index.html