Rule 42 Discussion

[NeverFeltBetter]

The simple fact is that the huge amount of public money used to refurbish the stadium should mean the GAA shouldn't get to solely dictate what should or shouldn't be played there. The idea that a stadium that big should be used just for gaelic and hurling alone is nonsense, and that goes for every other GAA stadium in the country too, considering how much in grants they get. I'm not suggesting CCFC should move-in, but once-off events like the proposed testimonial, maybe European games, even an Ireland friendly, should be facilitated, as a matter of common and financial sense.

[DeLorean]

It all depends on the demand I suppose, and to a certain extent, that depends on the number of tickets available, which depends on the venue.

I would have thought that 12-15,000 would be enough, but as there isn't any venue with that capacity, the need to look for a bigger one.

Hard to know, they sold 7,000 tickets in less than ten minutes I believe so I'd assume the attendance will be upwards on 20,000 anyway. Even if it's not, I don't think this very specific event is a reason to give our about the FAI not having a bigger football stadium located in Cork. In the main, they simply don't need one, and neither do the IRFU.

[backstothewall]

The simple fact is that the huge amount of public money used to refurbish the stadium should mean the GAA shouldn't get to solely dictate what should or shouldn't be played there.

That's not a fact. It's an opinion.

Hard to know, they sold 7,000 tickets in less than ten minutes I believe so I'd assume the attendance will be upwards on 20,000 anyway. Even if it's not, I don't think this very specific event is a reason to give our about the FAI not having a bigger football stadium located in Cork. In the main, they simply don't need one, and neither do the IRFU.

Clearly the people who hand out Rubgy World Cup hosting rights didn't agree with you.

[DeLorean]

To those who say the demand isn't there to justify soccer teams building stadiums like that, ask yourself how often Croke Park is full. As a random example i googled the for a game held there recently and came up with the Leinster Hurling final. The attendance was 40,703, less than half the capacity of the place. They can only ever guarantee to fill it for the 2 finals. They might fill it for a particularly interesting clash at the latter stages of the championship, or a big game for the Dubs. But it's still the jewel in their crown.

Croke Park is more comparable to Lansdowne Road, as the main stadium for its association(s). Lansdowne Road isn't full very often either, only guaranteed for a few rugby internationals. I accept they still require a certain capacity to facilitate their biggest occasions, if that's the point you're making. These may be infrequent but hardly comparable the very rare occasions Cork City would require a larger capacity, for example.

Clearly the people who hand out Rubgy World Cup hosting rights didn't agree with you.

I'm not sure what you mean, wasn't PUC put forward as the Cork venue and the main reason the Government pumped so much into it in the first place?

[backstothewall]

There is a simple solution to all this - politicians show some backbone and say to the GAA - no more public money until your facilities are open to use by the public.

This just isn't going to happen folks. Until football is as well organised as GAA It's going to be a case of crumbs from the GAA table.

There is no point blaming politicians. It's always been the way, and It's the same in every democracy in the world.

No point blaming the GAA either. They are doing the best they can for their sport. The negative implications about the grant money they get is nothing but begrudgery. The money is there and football would get it's fair share if politicians were as afraid of football as they are of GAA.

[Real ale Madrid]

There is no point blaming politicians. It's always been the way, and It's the same in every democracy in the world.

Absolute and utter rubbish. To say " its always been the way" without any justification whatsoever is exactly the reason why politics is so parish pump messed up in the first place.

Again to re-iterate - I don't agree with with Duff's comments on the issue as they are unhelpful, but I sure as hell understand them. The GAA do what they like and the rest of the people can go scratch - that's just wrong. To justify it with "thats just the way it is" compounds the problem further.

[osarusan]

I don't think any of us a really qualified to say if the GAA are breaking EU state aid rules here.

Agreed. But equally, nobody here is qualified to say that GAA have sole discretion on who uses that pitch or not, considering the funding received and conditions that came with the funding.

Anyway, regardless of whether it would get them in hot water or not, I think that this charity match would, from a publicity perspective, be an absolutely terrible choice of event for the GAA to make a stand on.

[backstothewall]

Absolute and utter rubbish. To say " its always been the way" without any justification whatsoever is exactly the reason why politics is so parish pump messed up in the first place.

Again to re-iterate - I don't agree with with Duff's comments on the issue as they are unhelpful, but I sure as hell understand them. The GAA do what they like and the rest of the people can go scratch - that's just wrong. To justify it with "thats just the way it is" compounds the problem further.

I just don't have the time today to reply to everyone so I picked out this one.

The Oakland Raiders are moving to Las Vegas in 2020. Their new 65,000 capacity stadium is being built at a cost of $1.8bn, which will be paid in its entirety by the city. The Raiders originally selected the location and will pay rent of $1, for which they will control the naming rights for both the stadium and the road outside.

The British government paid a huge amount of money towards rebuilding Wembley, which the English FA are on the verge of selling at a huge profit.

Man City pay a laughable rent towards the Etihad, which they also control the naming rights to.

The funding the GAA receive has nothing to do with parish pump politics. It is completely normal, and rather modest compared to what goes on in the US. What is abnormal in Ireland is the lack of funding football receives. Going back to the St. Pats decision, if that happened to the local football club this close to an election the local elected reps would be brushing up their CV in most other countries.

[Fixer82]

Apologies if mentioned before but has anyone else thought that the organisers seemed a bit disorganised about this?
I'm only outside looking in and, coming from a GAA background perhaps I have GAA-tinted glasses, but it seemed as if the organisers didn't give the GAA much time (I know the game is in September) and just barrelled ahead and then gave out that they didn't get Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Like they didn't include the GAA in the planning of it and then assumed it would be available.

Am I wrong?

Now, don't get me wrong, the game should definitely be allowed go ahead in PUC. But it just smacked of the GAA saying 'incompetence from the soccer crowd again' for me.

As if they assumed it would be fine to use the stadium.

I am open to correction on everything here.

But the GAA is very well organised. And they have their rules and regulations because of that and vice versa.
in this case, of course, the rule needs to be broken and looked at more intensely for the future.

I think sense will prevail as every sportsperson on the island wants the match played in PUC.

[tetsujin1979]

From what I can tell, they did approach the GAA, and were turned down, and when the details of the match were announced everyone asked, "why not Pairc Ui Chaoimh", and that's when the outrage started.

[Colbert Report]

I just don't have the time today to reply to everyone so I picked out this one.

The Oakland Raiders are moving to Las Vegas in 2020. Their new 65,000 capacity stadium is being built at a cost of $1.8bn, which will be paid in its entirety by the city. The Raiders originally selected the location and will pay rent of $1, for which they will control the naming rights for both the stadium and the road outside.

The British government paid a huge amount of money towards rebuilding Wembley, which the English FA are on the verge of selling at a huge profit.

Man City pay a laughable rent towards the Etihad, which they also control the naming rights to.

The funding the GAA receive has nothing to do with parish pump politics. It is completely normal, and rather modest compared to what goes on in the US. What is abnormal in Ireland is the lack of funding football receives. Going back to the St. Pats decision, if that happened to the local football club this close to an election the local elected reps would be brushing up their CV in most other countries.

Las Vegas is a bad example. The NFL used the threat of moving various franchises to Las Vegas to bully municipal governments into building taxpayer-funded stadia all over the USA. There's nobody left to bully as voters in San Diego and St. Louis decided against funding new buildings so both teams moved to the Stan Kroenke-funded stadium under construction in Los Angeles.

Oakland moved to Las Vegas because the stadium in Oakland is the oldest in the NFL (Green Bay and Chicago have older buildings but they have both been completely rebuilt). Voters there didn't want to pay for a new stadium and Las Vegas made an incredible offer that no owner would refuse. They will make the money back because there will be a massive increase in hotel tax revenue due to people coming to Vegas to see their favourite team play.

[DeLorean]

Apologies if mentioned before but has anyone else thought that the organisers seemed a bit disorganised about this?
I'm only outside looking in and, coming from a GAA background perhaps I have GAA-tinted glasses, but it seemed as if the organisers didn't give the GAA much time (I know the game is in September) and just barrelled ahead and then gave out that they didn't get Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Like they didn't include the GAA in the planning of it and then assumed it would be available.

Am I wrong?

Now, don't get me wrong, the game should definitely be allowed go ahead in PUC. But it just smacked of the GAA saying 'incompetence from the soccer crowd again' for me.

As if they assumed it would be fine to use the stadium.

I am open to correction on everything here.

But the GAA is very well organised. And they have their rules and regulations because of that and vice versa.
in this case, of course, the rule needs to be broken and looked at more intensely for the future.

I think sense will prevail as every sportsperson on the island wants the match played in PUC.

In fairness, the organisers were ploughing on with Turner's Cross without any fuss. It was just mentioned that seeing as there was a very high demand for tickets they had explored the possibility of using PUC but the Cork County Board, despite being open to the idea themselves, informed them that their hands were tied by Croke Park and Rule 42.

The organisers stressed that the CCB were very receptive and even offered the use of their other catering facilities for the event. I don't think anybody knows when they actually made the approach so I don't think it's fair to suggest that they didn't give the GAA much time, this may or may not be true. Either way, I don't think they ever just 'assumed' PUC would be made available.

Once it became public that PUC had been discussed and subsequently ruled out, as Tets says, that's when the outrage began.

[Real ale Madrid]

The funding the GAA receive has nothing to do with parish pump politics. It is completely normal, and rather modest compared to what goes on in the US. What is abnormal in Ireland is the lack of funding football receives. Going back to the St. Pats decision, if that happened to the local football club this close to an election the local elected reps would be brushing up their CV in most other countries.

Of course it is! Did you even read my initial post? What relevance the US is to here is beyond me. The US is a basketcase in any case - some cities build new facilities every 20 years. In most European countries - publicly funded facilities are available for the public to use. They are not siphoned off by a sectarian organisation for a closed shop.

[tetsujin1979]

I just don't have the time today to reply to everyone so I picked out this one.

The Oakland Raiders are moving to Las Vegas in 2020. Their new 65,000 capacity stadium is being built at a cost of $1.8bn, which will be paid in its entirety by the city. The Raiders originally selected the location and will pay rent of $1, for which they will control the naming rights for both the stadium and the road outside.

The British government paid a huge amount of money towards rebuilding Wembley, which the English FA are on the verge of selling at a huge profit.

Man City pay a laughable rent towards the Etihad, which they also control the naming rights to.

The funding the GAA receive has nothing to do with parish pump politics. It is completely normal, and rather modest compared to what goes on in the US. What is abnormal in Ireland is the lack of funding football receives. Going back to the St. Pats decision, if that happened to the local football club this close to an election the local elected reps would be brushing up their CV in most other countries.

They pay 3million a year, according to wikipedia, not exactly laughable

[backstothewall]

I’ve a bit of time tonight for a proper reply to all this.

Tets. This might be the one where these posts all get moved. I ended up quoting Roman poetry!

Las Vegas is a bad example. The NFL used the threat of moving various franchises to Las Vegas to bully municipal governments into building taxpayer-funded stadia all over the USA. There's nobody left to bully as voters in San Diego and St. Louis decided against funding new buildings so both teams moved to the Stan Kroenke-funded stadium under construction in Los Angeles.

Oakland moved to Las Vegas because the stadium in Oakland is the oldest in the NFL (Green Bay and Chicago have older buildings but they have both been completely rebuilt). Voters there didn't want to pay for a new stadium and Las Vegas made an incredible offer that no owner would refuse. They will make the money back because there will be a massive increase in hotel tax revenue due to people coming to Vegas to see their favourite team play.

It was an extreme example all right, but it was chosen deliberately. The only reasonable definition of "Parish-pump politics" is that it refers to a uniquely Irish form of political parochialism, the usually cited example being the deals the Healy-Rae brothers have done for Kerry down through the years. I chose that example to demonstrate that this sort of thing certainly isn't unique to Ireland or the GAA. If anything the funding the GAA have received has been small potatoes in international terms.

Of course it is! Did you even read my initial post? What relevance the US is to here is beyond me. The US is a basketcase in any case - some cities build new facilities every 20 years. In most European countries - publicly funded facilities are available for the public to use. They are not siphoned off by a sectarian organisation for a closed shop.

Yes. I did read it. You then made the point that in your opinion the funding the GAA receive represents parish pump politics.

I respectfully disagree. I feel that the state support received by the GAA is actually fairly modest in international terms. As evidence in support of my point i've referenced an international example of a stadium being subsidised by the government to the tune of billions of dollars. Those are figures wildly in excess of any funding the GAA ever received for one of their projects.

You talk about Europe being different, but I also provided 2 examples from our nearest neighbours in the same post. Perhaps you should fully read other peoples posts before playing the man in that regard. People in glass houses and all that.

They pay 3million a year, according to wikipedia, not exactly laughable

The going rate for the naming rights alone on that stadium are easily in excess of £10m per annum. Manchester City Council are in effect paying them £7m a year to play their games there. It’s laughable all right. City are laughing all the way to the bank

... iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli,
uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim,
imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se,
continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat,
panem et circenses.

… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man,
the People have abdicated our duties;
for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything,
now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things:
bread and circuses.

When i said above that this has always been this way, I don't mean that old Grandfather Backstothewall says this sort of thing was going on under the Lemass government, and sure nothing has really changed when you think about it. I mean it much more literally than that. The phrase "bread and circuses" finds it origin in the quote above, the circuses in question being tracks for chariot racing rather than anything to do with jugglers. Juvenal was looking back nostalgically to a Rome that never existed, like a mad Brexiter dreaming of a time when Britain didn’t need an EU because it the could trade with a global empire who were all delighted just to be part of the club. Long before Juvenal in the days of the Roman Republic there were few better ways to win high office than making sure everyone knew you would improve the amphitheatre or the circus once you were elected.

The Colosseum wasn’t built by a co-operative of gladiator owners. It wasn’t the Iron age equivalents of Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn who paid the bill. It was the state. In that case it was under the emperors Vespasian and Titus, but it is just one example among hundreds or thousands they built in towns and cities everywhere from modern day Iraq to modern day Wales.

And even back then the chariot racing fans wanted a new circus, and the gladiator fans wants a new amphitheatre.

So whatever funding the GAA have received or are getting, it’s nothing particular to Ireland, or to the times we live in. And as a practice that can be traced back as far as recorded history will take us, it seems unlikely to change in our lifetimes.

The only option available to football in this country to get a fair crack of the whip is for the FAI and the League of Ireland to get themselves as well organised as the GAA.

[Real ale Madrid]

Yes. I did read it. You then made the point that in your opinion the funding the GAA receive represents parish pump politics.

I respectfully disagree. I feel that the state support received by the GAA is actually fairly modest in international terms. As evidence in support of my point i've referenced an international example of a stadium being subsidised by the government to the tune of billions of dollars. Those are figures wildly in excess of any funding the GAA ever received for one of their projects.

You talk about Europe being different, but I also provided 2 examples from our nearest neighbours in the same post. Perhaps you should fully read other peoples posts before playing the man in that regard. People in glass houses and all that.

In none of your examples, none, zero - which you have provided either in the USA or Manchester or anywhere - projects that get publicly fund don't have other organisations excluded from using them. If you rock up to Wembly / The Etihad / any NFL ground anywhere and you wish to rent it - as long as you have the rent - you can use it. That is the fundamental point I'm making. It is the very definition of parish pump politics - the GAA can get away with this because they are the type of people who vote. I remember the stories about Thomas Davis years back and politicians who were banned from the club due to a certain stance being made publicly. Now you can go on about funding any stadium in the world you wish, its not the point - it was never the point.

Now there may be cases of dispute everywhere but nowhere else in the world does a sporting organisation get such a large % of public money and close the doors to certain sections of the public.

[backstothewall]

In none of your examples, none, zero - which you have provided either in the USA or Manchester or anywhere - projects that get publicly fund don't have other organisations excluded from using them. If you rock up to Wembly / The Etihad / any NFL ground anywhere and you wish to rent it - as long as you have the rent - you can use it. That is the fundamental point I'm making.

If that is your fundamental point I should address it.

GAA grounds are available to the public at the discretion of the owner. PUC has been used for concerts. Croke Park for all kinds of things.

You are asking me to prove a negative which is awkward. But I can say that I'm not aware of the RFU handing Twickenham over to any other code of football. Ever.

Not sure if there was government/council/lottery money there, but i'd be amazed if there wasn't

I don't know the policy of every stadium in the world, or how they were funded, but there is the example you asked for.

I assume from what you are saying that you supported the GAA when they were arguing that Tallaght should have been built to accommodate GAA as well as football?

I thought they were being ridiculous myself, but there you go.

[Charlie Darwin]

If that is your fundamental point I should address it.

GAA grounds are available to the public at the discretion of the owner. PUC has been used for concerts. Croke Park for all kinds of things.

You are asking me to prove a negative which is awkward. But I can say that I'm not aware of the RFU handing Twickenham over to any other code of football. Ever.

Not sure if there was government/council/lottery money there, but i'd be amazed if there wasn't

I don't know the policy of every stadium in the world, or how they were funded, but there is the example you asked for.

I assume from what you are saying that you supported the GAA when they were arguing that Tallaght should have been built to accommodate GAA as well as football?

I thought they were being ridiculous myself, but there you go.

Twickenham has hosted many American football games.

[backstothewall]

Twickenham has hosted many American football games.

As has Croke Park

[samhaydenjr]

It's sad that an attempt by wonderful people to create a memorable event in honour of a local hero, whose life was so tragically cut short, should descend into such rancour. And it should give pause for everybody to take a step back and look at the rules and their implementation that led to this situation. The GAA needs to have a better system of approval for non-GAA events in its stadia, either by scrapping Rule 42 or whatever it is now, or giving more autonomy to local associations to make these decisions, preferably in advance so that if, for example, Cork City went on a run in Europe that brought them up against a footballing giant, they could feel confident that PUC would be available to them so they wouldn't have to leave the city.

Also, it's about time to talk about groundsharing between the GAA and other sports - while most LOI clubs have stadia that fit their needs and/or don't have the fanbase for the local GAA ground and/or can work something out with the IRFU, there are a couple of situations where it might be best to have public money used to build a stadium for both GAA and soccer - the most glaring example would be Drogheda, where you have a dilapidated soccer stadium and a dilapidated GAA stadium. On the RTE site where the new Drogheda United stadium was being discussed, a GAA supporter, likely stung by the criticism over the Liam Miller situation, queried a little sarcastically if, as a publicly funded stadium, it would be able to accommodate Louth GAA. And there is a point there - this is the level where, as a small country, there should be no need to have two stadia. On the flip side to that argument, there also should be just one shared stadium in Ballybofey, instead of Finn Harps having to play for years in a stadium best suited to the early 20th century while plans to build a new one drag on and on (although I do understand that Sean MacCumhail Park may be a bit big for them and progress is finally being made on the new stadium.)