Do you have to be a UCD student to play for UCD?
Is the UCD support made up of students?
Thanks.
Is there a requirement that at least a proportion of the team must be students (or connected to UCD in some way)?
Would it be possible for UCD to field a team consisting entirely of players with no connection to the university whatsoever?
Are the players paid?
Yes a percentage of the players must be current students and a smaller percentage can be graduates/staff. there are usually 4 or 5 'guest' players in the first team squad each year. We need these for their experience as without them we would really struggle.
Yes the players get paid but we would have the smallest budget in the premier. It would still be higher than a lot of first division teams but not by much!
Thanks for the replies, guys, although the last two seem to contradict each other.
In more ways than one...
Some of the most famous UCD players were never in the college. Tony McDonnell, I think. Robbie Mac. Peter Lorimer.
How many students were on your Cup winning side? I remember talking to Robbie Gaffney and he said that at his time there were practically no students, but soon after the club installed a student only policy due to finances
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That sounds about right.
We had the students only policy up until 83. Then we brought in part-timers, did well for two years, went nearly broke and reverted back to mainly students.
Ironically, beating Everton could have killed us 'cos they went on to play Inter Bratislava in Czechoslovakia - high costs and a small home gate.
Has to be said, you do pretty well for a university club!
I think the scholarship system has paid dividends to both the university and the players who have attained them.
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