New crossborder tournament: Unite the Union Champions Cup

**Mr A** · 10/05/2019, 2:56 PM

Originally Posted by marinobohs

Fair dues (no pun intended)

**wonder88** · 10/05/2019, 3:00 PM

This is good news for Irish soccer. The prize money is very impressive, with little travel costs involved. Fair play to Brendan to get his union involved in this.
Unions of course should play a bigger role in society outside the workplace. Some believe that unions should have a media presence to counter the neo-liberal agenda of the media today for example.

**Mr A** · 10/05/2019, 3:04 PM

I seem to recall the GMB sponsoring Fulham some years back, and another league club too but which one it was escapes me.

**pineapple stu** · 10/05/2019, 3:06 PM

Originally Posted by marinobohs

UNITE the Union (the name was introduced when a couple of unions joined together some years back) is a UK union that also operates an Irish division (Irish division organizes north and south).The union has tended to be involved in a number of community (sometimes political) issues beyond the usual union activities.
Good to see any additional revenue coming into the game so credit where it is due, I believe the Irish head of UNITE may have a personal interest in LOI and one team in particular

Fair dues (no pun intended) to them for the investment but certainly needs a rethink on the name !

Absolutely - more money in the game means Dundalk can afford to pay us a few more quid when they rob our next promising player. No problems with that.

Just seems a weird deal is all. The head of the union might have a personal interest, but it's his members' money.

**Dalymountrower** · 10/05/2019, 3:08 PM

Originally Posted by wonder88

This is good news for Irish soccer. The prize money is very impressive, with little travel costs involved. Fair play to Brendan to get his union involved in this.
Unions of course should play a bigger role in society outside the workplace. Some believe that unions should have a media presence to counter the neo-liberal agenda of the media today for example.

Most large Trade Unions have Press/Communication Departments, how effective they are is another matter.

**wonder88** · 10/05/2019, 3:17 PM

I was thinking along the line of Daily/Sunday newspaper. With the advent of of online publishing, you would think that some unions would come together to underwrite such a project. The days of launching an actual physical paper are gone.
I feel it is a better idea to start off small, 2 teams, rather than the 8 that were involved in the Setanta, and then grow organically.

**marinobohs** · 10/05/2019, 3:47 PM

Originally Posted by wonder88

I was thinking along the line of Daily/Sunday newspaper. With the advent of of online publishing, you would think that some unions would come together to underwrite such a project. The days of launching an actual physical paper are gone.
I feel it is a better idea to start off small, 2 teams, rather than the 8 that were involved in the Setanta, and then grow organically.

Most bigger unions use mail shots, emails etc to connect with members. SIPTU have a periodical newspaper (Liberty ??) which is distributed to members, MANDATE also have a newspaper. I'm not sure about other unions.
Pretty much all unions have web sites that are professionally managed and most if not all have PR facilities (inhouse or outsourced).

On football, I would have liked a greater number of teams but hopefully this proposed game gets traction and can be expanded down the road.

**Park_Lane** · 10/05/2019, 5:10 PM

Originally Posted by Nesta99

Have you already forgotten playing in the group stages in Europe? Assuming thats a real ambition for clubs that get in to Europe this could be a handy fixture to have before the final group game.

Fair enough, but look at Bohs last season in the irn bru the fixtures at the end of the season caused them issues with figuring out extending players contracts etc. I suppose that wouldnt be an issue for clubs with players on 52 week contracts.

**Nesta99** · 10/05/2019, 5:30 PM

Originally Posted by marinobohs

UNITE the Union (the name was introduced when a couple of unions joined together some years back) is a UK union that also operates an Irish division (Irish division organizes north and south).The union has tended to be involved in a number of community (sometimes political) issues beyond the usual union activities.
Good to see any additional revenue coming into the game so credit where it is due, I believe the Irish head of UNITE may have a personal interest in LOI and one team in particular

Fair dues (no pun intended) to them for the investment but certainly needs a rethink on the name !

Brendan Ogle is a lifelong Dundalk fan, union activist, founder member of the now defunct railway union ILDA, seems to crop up now and again on media focused issues. A like him or loathe him character imo. I would have preferred if they had used their full island of Ireland title of 'Unite the Union Ireland' but it is what it is and i'm sure some IFA blazers will take some pride in the competition title. Such things like the name of a football competition and any touch of symbolism involved wont make too many waves here.

**redarmyfaction** · 10/05/2019, 9:20 PM

The history of the trade union movent is like the Popular Front of Judea in reverse. Instead of fragmenting, tiny specialist unions like the Allied Copper Boiler Pluugers Accociation morph into large corporate entities.

The thing is that partition survives to this day in the movement, some unions though less now than before still pledge to the UK rather than Liberty Hall. Janey, even the solid Sinn Fein building workers used to be in UCATT and would die for independence except......

I thought this place was about the working man's sport in a middle class world, but maybe not.

**redarmyfaction** · 10/05/2019, 10:13 PM

Originally Posted by redarmyfaction

The history of the trade union movent is like the Popular Front of Judea in reverse. Instead of fragmenting, tiny specialist unions like the Allied Copper Boiler Pluugers Accociation morph into large corporate entities.

The thing is that partition survives to this day in the movement, some unions though less now than before still pledge to the UK rather than Liberty Hall. Janey, even the solid Sinn Fein building workers used to be in UCATT and would die for independence except......

I thought this place was about the working man's sport in a middle class world, but maybe not.

I used to know this stuff, we were taught it at school but the labyrinth ways of the Labour movement does tend to confuse, but simply the success of Larkin's ITGWU in the seminal Sligo Dock workers strike of 1913, the action which he used for a model for the great lockout in Dublin lead to the split between the ATGWU(Unite) and Siptu(ITGWU) which so puzzleth posters here.

**marinobohs** · 12/05/2019, 2:07 PM

Originally Posted by Nesta99

Brendan Ogle is a lifelong Dundalk fan, union activist, founder member of the now defunct railway union ILDA, seems to crop up now and again on media focused issues. A like him or loathe him character imo. I would have preferred if they had used their full island of Ireland title of 'Unite the Union Ireland' but it is what it is and i'm sure some IFA blazers will take some pride in the competition title. Such things like the name of a football competition and any touch of symbolism involved wont make too many waves here.

Yep. Brendan is a long time Dundalk supporter (even before they were successful &#128513

. He is also the Irish head of UNITE. To be fair the union have been involved in a number of community projects/campaigns. I think it's a great idea that hopefully develops.