Sports and Government

Lazairus

it is my firm belief , that some sporting organizations are greatly underfunded by the government. That there are Athletes with huge potential ,that have to stay amateur, because of Underfunding .

Now I know the Irish sports council do a great job , God bless the NCTC. but thats not enough.

These sports i'm talking about are the minority sports in Ireland,
I.e Cycling , Running , Rowing , Athletics, Swimming.

it is the case that most serious athletes in the sports mentioned have to go abroad to train

Berite declares that he is a man of sport , on the Ryan Tuberty show recently. But all he talks about is GAA. Now dont get me wrong , I think GAA, gamesand the idea of a national Irish sport is great , but i hate the monopoly
that it holds on the country.

There are clubs that are just scraping through , because of poor investment

so what can we do???


now GAA might be huge , and all , but you cant win an Olympic medal with a hurley or a gaelic ball. the mentioned sports are irish best chances of winning
especially Rowing. so condsider this when your voting!!

brianthebard

Its more than a government thing though, here in Maynooth the GAA clubs get more capitation than all the other the clubs, despite being sh!t. Personally sport is waaay down on the list of priorities that the next government should deal with.

gandalf

Actually Brian I think Sport is very important on several levels. Firstly for Health, we are turning into a nation of sedentary people both in recreation and jobs more funding in Sports, Leisure Centres and facilities should be important. Its better to be proactive in addressing Health problems rather than reactive, and cheaper in the long run.

The second reason is to combat young adults having no activities and therefore leading to crime in some cases. The investment here needs to hit schools as well as local facilities.

The problem here is the problem with Politics in general in this country, no one is planning 10 - 20 years ahead. The view is only based on a 5 year re-election window.

Dyr

the GAA club i played for as a kid FINALLY got funding together to build a club house and training facility, as a result of which there's now a huge number of kids in our locality training in hurling. This is far more beneficial than ploughing money into subsidising individual athletes in minority sports. hell, I practice a minority sport and i dont see any reason why my hobby should be subsidised by the tax payer.

What we need is more participation in sports rather than spending money on gold medal photo ops or worse still, giving sports "fans" like bertie more chances to sit on their hole watching de telly. Unfortunately, ministers see sports funding as their re-election war chest and spend it accordingly.

MG

Lazairus wrote:

it is my firm belief , that some sporting organizations are greatly underfunded by the government. That there are Athletes with huge potential ,that have to stay amateur, because of Underfunding .

Now I know the Irish sports council do a great job , God bless the NCTC. but thats not enough.

These sports i'm talking about are the minority sports in Ireland,
I.e Cycling , Running , Rowing , Athletics, Swimming.

it is the case that most serious athletes in the sports mentioned have to go abroad to train

Berite declares that he is a man of sport , on the Ryan Tuberty show recently. But all he talks about is GAA. Now dont get me wrong , I think GAA, gamesand the idea of a national Irish sport is great , but i hate the monopoly
that it holds on the country.

There are clubs that are just scraping through , because of poor investment

so what can we do???


now GAA might be huge , and all , but you cant win an Olympic medal with a hurley or a gaelic ball. the mentioned sports are irish best chances of winning
especially Rowing. so condsider this when your voting!!

I agree completely. Outside the big three sports (and even within these three there is a hierarchy), sports and sports facilities for minority sports are woefully underfunded.

I wonder how many people have ever been given the opportunity to throw a Javelin or hammer, pole vault or try their hand at winter sports or ride at a velodrome. I remember Gerry Kiernan making this point on TV during the European Championships.

From a political viewpoint, it is understandable however, that the political parties try to tap into the local network and loyalties that the GAA especially has. It's a simpe vote getter but it's bad for sport and very bad for local communities which are unable to develop outside of the confines of the GAA.

Edit: Just to add one thing, it is a scandal the way the lottery funding criteria are framed in a way which focusses on ability to fund a project (thus favouring the big boys) rather than on community needs. Effectively, this means that it is difficult to complete community facilities without the cooperation of the local GAA or Soccer club who normally work to their own agenda rather than that of the community.