Cult of Stephen Kenny

Why would they turn it down?

yes. im a big soccer man but gaa clubs ability to fundraise is second to none. a lot of soccer clubs could learn something from them.

Unfortunately, too many of them prefer to blame the GAA for their troubles.

Ignoring, of course, the shocking leadership, financial wastage and desperately poor competition structures of soccer. Or that the GAA games are native sports and part of the national identity, and will always have government investment simply on cultural grounds. Or that most of the funding the GAA gets is via fundraising.

Another aspect is exposure.

Take schools for example. The effort put in by the GAA to organise, support and run secondary schools competitions. I remember having games pretty much the entire year, hurling and football, all helped out by the county board in some way. When it came to soccer, bar the national competitions, the schools had to organise the local competitions themselves pretty much. The head of the schoolboys league in fairness to him when asked for help did organise the referee's rota, but in the main it was left to the schools themselves. I think it's improved since then, but the investment in time and effort at schools level is world's apart.

At primary school level, soccer competitions should have been a given, seeing as it's the sport most young lads played. Not once did we ever have a primary schools soccer match, except the odd friendly game between nearby schools. GAA competitions from 3rd class up, hurling and football, and regular appearances by coaches giving tips.

If you didn't know anything about sport and had to pick one that you thought was the professional sport, it wouldn't be soccer.

And that lack of exposure at a young age can leave an impression, that one sport is in order, and one doesn't know its arse from its elbows.

And that's the crux of it regarding funding. Soccer, in the main, doesn't have it's ducks in a row, structure wise or financially. Other sports do. And if I was a government minister, the money would go to the responsible sport, not the one that hasn't a clue and blows the money on nothing and then asks for more.

Sadly, Irish soccer seems bereft of actual leadership and joined up thinking. And I suspect, sadly, it always will.

Still though, lets blame the GAA. It won't solve anything, but it'll make us feel good, and less like failures.

PS - On the GAA. I'd wager that if the FAI and LOI disbanded and the District leagues packed it in due to financial pressures/mismanagement overnight, and in desperation to avoid the societal catastrophe of no soccer as an outlet and pastime for hundreds of thousands of people, the government asked the GAA to take control of soccer and run it as their own sport along their own structure, I reckon they'd make far more of a success of it than the FAI ever could.

tbh i think a lot of the lsl clubs in dublin and surrounding areas have done a good job at the grant stuff of late. if twitter is anything to go by there are clubs getting new astros with floodlights etc in by the month which is only a good thing. hopefully it continues and spreads around the country. could do with plenty more clubs down around here improving facilities.

Another major issue is the lack of sponsor for the Men's Senior Team. The current CEO, who doesn't even live in the country, was touted as a 'sponsorship guru', and yet he hasn't managed to secure a shirt sponsor in his 3 years in charge! Coffers for a new manager's salary are much lower as a result.

Not to mention the match programmes are all produced and designed in the UK now. Surely an Irish company could do this work?

Obviously an upgrade on our current manager having embarrassed him twice and giving our group a really good go with a worse squad. In our price range as well so has to be taken as a serious candidate if he's really interested.

'' worse squad '' ??

They were technically very gifted and miles ahead of our squad in ability and physicality.

It’s the LOI’s fault that a Turkish man pays 3 million for a largely unsuccessful Irish club that doesn’t own its ground and then cedes the investment back to the original owners for nothing.

why?

You didn't see the games then. Anyone who did would have seen the difference. And I didn't even mention Kenny.

Government funding stopped for the FAI over serious governance issues.

They probably can't even afford any manager now.

Why are the events at shels this week proof of the LOI/FAI being unable to manage the development of football in this country?

At the time?? They got Mick at the same time as they promised Kenny the job. Stop talking nonsense.

What you are conveniently not mentioning is that the majority of the cost of those upgrades came from the club fundraising, membership fees, sponsorship etc, not from the government.

The idea that the government in anyway funds the GAA’s success is so so wrong.

both sports are leaned on for tax revenue as opposed to being invested in, especially GAA.

football at least got the 40 or 50 million bailout but that was partly a consequence of underinvestment

Lad, dont start a post with "mate". That's a tan phrase.

If I get banned for saying this then at least I educated