Is Summer Football Stateside all its cracked up to be?

[Boghopper]

 At our club training last night 6 lads declared that they intend to head to the USA/Canada for the Summer. I personally have been lucky to have played stateside and I would never discourage anyone from broadening their horizons.

I have a varying experiences of my time in the states and feel in the current climate I feel that the experience that a lot of lads expect dosen't tally with reality.

There is a perception that clubs stateside will fly players out, keep them in funds and that they will not have give the same effort as they would be expected to give at home thus allowing them time to enjoy a summer of partying.

The reality is very few players will get their flights paid, players will be lucky to get jobs, if they do get jobs they will likely  involve heavy manual work with early starts and late finishes involved and lastly the games can be very competitive and training very tough especially with the heat.

Does anyone else think that lads such give careful consideration to heading stateside for the summer? It seems in our locality one lad mentions he is going and everyone else wants to join. Unfortunately I fear that if these lads leave then all the good work within the club will count for nothing and we could be facing relegation. I suppose this is a scenario most clubs also face!

[Bingo]

In Monaghan its often the case that the player will be over and back before the championship actions kicks in over here. If they with a good club over there, they'll come back in reasonable shape or if they are serious about the club, they will enjoy themselves but also look themselves.

Same as everything, the good players will be well looked after at the bigger clubs. The others may get something out of it but its often an excuse to go to say that the player is been "brought" over.

They often have to pay their own way over and the flight will be paid for them before they leave once they stick to the "deal".

[Syferus]

If you know people or have contacts going to the US for a few weeks is everything it's cracked up to be.

Lads give a decade or more of their free time to their clubs so no one should begrudge them one of the few true ways to get a real life reward for that work.

[Boghopper]

Unfortunately the First Round of the Championship in Tyrone is at the beginning of August. I think that in this climate an average club player at home will probably as Bingo says get their flights paid if they play all summer although they could struggle to get work stateside to keep themselves. On the flipside I suppose losing so many players though horrible it is better to lose them all in one go although we stand to lose our top scorer and our CHB who are to irreplacable players. It also will affect morale among players at the minute.

[Gabriel_Hurl]

Clubs here in Canada are not paying for players flights or accommodation whatsoever. Sure we'll try and help find them work with contacts and whatever, but that's the height of it. The days of that are long gone