Casement Park in line for major overhaul - 40,000 all seater Stadium.

[Rossfan]

Did the "Ulster Gaels" really dream of having a Stadium to suit Euro 2028 Soccer Cup?
Has rrhf read the Good Friday Agreement?

[Applesisapples]

Did the "Ulster Gaels" really dream of having a Stadium to suit Euro 2028 Soccer Cup?
Has rrhf read the Good Friday Agreement?

No  absolutely not, build one fit for GAA and let the Euros go elsewhere. I see Allister is now rehashing the Nolan line from the Not the Biggest Show in the Country that the GAA are getting a cash cow. This place has not moved on from 1920, we are still second class in the eyes of many.

[Dreadnought]

Opposition from certain unionists, commentators and some in the media   to Casement is grounded solely in their own sectarian outlook. To say otherwise is a lie. £63M for a f**king ice bowl, no bother. Says it all. Take the £50m from the  Irish Govt and the £65m from the Executive  top it up from our  own coffers build  a GAA stadium as best we can and let NI play home games in the Aviva.

That might very well happen. And a nice stadium it will be too. But we have an opportunity for a great stadium that will be a legacy for the area for a very long time, and will pay itself of very quickly. A UEFA grade stadium that Ulster and wider GAA community can have for use for it's games? Yes please

[trailer]

Did the "Ulster Gaels" really dream of having a Stadium to suit Euro 2028 Soccer Cup?
Has rrhf read the Good Friday Agreement?

Who gives a f**k if we get a class new stadium with zero debt!

[weareros]

Same attitude that stopped a university in Derry in the 60s. Can't now be having the best stadium in the North in West Belfast run by the GAA. Can't have Irish language signs. Cant't extend the Wild Atlantic Way to the Causeway Coast. Can't have same EU rules for milk in North and South. Can't even talk about an all-island economy. We've a command paper now to prove it doesn't even exist. The most apt line in Cahair's great article is that from a media perspective everything in North must be from a Unionist viewpoint. They must give permission and that permission won't be extended to anything that looks like the greening of the North.

[seafoid]

Did the "Ulster Gaels" really dream of having a Stadium to suit Euro 2028 Soccer Cup?
Has rrhf read the Good Friday Agreement?

No  absolutely not, build one fit for GAA and let the Euros go elsewhere. I see Allister is now rehashing the Nolan line from the Not the Biggest Show in the Country that the GAA are getting a cash cow. This place has not moved on from 1920, we are still second class in the eyes of many.

Not in reality. The Gaels are driving things forward. It's not 1920 any more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY2FgX6dhCc

[tbrick18]

Same attitude that stopped a university in Derry in the 60s. Can't now be having the best stadium in the North in West Belfast run by the GAA. Can't have Irish language signs. Cant't extend the Wild Atlantic Way to the Causeway Coast. Can't have same EU rules for milk in North and South. Can't even talk about an all-island economy. We've a command paper now to prove it doesn't even exist. The most apt line in Cahair's great article is that from a media perspective everything in North must be from a Unionist viewpoint. They must give permission and that permission won't be extended to anything that looks like the greening of the North.

Excellent post.
Cahair's article really did hit the nail on the head.

[dec]

Jarlath was at Windsor Park this evening for UEFA 2028 discussions, had a present for ELP

[armaghniac]

She can come to the Cavan game.

[SouthOfThe Bann]

Jarlath was at Windsor Park this evening for UEFA 2028 discussions, had a present for ELP

Genuinely encouraging to see some banter like this from both sides hopefully it can continue despite the differences we may have.

[armaghniac]

Sensible post by UUP Cllr.

https://twitter.com/mclaren_linzi/status/1762098575566135753?t=M8EW_Gf2e2tL6RxBZBGiIQ&s=19

Is it deleted now?

The inevitable happened, of course
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/absolutely-vile-politicians-condemn-threat-made-against-uup-councillor-after-casement-park-remarks/a77840602.html

[Main Street]

Jarlath was at Windsor Park this evening for UEFA 2028 discussions, had a present for ELP

Genuinely encouraging to see some banter like this from both sides hopefully it can continue despite the differences we may have.

Though there was a hint of downgrading the office of the first minister in the article.
After the match, Ms O'Neill and Mrs Little-Pengelly both praised the efforts of the NI team on the evening, with the Sinn Féin MLA saying it had been "a thoroughly enjoyable experience".

[skeog]

Poor Jim Boyce the doyen of EUFA relegated to the 2nd tier free
bee lounge some people are full of their own importance

[bogball88]

Poor Jim Boyce the doyen of EUFA relegated to the 2nd tier free
bee lounge some people are full of their own importance

Cliftonville fans getting done over by the IFA again-no surprise really

[trailer]

By Cahair O'Kane
February 26, 2024 at 8:30PM GMT

WHEN The Loup wanted to put a new pitch in a few years ago to replace Derry football's answer to the Ali Sami Yen, they did what most GAA clubs do and brought out a £20 ticket.

They had a three-for-two deal and their sellers got carte blanche. Be generous.


A child in the house? If the parents are buying, throw the child a free ticket.

It took off like a forest fire.

'It won't be an issue; they'll get the money': DUP minister reminds Heaton-Harris of Casement Park funding commitment
Their pitch would cost just over £1m.

Of that, they raised £432,000 from their £20 tickets.

It was sheer, bloody hard work – exhaustive evenings and weekends traipsing the whole of Ulster, groups of them.

"We were just counting it up, we think we knocked over 100,000 doors, from the Malone Road to the lakes of Fermanagh. It was absolutely fantastic," said then club chairman Sean Corey in 2016.

A hundred thousand doors.

Loup have just over 200 adult members. There are roughly 40 families that live there.

See, here's the thing. The idea that the GAA are standing at the doors of Westminster like Oliver Twist with his bowl has grown like a weed through the never-ending debate over Casement Park and to what level it should be funded by public money.

That has been fairly hard to take.

Casement Park will now cost over £200m, almost three times its original estimate of £77.5m.

When the Maze stadium was on the table, it was the DUP that turned away from it.

Now the institutions are back again, no sooner had Dublin ponied up €50m last week than Jeffrey Donaldson was out like the father of a child who hasn't soles on his shoes or an arse in his trousers, admonishing the neighbours for taking pity.

"We cannot see how significant additional UK taxpayer resources will be available at a time when other vital public services are in need of additional resource and capital allocations," wrote the DUP leader almost instantaneously.

This column tries really hard not to listen to Stephen Nolan, but sometimes it's a professional necessity. If I have to hear him ask one more time this week how much money the GAA has and why it won't tell us, I will throw a shoe at the TV.

Stephen, take out your phone. Open Google. Type in 'GAA financial report 2024′. There it is, all 232 pages of it, every penny accounted for.

Contained within you will find the reason the GAA's contribution of £15m is more than fair.

Last year, the GAA spent €25m on capital projects. The year before, it was €23m. For an organisation whose entire revenue last year was €112m, those are very significant sums.

They have ongoing redevelopment works in Navan, Thurles and Newbridge, new training centres to fund in Down and Longford and €15m worth of work to update Croke Park.

Unlike any other sporting body, the GAA effectively has its own insurance scheme for players. They pay a nominal fee and for that receive cover for all kinds of medical issues, right up to loss of wages.

While GAA clubs in the north almost universally own and maintain their own facilities, the majority of soccer clubs rely on council pitches they pay a small fee to rent.

How much is the IFA contributing to all these sub-regional soccer stadia that await investment?

If someone cuts down their goalposts, or spreads glass in the goalmouth, or does diffs in a Peugeot 306 on a council pitch, the taxpayer picks up that bill.

In more urban areas where grass pitches are at a greater premium, the disparity in the number of council soccer pitches to Gaelic pitches tells its own story about how public money has long been distributed.

Belfast City Council provides 107 grass soccer pitches and 16 for GAA.

A strategy document released by the council just over a decade ago said 38 new GAA pitches were needed. Five have been built.

East Belfast GAA continually have problems at the Henry Jones Playing Fields.

When the pitch had lines drawn on it so Gaelic football and hurling could be played alongside soccer, TUV candidate Anne Smyth said people were angry and talked about Rule 27, which was removed from the GAA's rulebook in 1971.

Chris Donnelly has written in The Irish News in recent weeks of how, from a media perspective, everything still starts from a unionist viewpoint. He is absolutely right.

It is the same with public money. Sporting facilities are only the tip of an iceberg that does continue to melt, but very slowly.

In 1983, a report by the New Ireland Forum that was established by the Irish government found that northern Catholics had been "deprived of the means of social and economic development".

Thirty years later, a peace-monitoring report by the Community Relations Council found that 80 per cent of the north's most deprived wards were nationalist areas and 70 per cent of its least deprived areas were unionist-dominated.

Nationalists had gerrymandered boundaries, the denial of civil rights, the lack of employment opportunities and all those other things for generations after Ireland was partitioned just over a century ago.

Perhaps if Stormont had been in session for more than two of the last seven years, the cost of Casement Park would never have mushroomed anywhere close to what it now is.

Sinn Féin may well have been the first to step out and for that they are not blameless, but the £500m or so (we've never actually gotten to the bottom of that figure) that was blown by the DUP's RHI scandal had to be dealt with in some way.

So let's not present this as the big bad GAA standing begging for £100m and wonder how they might repay the exchequer for such a handout.

The GAA more than pays its own way financially and, even more so, societally.

Half the people in Ireland would be wee round dumplings if it wasn't for the outlet it provides for almost 2,500 clubs the length and breadth of the island.

Casement Park is inextricably tied to the deadline for Euro 2028.

If it isn't built on that schedule, it is highly unlikely it will ever be built. The British government aren't going to fund a stadium that won't be part of the Euros. The clock, in that sense, ticks.

But let there be no more debate about public money. Nationalists may not like who they pay their taxes to, but they pay them all the same.