Good article detailing Dublin's unfair funding advantage

[macdanger2]

I'm in disbelief. What is wrong with these people.

Is there a breakdown of delegates voting by county anywhere?

There was a motion at Congress last year or the year before from the GPA to force publication of what way counties vote in every vote so that delegates can be held accountable.......defeated by 82/18%

[MayoBuck]

Sean Kelly was on The GAA Hour podcast from earlier today. I was annoyed with his speech at Congress but he made a lot of sense with his suggestions today. Just infuriating we'll have to wait another year to try and get the change in.

[FermGael]

Article from Former Fermanagh Gaa player Colm Bradley.
Colm now works as a journalist https://www.impartialreporter.com/sport/17449069.column-colm-bradley-rock-the-boat-we-should-be-capsizing-it/

Excellent article

There is a prevailing sense among most GAA people that you shouldn't rock the boat. Well, amongst GAA officials I should say. Especially when that boat is being navigated by someone further up the food chain. It is why you rarely see county boards being critical of Croke Park. I suppose there might be a bit of the old "biting the hand that feeds you" coming in to it too.

Not that this should really bother Fermanagh officials when it comes to Croke Park. We get the crumbs of the crumbs when it comes to investment.

Regular readers of this column will know the feelings that I have about the direction of travel the association is on. The lack of respect afforded to the club player, the growing elitism of the inter county game and the concerted effort being made to create a multi tier championship just three issues of concerns.

It seems very clear that those who run our games have hitched their wagon to the big counties and see them as the future. From a business viewpoint of course this makes perfect sense. In order to generate maximum profit it is the sensible thing to do. That doesn't however make it the right thing to do. What is frightening, however, is that it is a notion which too often goes unchallenged. And when those of us do challenge it in the media we are seen as crackpots or eternal harbingers of doom.

Before going any further it s really important to get clear what the GAA should be about. Not what it is about in Croke Park. But rather what it is about in clubs up and down the country. And it really is quite simple. When you distil it all down it is so, so simple. It is even there front and centre in the GAA's rulebook. The association is about the promotion of our games.

Now, we seem to have gotten to the stage where promotion means bums on seats and big days out in Croke Park. That may form a tiny part of it, but the major mechanical chunks of that promotion comes from the coaches we encounter.

Think about it. Sure, you might have glorious memories of supporting your team in Croker but I bet, if you are somebody embedded in the GAA, it is those people who have shaped and inspired you as coaches that you remember most.

It makes the uneven distribution of Games Development funding by the GAA all the more galling. Figures have been doing the rounds in the media in recent weeks. It makes for grim reading for Fermanagh.

Between 2007 and 2017 we received €530,000, least of all 32 counties. In the same time Dublin received €16.63M. Yes, that's million. Dublin are grossly overfunded in relation to every other county. That's just the reality.

The GAA made a special case of Dublin in the early 2000s and identified it as an area of special need. It no doubt was. But there are other areas of need, and we are one here in Fermanagh. Games Development funding is for coaching within schools and clubs and people use this fact as a way of saying it cannot be linked to Dublin's success at Inter county level. This is plainly nonsense. The level of their funding means that Dublin can spend a disproportionate percentage of what it raises itself on county team development. So let's knock the notion that there is no correlation between development funding and inter county success on the head right now.

But this column is about coaching development, and not inter county teams, so let's just stick to that. Go back a few years to the "Fermanagh GAA - Review of coaching and games development 2015" which was carried out by Wexford native and long time GAA administrator at Croke Park Micheal Martin.

Mr. Martin came up with six recommendations. Here are three:

3. A cost-analysis should be prepared to outline the required funding required for the full implementation of this plan. This should be used to seek funding from sponsors and from Ulster Council/Croke Park.

4. A football development coordinator should be appointed on a three-year term to deliver the recommendations contained in Section 3 & 4.

6. The county should employ/contract a strength-and-conditioning coach to implement a programme for players from 14 to minor.

Ewan McKenna, a journalist, has brought up this review in a number of articles he has written about the stark differences in funding, citing the fact that when funding was sought by Fermanagh GAA it was not forthcoming from Croke Park.

Here is a tweet from Deirdre Donnelly in reply to a McKenna article posted on twitter:

"A great article, I was coaching officer at the time of the review in @FermanaghGAA we worked so hard & jumped over many obstacles & more, to be be ignored in the end! Without the support of @ClubEirne we would be falling further behind. We don't need millions to be successful!"

The reality is that despite doing everything correctly in terms of carrying out a review and a proper cost analysis the pot was empty when Fermanagh went looking for additional funding. We are still rock bottom of the pile. Yet we pay for these additional coaching positions ourselves because it is the right thing to do for our future. And, it is working too.

But we should be screaming about this blatant unfairness. Our county board officials should be screaming it from the rooftops.

It gets worse. New GAA Director, Tom Ryan, in a recent interview with Colm Parkinson on the latter's podcast addressed the issue of Dublin's funding and the fact other counties don't get additional funding based on a needs basis. Ryan said:

"There are a few extra counties who have been added to that mix in the last 12 months, Meath, Kildare, Wicklow, Louth, Wexford, there are one or two others."

It is obvious that those counties have exerted pressure on Croke Park and unsurprisingly a few extra euro has been found in the pot. Fair play to them.

At the start of this column we talked about the fear of rocking the boat. I would go so far as to say that Fermanagh people, by our nature, have taken this fear to the level of phobia.

The GAA is about promoting our games and we can't shake £50,000 extra from Croke Park to do this? At a time when they are bailing out county boards who can't balance the books and at a time when they can't even tell us by how many millions the development of Pairc Ui Chaoimh has gone over budget.

It is laughable and tragic. Here we are in Fermanagh, running our affairs correctly with Club Eirne raising £200,000 a year, and we can't get any assistance in implementing a plan that an outside official of respected standing in the GAA suggested we carry out.

I will tell you what we are; mugs. And as long as we quietly sit and accept our lot we will continue to be mugs. Rock the boat? We should be capsizing it. 

[Rossfan]

64% of the GAA decision makers certainly told us what they think if fairness at the weekend.

[Fuzzman]

Colm Keys: 'No denying Dubs' Croke Park comforts'
When the topic of conversation on RTÉ's league highlights package on Sunday night turned to Congress and Donegal's motion seeking to prohibit Croke Park as a home venue for any All-Ireland quarter-final series game, Colm O'Rourke and Tomás Ó Sé gave answers you would have expected from men of their respective generations and backgrounds.

O'Rourke's Meath career began and ended with failure to beat Dublin in Croke Park Leinster finals but in between he enjoyed the fruits of five Leinster championship wins over Dublin there in addition to a league final success and countless draws. Taking on Dublin in Croke Park was a badge of honour.

Similarly, Ó Sé's Kerry had a firm hold over Dublin in Croke Park until the genie spilled out of the bottle in 2011 and he too was never going to submit to a personal view that Dublin's residency there was something to back away from.

But Croke Park is a different place to O'Rourke's era and Dublin are a different team to what Ó Sé knew there just a few years ago. The premise of that Donegal motion was based on fairness. Or at least the perception of fairness.


They didn't mention Dublin specifically of course but one county potentially getting to play two games at the venue where they have played all their home games, essentially their home venue, for the last nine years doesn't have the right balance to it in a three-round, round-robin competition.

The 'opportunity' to play in Croke Park against Dublin is no longer the catch it once was given their incredible record there over the last decade.

Only six years ago Kildare gave up home advantage in Newbridge to accommodate the bigger crowd in Croke Park for a Dublin league match which they lost by 11 points. Could we see that happening now?

For sure Dublin win most of their matches on the road anyway.

Repeatedly, their main protagonists have stated openly that they welcome those journeys. But it's how and by how much they win their Croke Park games that frames this debate now against any comparison with previous eras when they played league games there without a word of dissent.

The 'spring series', launched in early 2011, brought Dublin teams back to Croke Park for league games after a gap of almost a decade and a half.

It was deemed a 'win-win' for everyone at the time, more of Dublin's burgeoning support got to see their games in more comfortable surroundings and Croke Park got more use at a time when the international soccer and rugby teams' migration north of the Liffey had ended, leaving the venue a little under-utilised.

Saturday night football in Croke Park was conceived to rival Friday Night Lights in Donnybrook, Leinster rugby's successful promotional tool for the hearts and minds of the Dublin sporting public.

It made economic and promotional success.

But the unintended consequence of that has been the familiarity with the place that it has allowed Dublin to develop over the eight years with 32 'home' league matches, on top of their championship catalogue and 10 league play-off games which would be played there anyway.

Young Dublin players are 'broken in' to Croke Park more seamlessly than any of their competitors and can quickly get up to speed with its dimensions, surroundings and atmosphere. If a horse trainer was permitted to school his charges regularly at a racetrack where the major races were run the same advantage would apply.

Darren Gavin has already featured twice there in a senior inter-county career that is just a few months old. That's twice more than any of the current Leitrim players have played for their county there and just two less than a midfielder of Clare's Gary Brennan status in the game when his international rules cap in 2017, and not his Ballyea All-Ireland club final appearance, is taken into account.

Evan Comerford was starting a fourth match for Dublin in Croke Park on Saturday night and delivered what was arguably the best performance from a Dublin goalkeeping understudy in many years, getting his kick-outs away with far greater ease than he did in Tralee a week earlier. Maybe the place is growing on him.

Anyone who believes that Croke Park is not faster and doesn't bounce differently to other pitches requires another look at the scoring differences.

Home success in the league works out at around 52pc without draws, with Division 1 just slightly above that.

Dublin go much higher than that, primarily because they are the best team around. But they win their Croke Park matches by much more and rack up bigger scores there that makes adjustment in the summer much easier for them.

In those 32 regulation matches they have played there since 2011 they have lost just four - Kerry (2012), Tyrone (2013), Cork (2014) and Monaghan (2018) and drawn three - Mayo (2014), Tyrone (2015 and 2017), scoring 49-467 to their opponents' 22-365, an average of 19.18 to 13.46, a difference of 5.72 points, more than four points above the home win average for the league.

On the road (28 regulation games), that gap closes to 1.54 points (25-359 to 20-331, 15.50 points to 13.96 points on average), a difference of 4.18 points between home and away winning margins.

Given how inconsistent they have been in the league over the same period of time, Kerry may not be the best comparison but they have traditionally been Dublin's biggest rivals and are best placed to compete with them in the coming years.

Their home record pales in comparison, but so too does their rate of scoring. In Tralee and Killarney they have amassed 19-394 from 29 games between 2011 and 2019 to their opponents' 29-328, an average of 15.55 points per game to 14.31 or a difference of 1.24 points per game, significantly less than Dublin's 5.72 points per game.

Some of that can be attributed to the fact that Dublin have been better than Kerry in this period but the advantage would be considerably less if Parnell Park was the chosen home venue.

Would that have consequences for their summer engagements then? Whatever the argument for maintaining the status quo, that it's no real advantage to them can't logically be used.

[Dubhaltach]

Sean Kelly was on The GAA Hour podcast from earlier today. I was annoyed with his speech at Congress but he made a lot of sense with his suggestions today. Just infuriating we'll have to wait another year to try and get the change in.

Seán Kelly's argument was a complete red herring. He tried to make out that the problem was with the wording of the motion and that if it had been worded in such a a way that every team in the Super 8s would get one home, one away and one neutral venue (instead of Croke Park), it might have passed.

This is nonsense. When they were making the rules for the Super 8s, they purposely put in 'Croke Park' instead of 'neutral venue' so that there would still 4 Quarter Finals games in Croke Park, the exact same number of games that were there under the old system. The GAA hierarchy hate to see games taken away from Croker due to the money making infrastructure, the corporate boxes, premium seats, bars, merchandise etc. A game in Croker with an attendance of 30,000 is worth multiple times more to the GAA than a game in a provinvial venue with the exact same attendance.

If Donegal worded that motion the way Séan Kelly has laid out, it would have been defeated by even more than it was. The reality is that he is deflecting to save face. He knows that the public can see this for what it is, money taking precedence over fairness and integrity.

[Maroon Manc]

Sean Kelly was on The GAA Hour podcast from earlier today. I was annoyed with his speech at Congress but he made a lot of sense with his suggestions today. Just infuriating we'll have to wait another year to try and get the change in.

Seán Kelly's argument was a complete red herring. He tried to make out that the problem was with the wording of the motion and that if it had been worded in such a a way that every team in the Super 8s would get one home, one away and one neutral venue (instead of Croke Park), it might have passed.

This is nonsense. When they were making the rules for the Super 8s, they purposely put in 'Croke Park' instead of 'neutral venue' so that there would still 4 Quarter Finals games in Croke Park, the exact same number of games that were there under the old system. The GAA hierarchy hate to see games taken away from Croker due to the money making infrastructure, the corporate boxes, premium seats, bars, merchandise etc. A game in Croker with an attendance of 30,000 is worth multiple times more to the GAA than a game in a provinvial venue with the exact same attendance.

If Donegal worded that motion the way Séan Kelly has laid out, it would have been defeated by even more than it was. The reality is that he is deflecting to save face. He knows that the public can see this for what it is, money taking precedence over fairness and integrity.

Spot on, premium seats are very valuable to HQ and taking 5 or 6 Dublin games away from Croker is bound to have an affect on sales. Dublin GAA and HQ could get together to fund a new stadium on the outskirts of Dublin and come to an agreement on splitting revenue from the stadium. There's more ways to make money from a stadium and its surroundings than just on matchday especially in Dublin. Surely HQ could make up the shortfall with Croke Park hosting more concerts; I'd like to think that 5 or 6 concerts would generate just as much money as 4 league games and a couple of championship games.

Attendance wise we've seen a total of 50,000 at the league games in Croker, there average enough attendances. Attendances are already on the wane for Dublin and its only going to get worse if their dominance continues.

[Tatler Jack]

If Donegal worded that motion the way Séan Kelly has laid out, it would have been defeated by even more than it was. The reality is that he is deflecting to save face. He knows that the public can see this for what it is, money taking precedence over fairness and integrity.

Why is Kelly so active on this issue. He is a former President and his views should be irrelevant. Time he learned to take a back seat. Also time that Ryan comes out from whatever office he is bean counting in and interacts with the ordinary supporter. Probably the most low key DG the GAA ever had. We need more than his piece in the annual report.

[Blowitupref]

Sean Kelly was on The GAA Hour podcast from earlier today. I was annoyed with his speech at Congress but he made a lot of sense with his suggestions today. Just infuriating we'll have to wait another year to try and get the change in.

Seán Kelly's argument was a complete red herring. He tried to make out that the problem was with the wording of the motion and that if it had been worded in such a a way that every team in the Super 8s would get one home, one away and one neutral venue (instead of Croke Park), it might have passed.

This is nonsense. When they were making the rules for the Super 8s, they purposely put in 'Croke Park' instead of 'neutral venue' so that there would still 4 Quarter Finals games in Croke Park, the exact same number of games that were there under the old system. The GAA hierarchy hate to see games taken away from Croker due to the money making infrastructure, the corporate boxes, premium seats, bars, merchandise etc. A game in Croker with an attendance of 30,000 is worth multiple times more to the GAA than a game in a provinvial venue with the exact same attendance.

If Donegal worded that motion the way Séan Kelly has laid out, it would have been defeated by even more than it was. The reality is that he is deflecting to save face. He knows that the public can see this for what it is, money taking precedence over fairness and integrity.

As it stands there is 5 All Ireland quarter finals played in Croke Park if it was a case of keeping it as it was with 4 then one of the two Dublin Croke Park games should be played elsewhere.

[priceyreilly]

If Donegal worded that motion the way Séan Kelly has laid out, it would have been defeated by even more than it was. The reality is that he is deflecting to save face. He knows that the public can see this for what it is, money taking precedence over fairness and integrity.

Why is Kelly so active on this issue. He is a former President and his views should be irrelevant. Time he learned to take a back seat. Also time that Ryan comes out from whatever office he is bean counting in and interacts with the ordinary supporter. Probably the most low key DG the GAA ever had. We need more than his piece in the annual report.

Kelly was the president when Dublin were awarded the millions of euro. He was on the Strategic Review Committee which looked into how to improve GAA standards in Dublin in the early 2000's. He was a major player in treating Dublin as an investment, making money for the GAA. He saw Dublin as an opportunity. He has a personal interest in defending every unfair advantage Dublin has.

[From the Bunker]

If Donegal worded that motion the way Séan Kelly has laid out, it would have been defeated by even more than it was. The reality is that he is deflecting to save face. He knows that the public can see this for what it is, money taking precedence over fairness and integrity.

Why is Kelly so active on this issue. He is a former President and his views should be irrelevant. Time he learned to take a back seat. Also time that Ryan comes out from whatever office he is bean counting in and interacts with the ordinary supporter. Probably the most low key DG the GAA ever had. We need more than his piece in the annual report.

Kelly was the president when Dublin were awarded the millions of euro. He was on the Strategic Review Committee which looked into how to improve GAA standards in Dublin in the early 2000's. He was a major player in treating Dublin as an investment, making money for the GAA. He saw Dublin as an opportunity. He has a personal interest in defending every unfair advantage Dublin has.

Yes, saying anything otherwise would be Kelly admitting he was wrong! I'm sure his brethren in Kerry will put a statue up soon for him. 

[manfromdelmonte]

Plus, he's stealing a living as an MEP

[manfromdelmonte]

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/sport/gaa/philly-mcmahons-message-for-dublins-rivals-stop-complaining-about-us-and-start-competing-908744.html

Critics point out that Dublin GAA receives by far the highest coaching funding from Croke Park despite having their own commercial department and being in a position to strike lucrative sponsorship deals no other county can.

"I didn't see all this money, I didn't get any money," said McMahon. "What money did I get from that, from the figures that have been going around? I got Paddy Christie coming to my school, taking me out of class, and telling me to come up and train in Poppintree Park. That's what I got!

********
Not even the Dublin players understand the imbalance in funding compared to other counties

[DuffleKing]

It's astonishing that someone as apparently bright as Philly could be so dumb on a particular subject.

[highorlow]

It's astonishing that someone as apparently bright as Philly could be so dumb on a particular subject.

Aye, this is one dumb quote by him....

"I think it sends the wrong message out for the next generation. So what we're saying is, 'Right, if we have a team that's successful, let's complain. Let's complain about the rules, let's complain about money, let's complain about the population,' instead of saying, 'Let's actually beat them when they have all that.'

On the one hand at least he is admitting to the financial doping.