Money, Dublin and the GAA

[Dinny Breen]

I think the 'financial doping' accusation is pretty appropriate in this context.
Take a supremely fit athlete, who trains hard, eats all the right food, gets 8 hours sleep etc.
Now, give him steroids, growth hormone, EPO etc.
He was already a brilliant athlete, working as hard as he could, now you've made him unbeatable.
This is what a lot of Dublin fans don't seem to understand.
Nobody is saying this Dublin team, and by extension the county board, haven't put in trojan work over many years to reach this point.
In the same way the Kilkenny county board had their systems & structures in place for their glory years.
The difference between the two examples is the massive injection of money that Dublin received, which (per capita) is far in excess of that available to other counties.
You can replicate hard work.
You can't replicate money.

I just think to call athletes dopers, of any kind, isn't really on to be honest unless you have concrete evidence that they are in fact doped. I know in your post you mention hard work as well, but by calling them doped you are taking away all credit from them for anything they have achieved over the last few years.

The figures and graphs bandied about, like the latest article yesterday that talk about Dublin getting 16 million over the last 10 yrs and Tyrone only getting 560k. just aren't accurate and they have been debunked before and all come from the same source. Without doubt Dublin have money behind them but so do some of their competitors like Kerry and Tyrone. Even in the hurling, this years winners are bankrolled by a multi millionaire.

Take players from any of the top few inter county teams in football and hurling:
They all work with S&C specialists
They all work with Sports Psychologists
They all have access to Physio's and medical experts on tap
They all have backroom teams of approx 30 people give or take a couple
They all train in top facilities (Currans Centre, Garvaghey etc.)
They all get free cars
They all get free Holidays / Go on training camps
They all have underage coaching structures in place (some got them together later than others). See quote below from Tomas O'Se from the weekend
"You have to give a lot of credit to the structures they have within the county...Donal Daly organised everything. He has coaches under him who coach the coaches within the clubs, They have structures then for academy players, they start at under-14 level. They bring them through, they're giving the expertise that they have to them,"
They all work or study and train only in their spare time

Can you list the advantages that this Dublin team have got over their closest rivals due to an injection of massive amounts of money?
What are they getting out of this money that Kerry for example do not have?

Debunk away so, enlighten us?

[Franko]

I think the 'financial doping' accusation is pretty appropriate in this context.
Take a supremely fit athlete, who trains hard, eats all the right food, gets 8 hours sleep etc.
Now, give him steroids, growth hormone, EPO etc.
He was already a brilliant athlete, working as hard as he could, now you've made him unbeatable.
This is what a lot of Dublin fans don't seem to understand.
Nobody is saying this Dublin team, and by extension the county board, haven't put in trojan work over many years to reach this point.
In the same way the Kilkenny county board had their systems & structures in place for their glory years.
The difference between the two examples is the massive injection of money that Dublin received, which (per capita) is far in excess of that available to other counties.
You can replicate hard work.
You can't replicate money.

I just think to call athletes dopers, of any kind, isn't really on to be honest unless you have concrete evidence that they are in fact doped. I know in your post you mention hard work as well, but by calling them doped you are taking away all credit from them for anything they have achieved over the last few years.

The figures and graphs bandied about, like the latest article yesterday that talk about Dublin getting 16 million over the last 10 yrs and Tyrone only getting 560k. just aren't accurate and they have been debunked before and all come from the same source. Without doubt Dublin have money behind them but so do some of their competitors like Kerry and Tyrone. Even in the hurling, this years winners are bankrolled by a multi millionaire.

Take players from any of the top few inter county teams in football and hurling:
They all work with S&C specialists
They all work with Sports Psychologists
They all have access to Physio's and medical experts on tap
They all have backroom teams of approx 30 people give or take a couple
They all train in top facilities (Currans Centre, Garvaghey etc.)
They all get free cars
They all get free Holidays / Go on training camps
They all have underage coaching structures in place (some got them together later than others). See quote below from Tomas O'Se from the weekend
"You have to give a lot of credit to the structures they have within the county...Donal Daly organised everything. He has coaches under him who coach the coaches within the clubs, They have structures then for academy players, they start at under-14 level. They bring them through, they're giving the expertise that they have to them,"
They all work or study and train only in their spare time

Can you list the advantages that this Dublin team have got over their closest rivals due to an injection of massive amounts of money?
What are they getting out of this money that Kerry for example do not have?

I have never once seen these figures debunked.  Throw up a link there.

[LeoMc]

I think the 'financial doping' accusation is pretty appropriate in this context.
Take a supremely fit athlete, who trains hard, eats all the right food, gets 8 hours sleep etc.
Now, give him steroids, growth hormone, EPO etc.
He was already a brilliant athlete, working as hard as he could, now you've made him unbeatable.
This is what a lot of Dublin fans don't seem to understand.
Nobody is saying this Dublin team, and by extension the county board, haven't put in trojan work over many years to reach this point.
In the same way the Kilkenny county board had their systems & structures in place for their glory years.
The difference between the two examples is the massive injection of money that Dublin received, which (per capita) is far in excess of that available to other counties.
You can replicate hard work.
You can't replicate money.

I just think to call athletes dopers, of any kind, isn't really on to be honest unless you have concrete evidence that they are in fact doped. I know in your post you mention hard work as well, but by calling them doped you are taking away all credit from them for anything they have achieved over the last few years.

The figures and graphs bandied about, like the latest article yesterday that talk about Dublin getting 16 million over the last 10 yrs and Tyrone only getting 560k. just aren't accurate and they have been debunked before and all come from the same source. Without doubt Dublin have money behind them but so do some of their competitors like Kerry and Tyrone. Even in the hurling, this years winners are bankrolled by a multi millionaire.

Take players from any of the top few inter county teams in football and hurling:
They all work with S&C specialists
They all work with Sports Psychologists
They all have access to Physio's and medical experts on tap
They all have backroom teams of approx 30 people give or take a couple
They all train in top facilities (Currans Centre, Garvaghey etc.)
They all get free cars
They all get free Holidays / Go on training camps
They all have underage coaching structures in place (some got them together later than others). See quote below from Tomas O'Se from the weekend
"You have to give a lot of credit to the structures they have within the county...Donal Daly organised everything. He has coaches under him who coach the coaches within the clubs, They have structures then for academy players, they start at under-14 level. They bring them through, they're giving the expertise that they have to them,"
They all work or study and train only in their spare time

Can you list the advantages that this Dublin team have got over their closest rivals due to an injection of massive amounts of money?
What are they getting out of this money that Kerry for example do not have?

Really?

[Kidder81]

Tyrone ones some cheek gurning about Dublin & money with Mickey Harte on £75k a year

[tyrone08]

Tyrone ones some cheek gurning about Dublin & money with Mickey Harte on £75k a year

£75k a year??? Jesus that cant be right. Where did you hear that. If thats right then Jim Gavin must be easily £150k

[mup]

Tyrone ones some cheek gurning about Dublin & money with Mickey Harte on £75k a year

£75k a year??? Jesus that cant be right. Where did you hear that. If thats right then Jim Gavin must be easily £150k

Its actually amazing how the Dubs can claim every other manager is on x amount per year but can never back it up with facts.

Yet when Jim Gavin never ever takes a bob.

That's really head up the arse stuff altogether.

[Hound]

Tyrone ones some cheek gurning about Dublin & money with Mickey Harte on £75k a year

£75k a year??? Jesus that cant be right. Where did you hear that. If thats right then Jim Gavin must be easily £150k

Jim Gavin gets nothing. As does Pat Gilroy. Both have well paid jobs. Ger Cunningham got paid, but Anthony Daly is the highest paid manager in Dublin.
It is said that we seriously thought about paying Mick O'Dwyer a good few years back, but we still have never paid a football manager. Some of them even refused expenses, as it would be little enough. Tommy Lyons could have claimed for trips to and from Mayo, but even he declined to do so.

There are plenty of managers in Dublin club football getting paid. And I'm sure we're not the only county where that goes on. 

[Hound]

Even if we take it that the lads playing now aren't seeing the benefit of that money surely you have to see that the current crop of Elite players were taking advantage of the money pumped into the grass roots in the last 10 years!!!

That's exactly it, they weren't!

Every lad would be coached by parents during their club careers. Then when they go onto Dublin development panels, they'd be coached by unpaid ex Dubs players.

While there's the odd exception, the vast majority of the paid coaches are young people, with little or no experience. They wouldn't be let near the senior teams or better underage teams. Most of their time is spent going to National Schools giving PE classes to primary school children and encouraging them to join the club where the parents take over. They'll run classes "train the trainer" type for the volunteer parents have little/no experience to teach them the basic skills and how to teach the basic skills. Nothing about tactics, etc. The parents with senior playing experience or who have coached for a while would tend not to go with those, as they'd know more than the young paid coach.

Yes these young coaches who have probably gone through a rigorous selection programme which would demand a lifetime in the GAA and a University education then upon obtaining the role they are delivering the the best funded coaching programme the sport has ever seen!!

I was in Dublin 2006 and Enda McNulty was the Coaching officer for Ballyboden and they had 2 at that stage for one club. . . You can't tell me that the younger lads on the Dublin team have not been receiving the benefit from it it's crazy to suggest otherwise!!

Well I'm telling you, its the truth.

My son played for 5 years and had two sessions with a GPO. Both in the same week after the two parents over the team had a row and both walked away. My nephew has played for 7 years and has never had a session from a GPO. His team has two parents who both played senior for our club, as would be reasonably common throughout most clubs.

How many Enda McNultys do you think there are? 50 spread across the Dublin clubs? Like think about it, who are they and where do they go? On a salary somewhere in the mid 20s EUR? About 3 or 4 years ago I remember hearing there were 4 ex-county players coaching as GPOs in Dublin. I don't know the current number, but I'd find it hard to believe its much different. Anyone any good at it will move into something else where they can make a career within a very short time.

I know the one player from my club that's on the senior panel never got a single training session from a paid coach while underage. I'd say that's more common than not. The Mun lads, of which there are lots, would be the same. I'd say Crokes and Boden lads might be the only exception and even then I'd say there were better ex-player coaches doing most of the training and all for nothing .

The GPOs predominantly coach weaker children. That is a fact, and that's the whole point of the GPOs. Saying funds given per player playing is a complete nonsense. It's funds per child not playing that is the point of it. And the lads that need the extra persuading are usually the lads who haven't got the whole heap of natural ability or natural eagerness. Maybe you'll pick up the odd swan, but very few I'd wager.

[Gael85]

Even if we take it that the lads playing now aren't seeing the benefit of that money surely you have to see that the current crop of Elite players were taking advantage of the money pumped into the grass roots in the last 10 years!!!

That's exactly it, they weren't!

Every lad would be coached by parents during their club careers. Then when they go onto Dublin development panels, they'd be coached by unpaid ex Dubs players.

While there's the odd exception, the vast majority of the paid coaches are young people, with little or no experience. They wouldn't be let near the senior teams or better underage teams. Most of their time is spent going to National Schools giving PE classes to primary school children and encouraging them to join the club where the parents take over. They'll run classes "train the trainer" type for the volunteer parents have little/no experience to teach them the basic skills and how to teach the basic skills. Nothing about tactics, etc. The parents with senior playing experience or who have coached for a while would tend not to go with those, as they'd know more than the young paid coach.

Yes these young coaches who have probably gone through a rigorous selection programme which would demand a lifetime in the GAA and a University education then upon obtaining the role they are delivering the the best funded coaching programme the sport has ever seen!!

I was in Dublin 2006 and Enda McNulty was the Coaching officer for Ballyboden and they had 2 at that stage for one club. . . You can't tell me that the younger lads on the Dublin team have not been receiving the benefit from it it's crazy to suggest otherwise!!

Well I'm telling you, its the truth.

My son played for 5 years and had two sessions with a GPO. Both in the same week after the two parents over the team had a row and both walked away. My nephew has played for 7 years and has never had a session from a GPO. His team has two parents who both played senior for our club, as would be reasonably common throughout most clubs.

How many Enda McNultys do you think there are? 50 spread across the Dublin clubs? Like think about it, who are they and where do they go? On a salary somewhere in the mid 20s EUR? About 3 or 4 years ago I remember hearing there were 4 ex-county players coaching as GPOs in Dublin. I don't know the current number, but I'd find it hard to believe its much different. Anyone any good at it will move into something else where they can make a career within a very short time.

I know the one player from my club that's on the senior panel never got a single training session from a paid coach while underage. I'd say that's more common than not. The Mun lads, of which there are lots, would be the same. I'd say Crokes and Boden lads might be the only exception and even then I'd say there were better ex-player coaches doing most of the training and all for nothing .

The GPOs predominantly coach weaker children. That is a fact, and that's the whole point of the GPOs. Saying funds given per player playing is a complete nonsense. It's funds per child not playing that is the point of it. And the lads that need the extra persuading are usually the lads who haven't got the whole heap of natural ability or natural eagerness. Maybe you'll pick up the odd swan, but very few I'd wager.

I doubt McNulty done much coaching. Probably just on the boden payroll. Didn't he transfer to Na Fianna after? Paddy Christie done great work with Mun bringing through two underage teams.

[Hound]

By the way, I'm not saying Dublin don't have many advantages, we clearly do, but people go after the nonsense.

Population is the key one. More players to choose from. Particularly immigration from Ireland. Most country people will join their local GAA club when they have kids, thus increasing membership revenue, increasing the need for facilities and increasing the ability to raise the 50% required by the club.

Club football standard is very high and you could argue more important than population, but one leads to the other perhaps. They train far harder than our country cousins because everyone is living in the locality. And money from members is paying good managers to help them. My club has won sweet FA but they are senior and they train 4 times a week (or 3 plus game).

Croke Park.

Everyone on the county panel living in a 30 mile or so radius so don't have to waste time and energy travelling to and from training.

Sponsorship.

Not the mention the current manager, keeper, freetaker, etc.....

[manfromdelmonte]

How much did the Dubs have to fundraise last year?

Sweet feck all.

Most counties have to find their spending almost entirely through fundraising

[Halfquarter]

By the way, I'm not saying Dublin don't have many advantages, we clearly do, but people go after the nonsense.

Population is the key one. More players to choose from. Particularly immigration from Ireland. Most country people will join their local GAA club when they have kids, thus increasing membership revenue, increasing the need for facilities and increasing the ability to raise the 50% required by the club.

Club football standard is very high and you could argue more important than population, but one leads to the other perhaps. They train far harder than our country cousins because everyone is living in the locality. And money from members is paying good managers to help them. My club has won sweet FA but they are senior and they train 4 times a week (or 3 plus game).

Croke Park.

Everyone on the county panel living in a 30 mile or so radius so don't have to waste time and energy travelling to and from training.

Sponsorship.

Not the mention the current manager, keeper, freetaker, etc.....

Great, i always wondered what Dublin's magic formula was,  now I know, thanks.

[trailer]

How much did the Dubs have to fundraise last year?

Sweet feck all.

Most counties have to find their spending almost entirely through fundraising

Be interesting to know how much was raised.
How much do Dublin contribute to GAA finances? What is the net figure after taking out what they receive?
Do these figures exist?

[Falcao]

Debunk away so, enlighten us?

Counties receive dev funding from central and provincial councils. Ewans numbers only cover central council funding they ignore provincial council funding. 60% ( or approx 5m) of games dev funding is distributed via the provincial councils each year. Surely you cannot come to conclusions on funding based on only 40% of the data. If you apply for a mortgage you need to show the bank manager all of your accounts not just the one that makes your case look good.

Ewan uses this method as it suits his agenda because there is one key difference between Dublin and other counties. Dubs receive the bulk of their funding from central council, where as the opposite is true for the other counties, they all receive the majority of their funding from their provincial council. Therefore by just using central council funding the numbers are skewed misleadingly against Dublin.

The other thing he does to get his headline grabbing numbers is divide the total funding by no. of registered gaa players in the county. Which is also completely misleading as it is common knowledge that these funds are also used to coach non registered kids in schools.

Would you agree based on the above that his numbers are incorrect and have been debunked?

[Mano]

Even if we take it that the lads playing now aren't seeing the benefit of that money surely you have to see that the current crop of Elite players were taking advantage of the money pumped into the grass roots in the last 10 years!!!

That's exactly it, they weren't!

Every lad would be coached by parents during their club careers. Then when they go onto Dublin development panels, they'd be coached by unpaid ex Dubs players.

While there's the odd exception, the vast majority of the paid coaches are young people, with little or no experience. They wouldn't be let near the senior teams or better underage teams. Most of their time is spent going to National Schools giving PE classes to primary school children and encouraging them to join the club where the parents take over. They'll run classes "train the trainer" type for the volunteer parents have little/no experience to teach them the basic skills and how to teach the basic skills. Nothing about tactics, etc. The parents with senior playing experience or who have coached for a while would tend not to go with those, as they'd know more than the young paid coach.

Yes these young coaches who have probably gone through a rigorous selection programme which would demand a lifetime in the GAA and a University education then upon obtaining the role they are delivering the the best funded coaching programme the sport has ever seen!!

I was in Dublin 2006 and Enda McNulty was the Coaching officer for Ballyboden and they had 2 at that stage for one club. . . You can't tell me that the younger lads on the Dublin team have not been receiving the benefit from it it's crazy to suggest otherwise!!

Well I'm telling you, its the truth.

My son played for 5 years and had two sessions with a GPO. Both in the same week after the two parents over the team had a row and both walked away. My nephew has played for 7 years and has never had a session from a GPO. His team has two parents who both played senior for our club, as would be reasonably common throughout most clubs.

How many Enda McNultys do you think there are? 50 spread across the Dublin clubs? Like think about it, who are they and where do they go? On a salary somewhere in the mid 20s EUR? About 3 or 4 years ago I remember hearing there were 4 ex-county players coaching as GPOs in Dublin. I don't know the current number, but I'd find it hard to believe its much different. Anyone any good at it will move into something else where they can make a career within a very short time.

I know the one player from my club that's on the senior panel never got a single training session from a paid coach while underage. I'd say that's more common than not. The Mun lads, of which there are lots, would be the same. I'd say Crokes and Boden lads might be the only exception and even then I'd say there were better ex-player coaches doing most of the training and all for nothing .

The GPOs predominantly coach weaker children. That is a fact, and that's the whole point of the GPOs. Saying funds given per player playing is a complete nonsense. It's funds per child not playing that is the point of it. And the lads that need the extra persuading are usually the lads who haven't got the whole heap of natural ability or natural eagerness. Maybe you'll pick up the odd swan, but very few I'd wager.

Thats not what i witnessed when i lived in Dublin and was involved with a club at nursery level in up and coming West Dublin club. The GPO would be in the schools every week and would take a session with nursery once a month and give instructions to the mentors and other volunteers. The club encouraged its members to attend GAA courses. In 2 years i attended 3 courses. It was given by 3 different GPO's, one was a current Leitrim footballer, another by Johnny Coopers brother and the GPO of the club. To say GPO dont get involved with training of young players is false. They mentor all the club volunteers in drills and preparation and get involved in training themselves. Difference in Sligo is night and day. Only 2 GPO between all Sligo clubs.