Ungrateful FAI Delaney

[T Fearon]

complete and utter cobblers.

The FAI always acknowledged the assistance of the GAA in match programmes etc and I never heard a soccer fan complain about Croker or the GAA.

[ziggysego]

complete and utter cobblers.

The FAI always acknowledged the assistance of the GAA in match programmes etc and I never heard a soccer fan complain about Croker or the GAA.

I remember the first thing the FAI did when they got into Croke Park. They complained about the state of the pitch.

[Dakota]

complete and utter cobblers.

The FAI always acknowledged the assistance of the GAA in match programmes etc and I never heard a soccer fan complain about Croker or the GAA.

I remember the first thing the FAI did when they got into Croke Park. They complained about the state of the pitch.

If you rent a house and the floors are dirty when you move in would you complain? Especially if it's costing you over a million to rent?

[ogshead]

complete and utter cobblers.

The FAI always acknowledged the assistance of the GAA in match programmes etc and I never heard a soccer fan complain about Croker or the GAA.

I would expect nothing less. It is only right that you would thank someone for their help. The point I was trying to make concerned what happens when Lansdown Road is finished. You were the one who said that the Croke Park are begging the Soccer and Rugby to keep on using them. I replied by saying that there will be trouble when there's big demand for tickets and their ground only holds 50,000. That's when the tabloids will start calling for Croke Park to be opened for it. Everyone know's that the contract for Lansdown can't be broken but you can be sure the blame would be placed firmly at the GAA's door if they didn't keep it open.

Soccer fans do indeed knock the GAA and call them the Grab All Association and have a right laugh so you must not be talking to too many of them

[Dakota]

Can you not be a fan of both?

[ogshead]

Can you not be a fan of both?

You can be a fan of both. I was really disappointed with the Henry incident but I'm a GAA man first and foremost and I didn't like the comment that the GAA are going begging the FAI and IRFU to keep on using Croker

[ziggysego]

complete and utter cobblers.

The FAI always acknowledged the assistance of the GAA in match programmes etc and I never heard a soccer fan complain about Croker or the GAA.

I remember the first thing the FAI did when they got into Croke Park. They complained about the state of the pitch.

If you rent a house and the floors are dirty when you move in would you complain? Especially if it's costing you over a million to rent?

There was nothing wrong with the pitch then and the rugby ones were very gracious when they came. None of this rubbish.

[T Fearon]

I think perhaps the complaint was from the manager and akin to something like its not what soccer players are used to.

As a paying supporter (ie GAA Season ticket holder and FAI Block Booker) I enjoy and am loyal to both codes but I think neither the gaa nor the FAI should be above criticism. They both make howlers but are both largely successful so they do a hell of a lot more thats right.

Thankfully criticism of the FAI from GAA sources is now reduced to the few neanderthals who are typical of some of the posters on this thread. It is a welcome by product of soccer at Croker that barriers have been broken down and a new maturity exists. If the present GAA officialdom had been in charge in 1996/97 I have no doubt Croker would have become a national sports stadium and there would have been no redevlopment at Lansdowne.

I think when alls said and done and the chips are down, one has only to examine the pitiful attendance at the start of the Ulster semi final between Donegal and Derry in 2002 which just happened to overlap with the crucial Ireland V Spain World Cup tie. On that day I think we got a glimpse of where the average irish sports fan priotises his allegiance these days.

[Rav67]

I think perhaps the complaint was from the manager and akin to something like its not what soccer players are used to.

As a paying supporter (ie GAA Season ticket holder and FAI Block Booker) I enjoy and am loyal to both codes but I think neither the gaa nor the FAI should be above criticism. They both make howlers but are both largely successful so they do a hell of a lot more thats right.

Thankfully criticism of the FAI from GAA sources is now reduced to the few neanderthals who are typical of some of the posters on this thread. It is a welcome by product of soccer at Croker that barriers have been broken down and a new maturity exists. If the present GAA officialdom had been in charge in 1996/97 I have no doubt Croker would have become a national sports stadium and there would have been no redevlopment at Lansdowne.

I think when alls said and done and the chips are down, one has only to examine the pitiful attendance at the start of the Ulster semi final between Donegal and Derry in 2002 which just happened to overlap with the crucial Ireland V Spain World Cup tie. On that day I think we got a glimpse of where the average irish sports fan priotises his allegiance these days.

Bit of an extreme example, Ireland has only been to 4 tournaments ever and the buckin things are on every 2 years, and it was a knockout match.  The attendance picked up after the penos and was a lot higher than you'd ever see for a soccer game apart from an international.

[rosnarun]

and thry krpt thsnking them till the thought they didnt need Croke park any more and then delany started blaaaming the GAA for making them build a pitch.
eaten bread is soon forgotten
Rule 1 in how to act like a kn**ker

[INDIANA]

I think perhaps the complaint was from the manager and akin to something like its not what soccer players are used to.

As a paying supporter (ie GAA Season ticket holder and FAI Block Booker) I enjoy and am loyal to both codes but I think neither the gaa nor the FAI should be above criticism. They both make howlers but are both largely successful so they do a hell of a lot more thats right.

Thankfully criticism of the FAI from GAA sources is now reduced to the few neanderthals who are typical of some of the posters on this thread. It is a welcome by product of soccer at Croker that barriers have been broken down and a new maturity exists. If the present GAA officialdom had been in charge in 1996/97 I have no doubt Croker would have become a national sports stadium and there would have been no redevlopment at Lansdowne.

I think when alls said and done and the chips are down, one has only to examine the pitiful attendance at the start of the Ulster semi final between Donegal and Derry in 2002 which just happened to overlap with the crucial Ireland V Spain World Cup tie. On that day I think we got a glimpse of where the average irish sports fan priotises his allegiance these days.

I marvel at such "scholars" as yourself Tony who continually fail to acknowledge the facts of the situation that it was the FAi who refused any avenue of a National Stadium being pursued. Until such time as you produce concrete evidence as to the GAA's reluctance in such an arrangement the rest of us will simply scoff at level of bullshit you go on with -like the post above. We have our evidence- you unfortunately have none. Except idle speculation based on the meanderings of John Delaney who can't sell his corporate boxes to fund his half of the bargain with the Aviva Stadium. What a laugh for an alleged professional organisation.

By the way i support the irish soccer team and have travelled abroad to watch them. But the FAI are the Fianna Fail equivalent of a sporting organisation. An ignorant boorish organisation which has delusions of grandeur and run by incompetents who have sucked the well dry over the years. Any you're asking us to take anything John Delaney says seriously

[Bord na Mona man]

The underlying issue is that majority of Irish sports fans have no particularly strong allegiance to any sporting organisation over another, as Tony described. Their main kick is the big days out they get from soccer, GAA, rugby etc.

The issue of how stadiums are funded, who builds them is a moot point to the average fan. The problem with the Croke Park usage debate was that it very often boiled down to a huge amount of sports fans simply wanting to enjoy their big day out soccer experiences in a big modern stadium - rather than any concept of what was in the GAA's best interests.
Even if the FAI never coughed up a penny to the construction and the GAA raised 300 million, there was still the concept of shared entitlement to the ground,

Look at how the GAA gets lectured from all angles that it should act in the "national interest" and how it would have been a national embarrassment if Irish teams played abroad (ironic given where the Brazil fixture will be played). Its as if the GAA is some sort of publicly owned utility there to serve the whims of the citizenry.

Tony complaining that the GAA should have gone out of its way to the save the FAI, IRFU and the taxpayer millions by building them a "National Stadium" takes the biscuit entirely. 
By that logic, Arsenal should be the good neighbour and save Spurs having to spend millions on a stadium upgrade by handing them the keys to the Emirates.

[T Fearon]

It was my understanding that if the GAA had consented to Croke Park becoming a national sports stadium, they would have provided a major portion of the funding as indeed would the IRFU and FAI.

Also central to the Croke Park usage debate was the economic factor, and the amount of money that would be lost to the Dublin and indeed Irish economy in general if the soccer and rugby international home games had to be moved to the UK.

If you wish to examine laughable anomalies you only have to look at the Ulster GAA counties who opposed opening Croke Park but are happy to accept grants for development funded largely by Rugby and soccer followers money

[thewanderer]

Tony calm it my old son, i think you have made ur point as you wanted too. You are intitled to ur opinion at all times but so are others and who is right or wrong is a matter of opinion again.

[T Fearon]

I am not losing it. I have indeed made my point, supported as usual by lucid, logical and irrefutable arguments, and happy to leave it at that.