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I see McManus has asked for another €30m from the Department of Sport because he did his sums wrong.

This is on top of the €58m he already got and the €150m for road improvements.

If he gets it, which I suspect he will, that is 45% of the entire sports budget. Remember that when your club doesn't get a grant. There was money for the tax exiled billionaire to run a for profit event in his own hotel though.

https://www.rte.ie/sport/football/2023/0715/1394750-louth-facing-gaa-reassessment-on-stadium-plans/

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-41184733.html

Croke Park have told Louth to stop the project as it is now more than 2x over budget and the arab passport money isn't in. Louth are cracking on and turning the sod at 11, and tapping the GAA up for 7m.

It does look like the funding for this is with the birds and the GAA centrally will end up carrying the can. But other than not give them 7m, can Croker actually stop this?

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-41101834.html

Predictable

https://m.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/irish-government-announce-500000-grant-for-development-of-new-york-gaas-gaelic-park-42388605.html

500k government grant for the Bronx. Gone down as well as you would expect on the socials

https://m.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaa-reject-mayos-application-to-wear-rainbow-numbers-in-support-of-lgbtq-community-as-they-see-playing-kit-as-sacrosanct-42184406.html

Mayo not allowed incorporate a rainbow design at the request of their charity partner because the jersey is sacrosanct. Unless of  course it's a sponsor or manufacturer logo.

Right answer, wrong justification for me.

Jungle drums say the GAA, LGFA and CI are merging in (or from) December. Anyone else hearing this?

Any northern correspondant know what's actually going on? The two sides here seem miles apart with their stories

https://twitter.com/bernardbrogan/status/1545046503210696705?t=XT7cti85JNL9i3cPwnj7FQ&s=19

So he does.

That said, there has been hee haw press or plugging of Sunday.

I see the junior minister for sport has targeted the GAA, FAI and IRFU for removing 50% of state funding if they don't immediately increase the level of women to 40% on all boards. Currently the GAA have 11%. By comparison the FAI have 25%, the IRFU 8%.

Soccer and rugby have ballpark participation levels matched. But on the basis the GAA don't do womens sport, what exactly is the point of this?

2022 and this shite is still happening?

https://www.offalyexpress.ie/news/gaa/784742/four-players-dropped-from-offaly-gaa-panel-after-playing-soccer-match.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

A bit of a mad one.

Long story short, a company had bought the rights to use the Mayo Ladies Football crest on merchandise. The GAA sued, it also being the Mayo GAA crest, but it turns out the GAA doesn't own any copyright of county stuff, county boards do. So they sued and settled. But they share these copyrights with other non GAA teams. Clear?

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/retail-and-services/legal-dispute-over-use-of-mayo-gaa-crest-is-settled-1.4782586

On one hand it seems dicky to sue a company the Mayo LGFA fair and square did a deal with. It's their crest too. But it's a very obvious back door to sell merch as if it was official Mayo GAA gear.

But who actually owns a crest of you share it with two other sports bodies in your county? Time to pool merch amongst the 3 sports or tell them to get their own crest and kit?

Getting interesting. Long story short there is a forensic audit into Cork finances in general to find the missing PuC funds in particular. Along the way the guts of €200k were found for grants never allocated that were not booked in the accounts.

I assume a hangover from Frank but the response being to complain its gone public isn't reassuring.

https://m.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/cork-gaa-chairman-insists-there-was-no-misappropriation-of-funds-followingaudit-and-risk-committee-discovery-40493731.html

The women are now getting the same grant of €1,200 as the men, taken from what was originally the Olympian fund.

Positive in terms of equality but reopens the old Jerry Kiernan argument and the 'why are the taxpayers paying them at all' discussion.

Personality I cannot see any legitimate reason as to why the taxpayer is paying any sports people and can't see any justification for not extending it to all sports.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/government-to-treble-grants-for-women-intercounty-gaa-players-to-1-200-1.4560392

An intersting one that first surfaced in 2018. The Brits are going to bid for 2030 but after doing the sums want a joint bid. Ireland, Scotland, Wales and for reasons not yet made clear the 6c have been invited on board. Limits the investment England needs in stadiums and infrastructure as Dublin, Cardiff and one or both of Edinburgh and Glasgow are good to go.

Minimum criteria is a 40,000 seated venue and a city with an airport, a large number of hotel rooms and a train station that can handle large volumes and only one city can have 2 venues

So a possible lineup of:

London Wembley
London eile
Manchester
Liverpool
Birmingham
Newcastle
Cardiff
Glasgow
Edinburgh
Dublin

From a GAA perspective if they play it right a Belfast stadium could make that list

Surprised no thread.

Some important changes agreed.

-Sinbin in hurling
-Split Season
- 16 teams in club championships

And absolutely critical, the topic of every GAA discussion. A ban on 'duel captains'. Only one person allowed lift a trophy.

https://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2021/0227/1199707-gaa-congress-2021-updates/

Jerry pissed off a few of us years ago when he gave out about 'The GAH' getting so much airplay or money or something.

Jerry was an honest broker who called it as he saw it and was an athletics man 100% to the core.

RIP

He was pissed off that the Olympics fund was raided to give intercounty players 3k each. He went into orbit when it was suggested GAA players were just as fit and trained as hard as elite track and field athletes and as such deserved it.

And he wasn't wrong.

Cork sign a €2m 5 year deal with Sports Direct.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-40200288.html

In the plus column thats big money in the current environment, gets their merch into a global chain and amusingly its the FAI subsidising it. I can see stadium naming to follow.

But this is the man who out snaked Delaney. Have we faith they didn't sign clauses like the soccer lads did?

If we are going to rob things from soccer, can we at least rob stuff worth robbing?

So as not to disrupt the Charlton thread.

What's your favourite Irish sporting myth.

A few to get the ball rolling.

- Big Jack used to buy huge rounds and pay by cheque knowing the publican would frame rather than cash. Was a demon for it, but no record of any framed cheque exists.

- Socrates played (and often won) Sigerson for UCD while studying in the Royal College of Surgeons after being passed by Bohs or Shels or both because he smoked. This was quite the feat as he visited Dublin once as coach of the Brazil team when they played Ireland in 2010. This one made the Sunday Tribune obituary to the man, so I think it wins.

-Limerick is the sports capital of Ireland

-Germanys away shirt is green because Ireland were the first team to play them after the war, even though Switzerland did and Germany always wore green away as thats the colour of the pitch.

-Rugby is the national sport

- Jason Sherlock/Anthony Tohill/Kevin Moran/Graham Geraghty were on trial at Liverpool/Arsenal/Man United and Dalgliesh/Wenger/Ferguson/Big Ron/Ray Parlour/Lee Dixon said they were the fittest guy they had ever seen and wrote it in their book, but the edition people have must have cut it as its not there now.

Floor is open.

https://m.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaa-congress-2019-ban-on-country-ground-being-used-for-sports-other-than-hurling-and-gaelic-football-lifted-37845599.html

Intersting but ultimately irrelevant as nobody is looking to use them