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A fairly random one that came up over a foaming ale in D3.

Kilkenny as we know are allowed not field in football. With the ladies merging will the ladies football team be nixed? Will they run 3 out of 4?

Also nobody knew exactly why KK are allowed not field a football team. Anyone remember?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c626xq2n2jxo

Only 213 students from the 6 took up college places in the south in 2025? I find that hard to believe. Has that trended down? I knew 200 nordies 20 years ago in university.

That said I only know 1 person from the south who did a degree up north.

The points piece is interesting but it has always been the way that we do 7/8 Leaving Cert subjects and in the 6 3 A Levels. Why is this now a thing?

The article is a bit of a mess, Galway is too expensive so I am off to London,the CAO system is too complicated but if you spend time figuring it out it's easier and so on.

Assume the position. Major whinge about the state of the pitch incoming. Derry City paying a lot of money for an uncut cabbage patch.

https://m.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/croke-park-to-host-manchester-united-and-leeds-in-august-pre-season-friendly/a1211409904.html

Not sure what to make of this

Firstly the soccer lads will be furious. Those two foreign teams games are a barstooler tax. This is 100% GAA profit, so good work.

But is anyone in Croker aware they will travel in numbers and kick 7 shades of shite out of each other. Is Croker designed to segregate fans?

I can see a de facto ban on soccer in Croke Park because Yorkshire v Lancashire wrecked the place.

1-10 to follow.

Discuss. Argue. Use it for new music. Rediscover. Enjoy.

https://www.todayfm.com/best-bits/today-fms-100-greatest-irish-songs-100-51-revealed-2239126

What say the troops.

Is Burns right in his logic that it's too much hassle to remove Allianz as sponsor? Or is this peak money grabbing from an Association losing touch with it's members?

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