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That's a fair enough assessment.

I never understood why they abandoned the ground instead of continuing to play games until the diggers were in position, which is what they did in every other ground in the country. Given that delay was even more likely in Belfast it made no sense. 

The decision not to renew the insurance for the grounds (again disputed as to under who's advice) was touted as the reason that it got mothballed.

The decision not to renew the insurance is effectively the decision to close the ground.

Then the stand was falling down.
Then there were major electrical issues with the stand.
Then there were more lies.

And the truth is somewhere in the middle there of all of that

That's a fair enough assessment.

I never understood why they abandoned the ground instead of continuing to play games until the diggers were in position, which is what they did in every other ground in the country. Given that delay was even more likely in Belfast it made no sense. 

The decision not to renew the insurance for the grounds (again disputed as to under who's advice) was touted as the reason that it got mothballed.

I don't disagree with you entirely but the GAA people of Antrim need to honestly reflect on the role they played in this debacle too. Now, they were led up the garden path by their top men but they happily danced up it and hurled all sorts of abuse at those who voiced any opposition.

Antrim have been completely shafted but they were always going to be shafted and amazingly were very happy about it for a long time. Some still are ffs.

I am no fan of those involved from our side at the outset of this farce, but I think if you want to start and point fingers we would need to look toward those in UC involved (and no longer) at the start who created the garden path.

Antrim were wrong in handing over to UC without everything being in place and ready to go, but after that it sits squarely with those running the project, along with our politicians.

But my overwhelming emotion at this point is one of pure sadness that we have failed our young people, when the opportunity was there to inspire them.

It's bigger than Casement and the GAA

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/sports-minister-gordon-lyons-outlines-why-he-remains-fully-committed-to-rolling-out-vital-ni-football-fund-cash-despite-ongoing-legal-challenge/a/157887931.html

Sports Minister Gordon Lyons has reaffirmed his commitment to seeing the long-awaited Northern Ireland Football Fund cash rolled out and the National Football Centre take shape.

In September 2025, Lyons announced 20 clubs across Northern Ireland would move to the next round of the process of acquiring funding from the £36.2m set aside, with three different tiers of funding available.

The 20 successful projects had a total estimated departmental cost of "just over £82m", significantly higher than the £36.2m which was announced in 2011.

Glentoran and Cliftonville are the two clubs who were successful in progressing in the third and most expensive tier, with funding applications of more than £6m.

Twenty clubs received resource funding to help them prepare their business cases for the next step of the Fund.

In March, Lyons announced £9m of funding for grassroots football facilities in Northern Ireland, however a legal challenge brought by Crusaders and League of Ireland club Derry City – who missed out on funding – is ongoing.

Can GAA clubs apply for this funding?

No this was an uplift to soccer clubs because of the costs of Casement going up.

Give me that again?

Is this not what was originally the sub-regional stadia fund?

My understanding is that the GAA were given £62.5 million and went for a single stadium. Whereas soccer were given £62.5 million but divided their funding between renovating Windsor and the sub-regional stadia fund. They got Windsor completed but the money for the sub-regional stadia was held back on account of Casement being a clusterfuck. Lyons later released that funding but not it all it now seems.

This was additional monies to the original amount that they got for the re-development of Windsor.

How much extra did they get?

They had projects planned in 2010 at a cost of about £32 million. This money was a share of their Maze fund. When these were re-costed in recent years it was suggested that it would now cost about £80 million but I wasn't aware that they had received anymore than the £32 million and therefore haven't completed their projects.

Not across the exact figures would have to go back and look and don't have the inclination. But it was a reaction to the increased estimated costs elsewhere and it was to balance that out.

People can have their back and forward on this and do the blame game (which there is plenty of to go around) but at the end of the day it is the GAA people of Antrim who are losing out in this debacle.

We will now have a generation of our young people who have no County ground to play their finals in or go to watch their local heroes play in for their club or county. We as an organisation have failed the young people of Antrim and that should be to their eternal shame.

It's bigger than Casement and the GAA

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/sports-minister-gordon-lyons-outlines-why-he-remains-fully-committed-to-rolling-out-vital-ni-football-fund-cash-despite-ongoing-legal-challenge/a/157887931.html

Sports Minister Gordon Lyons has reaffirmed his commitment to seeing the long-awaited Northern Ireland Football Fund cash rolled out and the National Football Centre take shape.

In September 2025, Lyons announced 20 clubs across Northern Ireland would move to the next round of the process of acquiring funding from the £36.2m set aside, with three different tiers of funding available.

The 20 successful projects had a total estimated departmental cost of "just over £82m", significantly higher than the £36.2m which was announced in 2011.

Glentoran and Cliftonville are the two clubs who were successful in progressing in the third and most expensive tier, with funding applications of more than £6m.

Twenty clubs received resource funding to help them prepare their business cases for the next step of the Fund.

In March, Lyons announced £9m of funding for grassroots football facilities in Northern Ireland, however a legal challenge brought by Crusaders and League of Ireland club Derry City – who missed out on funding – is ongoing.

Can GAA clubs apply for this funding?

No this was an uplift to soccer clubs because of the costs of Casement going up.

Give me that again?

Is this not what was originally the sub-regional stadia fund?

My understanding is that the GAA were given £62.5 million and went for a single stadium. Whereas soccer were given £62.5 million but divided their funding between renovating Windsor and the sub-regional stadia fund. They got Windsor completed but the money for the sub-regional stadia was held back on account of Casement being a clusterfuck. Lyons later released that funding but not it all it now seems.

This was additional monies to the original amount that they got for the re-development of Windsor.

It's bigger than Casement and the GAA

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/sports-minister-gordon-lyons-outlines-why-he-remains-fully-committed-to-rolling-out-vital-ni-football-fund-cash-despite-ongoing-legal-challenge/a/157887931.html

Sports Minister Gordon Lyons has reaffirmed his commitment to seeing the long-awaited Northern Ireland Football Fund cash rolled out and the National Football Centre take shape.

In September 2025, Lyons announced 20 clubs across Northern Ireland would move to the next round of the process of acquiring funding from the £36.2m set aside, with three different tiers of funding available.

The 20 successful projects had a total estimated departmental cost of "just over £82m", significantly higher than the £36.2m which was announced in 2011.

Glentoran and Cliftonville are the two clubs who were successful in progressing in the third and most expensive tier, with funding applications of more than £6m.

Twenty clubs received resource funding to help them prepare their business cases for the next step of the Fund.

In March, Lyons announced £9m of funding for grassroots football facilities in Northern Ireland, however a legal challenge brought by Crusaders and League of Ireland club Derry City – who missed out on funding – is ongoing.

Can GAA clubs apply for this funding?

No this was an uplift to soccer clubs because of the costs of Casement going up.

Shefflin new KK manager.



https://www.rte.ie/sport/hurling/2026/0706/1582098-shefflin-appointed-kilkenny-hurling-manager/

I think this is a desperation one, I just don't think he has the tools at his disposal at the moment. Unless there is a major overhaul of the squad, but even at that is there the conveyor belt of talent coming along that there once was?

Players needed to be cup tied per competition otherwise it makes a mockery of it.

Junior Feis dies otherwise and it becomes a reserve reserve cup contested by those with huge squads that can pick whoever they fancy for easy silverware.

It is a bad look to be fair, but the clubs themselves should have enough cop on that one player doesn't end up playing across 3 grades.

Tbf the Feis weekend has needed a revamp for a good few years now.

Difficulty is fitting it in the calendar and making all the different competitions in the lead up to it fit in with the rest of everything that is going on.

People complained last year that is was over the holiday period and when they have brought it forward people are still complaining.

Maybe seafoid; but you'd imagine most DUPers will move toward TUV rather than UUP or Alliance.

Whether lone ranger Jim (and his sidekick Timto) have enough party members who can spell their own name correctly in the application forms is another matter.

Hopefully it is a significant shift, TUV are even less capable than the DUP and if they gut each other further splits down the Unionist vote.
Also with the way TUV have gone after the DUP on this issue lately the chances of any pacts might be quickly disappearing.

They're not over represented. 60% of the world's population lives in Asia.

Ok so quality isn't a factor great, I'm looking forward to Africa getting their fair share at the next ice hockey olympics.

Lots of silliness of both sides here.

2/3rds of that 60% live in either India or China. So your presentation of facts is quite Trumpesque.

But at the same time there is only one truly global sport. Much as I hate 48 team world cups, there is no need to fill a global celebration with a chunky percentage of mediocre European teams (like Scotland, Ireland and Wales) who have somewhere between 0.07% and 0% chance of winning the competition. If Italy can't find a way to climb past that mediocrity in qualifying, then arrivederci.

Fine, you want to look at it another way?

Uefa has 55 members, of whom 16 made it to the world cup. That's nearly 30% of Uefa teams make the World Cup. Those 16 teams are a THIRD of all teams at the tournament.

9 of 47 AFC nations qualified, which is less than 20%. One of those, Iraq, had to qualify via an intercontinental playoff for which Uefa teams are not eligible. In order to win they had to beat Bolivia, a CONMEBOL side.

There is no overrepresentation of Asian teams. If someone wants to watch more crap European sides playing each other the Euros will be rolling around again in a couple of years.

I don't think we are going to agree on this one . The sensible solution is to go back in time and have a max if 32 teams at the world cup( would prefer 24) and 16 @ the Euros that way only good teams are there no matter where they come from and all the pub teams can watch from home like the rest of us.

Think at this point we need to accept that the WC is bigger than just a football tourmament.

This is why the Euros will probably remain the premier tournament in terms of the quality of games.

[I do enjoy how the English supporters and media think its the end of the world after a poor performance.]

A 26 man squad should allow room for a Cole Palmer or TAA instead of bringing lads that are good for morale.

I still think they'll go close enough. There's not many great teams in the tournament. That defence is poor though and I think will be their undoing towards the latter end.

I do enjoy how the English supporters and media think its the end of the world after a poor performance.

Don't think that's been the general reaction at all tbh. Mostly qualified criticism of a poor performance (like Spain, Portugal etc did) whilst acknowledging they'll likely still win the group.

It's probably a bit of a false equivalence, Ghana are not a bad side but the English see all these other teams wiping the floors with the lesser teams and expect the same.

Too many dopey teams in the groups, we won't see how teams are actually playing likely until the quarters.

Spain lost their opener in 2010 and Argentina lost theirs to Saudi Arabia four years ago.

I'd no go writing off any expected big hitter off the back of a poor result in their opener.

Especially in the new era of the lucky (3rd) losers

Are they genuinely going to seperate teams on the same points by the number of yellow and red cards they've received or did I mishear one of the ITV commentators?

I thought I heard that as well, farcical 

Will be interesting to see results for Wednesday with everyone back to full strength

Any club throwing their players straight back in would need a word with themselves.

Outside of fringe panel players I wouldn't be expecting to see too many, well that is if the clubs have any sense.

Why wouldn't they?

Maybe because they have literally finished their county season at the weekend and they might need a bit of rest, despite the results the county season is a grueling one mentally and physically for players.

I would imagine they would appreciate a week or two maybe to recharge and refresh themselves.

Spain lost their opener in 2010 and Argentina lost theirs to Saudi Arabia four years ago.

I'd no go writing off any expected big hitter off the back of a poor result in their opener.

Especially in the new era of the lucky (3rd) losers