Nothing on the tinternet about this. You had my hopes up. Bollix. 
Rents is a year or two too soon at best. Nice of him wanting to see a load of Irish people lose their jobs though and the rest of you odd fucks agree. Stay classy.
Oh fuck off.
No wonder your country didnt want you.
Rattled him even.
Rugby Ballhop Alert. 
Munster are in financial difficulty â there is no more beating around the bush about it. Previously these financial issues were something that were buried deep in notes and sub notes of the IRFU annual accounts yet now they are looming large for all fans to see.
The main issue we are now seeing is that these financial issues are now impacting the on-field activities of Munster Rugby. We have seen players go on loan to save costs, we no longer have a scrum coach due to financial reasons, we are struggling to compete with our HEC competitors for signings (will we even use all our NIQ spots next season?) and last season we were outside our day to day budget by over 1 million euros. It also looks like the new jersey sponsorship deal will result in a drop of over 750k per annum as well. Jim Williams spoke out years ago about the madness of a players training separately in two different bases, Tony McGahan supposedly had it written into his contract that the training base issue would be addressed yet it seems it was huge financial pressure not the best interests of the playing squad that forced the decision to chose UL.
Sending experienced players, on what one has to assume are high provincial level wages, on loan is a smart tactic and was used last season when the day to day running costs first became an issue. It became apparent it was required again this season and it meant that we had to register an extra scrum half for the knock out stages of the HEC instead of a ready made impact player like CJ Stander. Paul MacCarthy is someone who I was very critical of previously but to be fair to him the Munster scrum has made huge improvements in the last two seasons. We are now entering a new era how scrums will work. No longer is it about the timing of the hit but with the new rules of binding before the second rows join it means a much greater emphasis on the technical demands of the props and the scrum as a whole. Munster are now left to work on these new rules with no scrum specialist. Paul Macâs wages may have been paid by MRSC funding but the simple fact is that Munster have decided that they need to make cuts and this is one of them.
We have one stadium in Limerick that we canât afford repayments on and yet due political issues we are looking to upgrade a second stadium? In 2007 a loan of 11.5 million euro was taken out by the branch from the IRFU to pay for the MBâs half of redeveloping Thomond Park. I canât find much on how they intended to pay off this loan apart from the 10 year tickets. Munster have consistently failed to meet the repayment schedule since 2008 and in some years didnât even make a payment. Currently that loan stands at 10.3 million euro and according to the IRFU annual accounts Munster should have repayed 4.3 million by April 2013. Given the current climate I really canât see an appetite for a further sale of 10 year tickets and given our already poor financial status I would argue that the IRFU would be likely to get 100% control of TP in the very near future (IRFU loan is due in full by 30th April 2017).
In my opinion this mess really started with the redevelopment of Thomond Park. This is not about Cork versus Limerick but about the financial model that would be used going forward from that point in time. At the time the Supporters Clubs had somewhere in the region of 8k members and a so called promise from to extend full membership to 10k MRSC members. Now from a financial point of view that would have made a lot of sense. A 26k stadium and 10k fans who at the start of the season would stump up a membership fee and pay for their League and Cup season tickets. Instead the politics of Munster rugby took over and the clubs wanted to keep their âexclusiveâ chicken and chips in a basket HEC gameday fundraisers. Little did they realise that the 26k would cope with demand for all but a few games and that the real corporate clients and those willing to pay money for dinner and drinks would be served by Munster Rugby themselves in the new corporate facilities. The clubs couldnât expand their chicken in a basket fund raisers and the branch continued to ignore the full revenue potential of the supporters club.
This mess is part driven by the current economic climate but it also has an awful lot to do with internal branch politics. To me it seems like a lack of strong leadership to sort out these internal issues and they have now been forced into action purely due to the financial position Munster are in. The fact that despite the need for a 1.5/2 million euro cut in day to day costs over 2 seasons(1 million loss last year and the change in sponsorship deal), the Thomond Park loan that we are unable to service, Munster continue to spend money on redeveloping a second stadium that limits income due to size is just a crazy decision.
The really sad thing is that brains trust have committed the cardinal sin of allowing off field matters affect on field resources and either people need to fix this very very quickly or step aside and ensure that people who can make these changes are appointed in their place.
By Barry Coughlan
Munsterâs chief executive Garrett Fitzgerald admits life in the rugby fast lane is about to become more difficult for Munster.
Fitzgerald this week admitted the province would have to be increasingly proactive in competing financially but believes the Irish provinces will remain heavyweights.
âMoney doesnât solve everything,â he said.
âThere is no point using money as an excuse, weâve just got to realise itâs a challenge and that we improve our players because thatâs the structure we work under. It doesnât allow you to buy in teams and it never will, and I hope it never happens in Irish rugby.
âI hope it never does because it will be to the detriment of the national team.
âI still believe that, given the performance we put on against Toulon and against Clermont last year, weâre well capable of competing when we put our minds to it. The only reason we could possibly struggle with it is if we got a run of injuries because the squad might not, overall, be as strong as the opposition.
âWhatâs obvious in world rugby is that France have moved ahead of all other countries in the financial sphere. If you look at their TV deal alone, and I donât know what the exact figures are, itâs around âŹ32m up to âŹ70m, so that whole issue has moved them into a different category between all the other rugby nations.
âSecond of all, in England the BT deal is much more valuable to them than their previous deal, but I think the French are out on their own in a different financial category at this stage.
âI think it isnât a coincidence Toulon are in the Heineken Cup final two years in a row, it isnât a coincidence Saracens are in the Heineken Cup final, theyâve been knocking on the door. They have the squad. They seem to have the funds to assemble a broad enough unit. When you get to the end of any rugby season, your performance is probably determined by the strength of your squad.
âIf you look at Leinster against Ulster last week, there was nothing in it, but what Leinster brought off the bench was what tipped it. Itâs about the size of your squad, the quality of your squad and itâs going to get more difficult when you have Racing Metro, you have Clermont; you have Montpellier, who also had quite a significant investment into them.
âYou obviously have Stade Francais, who have had a reinvestment, thatâs what youâre competing against.â
Fitzgerald also pointed to the huge financial television gains available in France and England at a time when worldwide match-day attendances were dropping.
âThe whole issue of gate receipts is an interesting thing. We have done a lot of work and spoken to a lot of people on the whole gate receipts issue. If you look at rugby attendances around the world, they are dropping.
âOne of the challenges we face is thereâs probably too much rugby on television in Ireland, given the size of the rugby viewing population.
There so many games on television; the TV companies are competing for space, which means a lot of our games are being played at times that do not suit the supporter. But, at the same time, we have to fully recognise rugby is being funded in a large way by television so itâs a catch-22.â
Mr. Fitzgeraldâs worries are even more justified in the wake of Munsterâs recent financial records which were released last week and it is now public knowledge that the club are struggling to maintain their debt repayments. Mr. Fitzgerald refused to comment on this matter however.
[QUOTE=âMark Renton, post: 948422, member: 1796â]Munster are in financial difficulty â there is no more beating around the bush about it. Previously these financial issues were something that were buried deep in notes and sub notes of the IRFU annual accounts yet now they are looming large for all fans to see.
The main issue we are now seeing is that these financial issues are now impacting the on-field activities of Munster Rugby. We have seen players go on loan to save costs, we no longer have a scrum coach due to financial reasons, we are struggling to compete with our HEC competitors for signings (will we even use all our NIQ spots next season?) and last season we were outside our day to day budget by over 1 million euros. It also looks like the new jersey sponsorship deal will result in a drop of over 750k per annum as well. Jim Williams spoke out years ago about the madness of a players training separately in two different bases, Tony McGahan supposedly had it written into his contract that the training base issue would be addressed yet it seems it was huge financial pressure not the best interests of the playing squad that forced the decision to chose UL.
Sending experienced players, on what one has to assume are high provincial level wages, on loan is a smart tactic and was used last season when the day to day running costs first became an issue. It became apparent it was required again this season and it meant that we had to register an extra scrum half for the knock out stages of the HEC instead of a ready made impact player like CJ Stander. Paul MacCarthy is someone who I was very critical of previously but to be fair to him the Munster scrum has made huge improvements in the last two seasons. We are now entering a new era how scrums will work. No longer is it about the timing of the hit but with the new rules of binding before the second rows join it means a much greater emphasis on the technical demands of the props and the scrum as a whole. Munster are now left to work on these new rules with no scrum specialist. Paul Macâs wages may have been paid by MRSC funding but the simple fact is that Munster have decided that they need to make cuts and this is one of them.
We have one stadium in Limerick that we canât afford repayments on and yet due political issues we are looking to upgrade a second stadium? In 2007 a loan of 11.5 million euro was taken out by the branch from the IRFU to pay for the MBâs half of redeveloping Thomond Park. I canât find much on how they intended to pay off this loan apart from the 10 year tickets. Munster have consistently failed to meet the repayment schedule since 2008 and in some years didnât even make a payment. Currently that loan stands at 10.3 million euro and according to the IRFU annual accounts Munster should have repayed 4.3 million by April 2013. Given the current climate I really canât see an appetite for a further sale of 10 year tickets and given our already poor financial status I would argue that the IRFU would be likely to get 100% control of TP in the very near future (IRFU loan is due in full by 30th April 2017).
In my opinion this mess really started with the redevelopment of Thomond Park. This is not about Cork versus Limerick but about the financial model that would be used going forward from that point in time. At the time the Supporters Clubs had somewhere in the region of 8k members and a so called promise from to extend full membership to 10k MRSC members. Now from a financial point of view that would have made a lot of sense. A 26k stadium and 10k fans who at the start of the season would stump up a membership fee and pay for their League and Cup season tickets. Instead the politics of Munster rugby took over and the clubs wanted to keep their âexclusiveâ chicken and chips in a basket HEC gameday fundraisers. Little did they realise that the 26k would cope with demand for all but a few games and that the real corporate clients and those willing to pay money for dinner and drinks would be served by Munster Rugby themselves in the new corporate facilities. The clubs couldnât expand their chicken in a basket fund raisers and the branch continued to ignore the full revenue potential of the supporters club.
This mess is part driven by the current economic climate but it also has an awful lot to do with internal branch politics. To me it seems like a lack of strong leadership to sort out these internal issues and they have now been forced into action purely due to the financial position Munster are in. The fact that despite the need for a 1.5/2 million euro cut in day to day costs over 2 seasons(1 million loss last year and the change in sponsorship deal), the Thomond Park loan that we are unable to service, Munster continue to spend money on redeveloping a second stadium that limits income due to size is just a crazy decision.
The really sad thing is that brains trust have committed the cardinal sin of allowing off field matters affect on field resources and either people need to fix this very very quickly or step aside and ensure that people who can make these changes are appointed in their place.[/QUOTE]
Who is this âweâ ?
renton you arse bandit, talking through your hole as usual
Thatâs the head of the supporters groupâŚ
[QUOTE=âMark Renton, post: 948422, member: 1796â]Munster are in financial difficulty â there is no more beating around the bush about it. Previously these financial issues were something that were buried deep in notes and sub notes of the IRFU annual accounts yet now they are looming large for all fans to see.
The main issue we are now seeing is that these financial issues are now impacting the on-field activities of Munster Rugby. We have seen players go on loan to save costs, we no longer have a scrum coach due to financial reasons, we are struggling to compete with our HEC competitors for signings (will we even use all our NIQ spots next season?) and last season we were outside our day to day budget by over 1 million euros. It also looks like the new jersey sponsorship deal will result in a drop of over 750k per annum as well. Jim Williams spoke out years ago about the madness of a players training separately in two different bases, Tony McGahan supposedly had it written into his contract that the training base issue would be addressed yet it seems it was huge financial pressure not the best interests of the playing squad that forced the decision to chose UL.
Sending experienced players, on what one has to assume are high provincial level wages, on loan is a smart tactic and was used last season when the day to day running costs first became an issue. It became apparent it was required again this season and it meant that we had to register an extra scrum half for the knock out stages of the HEC instead of a ready made impact player like CJ Stander. Paul MacCarthy is someone who I was very critical of previously but to be fair to him the Munster scrum has made huge improvements in the last two seasons. We are now entering a new era how scrums will work. No longer is it about the timing of the hit but with the new rules of binding before the second rows join it means a much greater emphasis on the technical demands of the props and the scrum as a whole. Munster are now left to work on these new rules with no scrum specialist. Paul Macâs wages may have been paid by MRSC funding but the simple fact is that Munster have decided that they need to make cuts and this is one of them.
We have one stadium in Limerick that we canât afford repayments on and yet due political issues we are looking to upgrade a second stadium? In 2007 a loan of 11.5 million euro was taken out by the branch from the IRFU to pay for the MBâs half of redeveloping Thomond Park. I canât find much on how they intended to pay off this loan apart from the 10 year tickets. Munster have consistently failed to meet the repayment schedule since 2008 and in some years didnât even make a payment. Currently that loan stands at 10.3 million euro and according to the IRFU annual accounts Munster should have repayed 4.3 million by April 2013. Given the current climate I really canât see an appetite for a further sale of 10 year tickets and given our already poor financial status I would argue that the IRFU would be likely to get 100% control of TP in the very near future (IRFU loan is due in full by 30th April 2017).
In my opinion this mess really started with the redevelopment of Thomond Park. This is not about Cork versus Limerick but about the financial model that would be used going forward from that point in time. At the time the Supporters Clubs had somewhere in the region of 8k members and a so called promise from to extend full membership to 10k MRSC members. Now from a financial point of view that would have made a lot of sense. A 26k stadium and 10k fans who at the start of the season would stump up a membership fee and pay for their League and Cup season tickets. Instead the politics of Munster rugby took over and the clubs wanted to keep their âexclusiveâ chicken and chips in a basket HEC gameday fundraisers. Little did they realise that the 26k would cope with demand for all but a few games and that the real corporate clients and those willing to pay money for dinner and drinks would be served by Munster Rugby themselves in the new corporate facilities. The clubs couldnât expand their chicken in a basket fund raisers and the branch continued to ignore the full revenue potential of the supporters club.
This mess is part driven by the current economic climate but it also has an awful lot to do with internal branch politics. To me it seems like a lack of strong leadership to sort out these internal issues and they have now been forced into action purely due to the financial position Munster are in. The fact that despite the need for a 1.5/2 million euro cut in day to day costs over 2 seasons(1 million loss last year and the change in sponsorship deal), the Thomond Park loan that we are unable to service, Munster continue to spend money on redeveloping a second stadium that limits income due to size is just a crazy decision.
The really sad thing is that brains trust have committed the cardinal sin of allowing off field matters affect on field resources and either people need to fix this very very quickly or step aside and ensure that people who can make these changes are appointed in their place.[/QUOTE]
I trust you, mate.
Havenât time to read all that but your manâs analysis of the scrum is hilarious. Itâs now really technical apparently, until last year it was just about timing. The timing was so so complex that you had to wait until the referee said âengage.â You had to remember to hold fire when he said âpause.â
Donners will make a funny face and crack a funny joke. These financial woes will quickly be forgotten about then.
I thought they just hired Jerry Flannery as their new scrum coach as well? I couldnt read all that, provincial supporters groups are fucking loons, every single one of them.
One good point in there, there is far too much rugby on tv.
He was doing ok until he wrote this garbage
One fat cunt pushing against another. Technical indeed.
This better be true Renton. I am ecstatic at these revelations.