When you are making EPL wages you dont need to work with Irish brands
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Also using the term GGA. You should be ashamed of your living life and you passing yourself off as the forums number one fan
Huh?
The GGA is the game of the rural man, the northside of Dublin and Catholics in the north. It names itās fields after terrorists, ensuring it will never attract the support of the Protestant Community which makes up nearly 15% of the islands population. It operates in a bubble where locals donāt care about the actual quality of the product. Fair enough, it works, but they cannot offer what professional sports offer to top athletes. Itās a high profile hobby which helps lads get plum bank jobs and their hole, but thatās about it.
Association football is a Partionist sport. It canāt sustain support for a league at home. It canāt fill its stadium. Itās tens of millions in debt. It trails the other team sports bodies in revenue. It has relied on British soccer academies for decades to fill its national side, filled to the brim with English and Scottish rejects. It relies on the scourge of the working classes, Denis OāBrien, to keep the lights on.
Rugby football is a 32 county sport- attracting all faiths and all social classes. It has the number one supported side on the island, filling itās stadium. It leads in revenue and is the only team sport to sustain 4 proper professional sports teams in Ireland.
Being honest I think the GAA is really struggling. Clubs like my own struggling for numbers and amalgamating for underage teams. Same thing seen all over the place. Bar the big urban clubs with the facilities and population resources most clubs are just about keeping their head above water.
Soccer suffers from lack of facilities but seems to be slowly catching up. Astro turf pitches and club houses beginning to sprout up.
Just find it laughable that this image is being projected that rugby is in rude health when the Irish provincial franchises are miles off the big boys in Europe and the likes of Munster are in financial turmoil. Best Scotland and Italy in the six nations seems to make everything fine and dandy. Never mind the World Cup humiliation and the restricted finances, falling crowds and the impending concussion epidemic coming down the lineā¦
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Irish Rugby just posted a profit of 7 million pal. They paid off an entire bank loan on building a new stadium within 5 years.
You donāt seem to be familiar with a conservative approach to expectations. The IRFU have been doing this for as long as I can remember. Their stakeholders are the clubs, their membership and supports around the country, not the Sindo Life magazine so there is no need to go peacocking. Keep expectations low.
Munster canāt pay a loan to the IRFU, not a bank unlike the FAI. The assets are owned by the IRFU ultimately.
IRFU are playing the long game here. Absolutely no need to crucify yourself for short term gain. Facilities for rugby clubs around the country are good. Primary investment for IRFU outside of pro teams is coaching and underage development. They donāt expect nor have targeted to overtake the GAA today or tomorrow. In fact they donāt see it as a competition. Philip Brown resisting all provincial pressure to use the family silver to get the provinces up to speed in the short term. The French an English will pull away in short term but itās not sustainable.
If you canāt see or understand this your not looking closely enough
The LOI is an all Ireland league mate.
The Irish national team represents and has Gaels from the whole of Ireland.
Rogbee is a 32 county sport played by people who wished we were still in the empire
Im findung your bullish attitude towards rogbee at odds with the IRFU Ceoās.i think the bubble has burst and you cant admit that
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Thr IRFU has said the professional game here is goosed
Itās not soccerās fault that big, successful businessmen want to be associated with it.
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I found myself nodding in agreement with that:
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Who do FIFA recognise as the association of the 6 counties mate?
True enough mate, we also have Gibraltor tax resident Dermot Desmond financialy supporting the left wing Rastoolers favourite side in Britain.
Great to see the lefties on here and the working classes on here supporting the cream of Irish society giving them a dig out. We long have had them in rugby football, glad you could join us.
Weāve the highest turnover of all 3 major team bodies. Whilst soccer will see a nice windfall with the new European UEFA rights, we are about to benefit from the BBC/ITV Six Nations contract, as well as the substantial increase in rights from France 2.
Our sport appeals to a broad demo, including many females (which draws the ire of the potbellied astro players on here). We have the Olympics which will draw more top female athletes to play our sport.
We have quality assets all over the country. Paid for fully by the IRFU.
We are the only sporting body with a proven professional network or teams that pays its players a living wage. Our support look at the island of Ireland, not post industrial revolution shitholes in the North of England.
Weāre smashing it tbf. 
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Do me a favour bro. Can you get me the vuewing figures for the France Portugal game and compare them to the irish rugby teams world cup figures
As far as im aware the top tv figures are always for big football games? Say the top 4 viewing figures?
Top 4 viewing games of what mate?
The Final got 762k between TV3 and RTĆ.
Ireland v Argentina 928k
Ireland v France 992k - broke TV3s viewership record
Ireland v Italy 799k - broke TV3s viewership record
The prime time slotted Euro final beat the team easy fixtures played at midday for the rugby side easily.
Soccer is still popular pal, but it is losing market share to rugby football. Just have a look at the fans over in France- males. The majority of those arenāt bothered with Irish football outside of the major tournaments. They spend their money on soccer abroad. It doesnāt attract the female audience in the same numbers. Donāt forget that an England RWC game beat Ireland v Germany in October in Ireland. Quite frankly it shows, Irish rugby continues to grow its revenues. Irish football relies on the benevolence of Denis OāBrien.
Gaa has a major problem in that there are too many tics on a small blood supply. You have charlatans like the GPA, an organisation run for the benefit of those who administer it draining resources, whilst denying admission to the club players who feed it. You have clubs vying with each other to pay for managers, trainers, coaches, physios etc etc, where the money comes in almost entirely from the goodwill of the local population, often as their children are involved. Said children are having more and more stringent demands placed upon them by the managers, trainers etc in order to justify their exorbitant over or under table āexpensesā with results, paid for directly or indirectly by the players they are flogging. The Dublin senior IC football team are the end result. The kids lose interest, or the ones with sense realise sooner or later that the joy is gone from it, and drift away. Results suffer. More money is raised for a new manager. And itās all just bullshit. To what end? Getting a small bit further in an amateur competition which will be forgotten about within a year.
Itās no wonder itās struggling.
Trouble is, a club makes a decision to drift back to the norm, and then ships heavy beatings off the clubs who donāt have the sense and maturity to let nature wind itās course, and flog their panels up hill and down dale, whilst playing fast and loose with eligibility rules etc as the management feel more virile.
I played all sports. Rugby had the best ethos as a kid. We went out to connemara and other such places over and over, and shipped unmerciful beatings off clearly overage lads. Never lodged an objection or looked in the small print. Never aggressively scouted the best talent, and everyone, no matter how rubbish, got a game.
I love everything about the gaa but itās busy strangling itself with the ego of the few at the top of the pyramid.
Iād not give any money to a gaa club paying a coach.
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Christ thats some rant pal and while i agree with some of it the fact of the matter is Rugby is played in comparison by an elite few and will very rarely attract a lad on the street for example. played the way it was supposed to be played (rugby union) its a brilliant game to watch and is still there, but not in ireland or europe. its tripe and boring. as a parent the way the game is played iād advise my kid to try another sport
So Ronaldo gotmore than a lot of Irelands world cup games.wowzer
I donāt disagree. Used be a game where there was a position for short and tall, fat and thin. Now itās attrition and size across the board. Agree also itās a poor spectacle more often than not, and Iād sooner watch a junior hurling match live than any rugby game, it was more an observation about where rugby has it right, and is hence gaining ground. Itās good at teaching you to take a beating, and not look for excuses, at least it was.
Lads trying to make a living off the gaa get on my wick.
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