National Forum

An Elite Club System Is The Future

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It is quiet simple really. The inter county game is a professional league played in 16,000 spectator stadiums. This way you have limited tickets and get a different crowd to support games, paying a higher price for the professionalism. Every game televised and the revenue from advertisement also a major source of income. Maintaining the county structure, maintains the rivalry.

Each county allowed protect 30 home based players each season and after that any county allowed use five players picked from where they like. A team (county) salary cap not a player salary cap. In other words if the county wants to spend the whole lot on one player with no support cast that is their business but probably not a smart thing to do.

We hear that professionalism would ruin the club game. This is nonsense. In fact the opposite is the case. More kids would play in the hope of having a professional career. We see it in amateur hockey where the parents takes little Johnie to the rink at 4 a.m. in the morning in the chance he might make the big leagues. This chance is one in a thousand but this does not deter them because as soon as the kids can walk it is a pair of skates and a stick. Just like ours with a hurley and ball.

Canuck (Waterford) - Posts: 2655 - 30/04/2018 17:52:22    2095774

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Time to close this idiotic thread

Galwayjoe86 (Galway) - Posts: 258 - 30/04/2018 18:13:58    2095782

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Replying To Galwayjoe86:  "Time to close this idiotic thread"
You know it's very easy not to open it.

Whammo86 (Antrim) - Posts: 4201 - 30/04/2018 20:02:13    2095798

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Replying To Galwayjoe86:  "Time to close this idiotic thread"
Couldn't agree more.

moc.dna (Galway) - Posts: 1212 - 01/05/2018 00:19:13    2095856

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Replying To moc.dna:  "Couldn't agree more."
You also opened it and read some of it

Whammo86 (Antrim) - Posts: 4201 - 01/05/2018 10:17:04    2095901

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Replying To Whammo86:  "
Replying To bricktop:  "Clubs should serve people, not the other way around.

Let people choose who they play for, why should people be forced to play for a club or a county just because of where they are born.

If you think this then and if a lot of people in Belfast think this then no wonder the GAA is struggling (in real terms) in there.

West Belfast was renowned for its pride in sense of identity, you seemed to have lost that along the way. Maybe its wall to wall English premiership being pumped in to every living room for 20 odd years.

The local club is all about you and yours. It improves and develops because of what you and yours invest in it, time, money, emotions.
Those things are not interchangeable or transferable to some other makey up identity.

This is the bedrock of the GAA, it is the soul of the GAA. Don't ever lose sight of that."
Once again a Makey uppy team is not part of my plans.

It's about breaking free of county run competition structures. In doing so it'll break a natural barrier to growth that clubs have.

There will be big clubs. I'd be happy enough for there to also be free movement of players.

Players do not have to move. They will only move if their existing clubs if the club isn't meeting their needs. I can't see why that is a bad thing.

The Antrim situation is a reason why I'm in favour of something like this.

GAA does not exist in a vacuum. There's rugby and soccer to compete with. This is particularly pertinent in Antrim.

I can see why talented sporting individuals in Antrim don't play GAA. There isn't really an avenue for a player to excel in GAA in Antrim in the same way as there is in Dublin or Kerry.

If there was an Antrim club that had grown to play in the National club league you'd have something better for youngsters to aspire to.

I look at the increased funding in Antrim and I worry that it's not going to work because at the minute we don't have a strong enough presence at the elite level for children to aspire to.

Players and volunteers are the lifeblood of the association. Players in particular are walking away from the game after juvenile level in numbers that the other sports don't see.

I think the structures we have contribute to that."
Antrims structures have its faults, that is true in most counties to be fair, but I think you know the issues in Belfast but have come up with the wrong solution.

A youngster growing up 30 odd miles up the road in Loughgiel believes that one day he'll play for his club in an AI final. Why? Because he's seen it done in his lifetime and reared on stories of the time in the early 80's when they did it for the first time. They go out to their U10 or U12 training with local hero's to emulate.

Is it too big of an ask for a child reared in the city not to have the same dreams considering that St Galls have also won an AI club title in football. The model and the appeal is already there.
I just think Belfast has suffered most in so much that the spirit of volunteerism has been watered down by full time coaches of dubious quality floating around the place with no vision of where they want and need Belfast GAA to go in 5 years time or whatever. They're paid clock watchers not evangelists like Paudie Butler and the likes.

Belfast GAA needs a Paudie or Ned Quinn not glorified civil servants setting the agenda.

bricktop (Down) - Posts: 2503 - 01/05/2018 10:58:27    2095918

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Replying To bricktop:  "
Replying To Whammo86:  "[quote=bricktop:  "Clubs should serve people, not the other way around.

Let people choose who they play for, why should people be forced to play for a club or a county just because of where they are born.

If you think this then and if a lot of people in Belfast think this then no wonder the GAA is struggling (in real terms) in there.

West Belfast was renowned for its pride in sense of identity, you seemed to have lost that along the way. Maybe its wall to wall English premiership being pumped in to every living room for 20 odd years.

The local club is all about you and yours. It improves and develops because of what you and yours invest in it, time, money, emotions.
Those things are not interchangeable or transferable to some other makey up identity.

This is the bedrock of the GAA, it is the soul of the GAA. Don't ever lose sight of that."
Once again a Makey uppy team is not part of my plans.

It's about breaking free of county run competition structures. In doing so it'll break a natural barrier to growth that clubs have.

There will be big clubs. I'd be happy enough for there to also be free movement of players.

Players do not have to move. They will only move if their existing clubs if the club isn't meeting their needs. I can't see why that is a bad thing.

The Antrim situation is a reason why I'm in favour of something like this.

GAA does not exist in a vacuum. There's rugby and soccer to compete with. This is particularly pertinent in Antrim.

I can see why talented sporting individuals in Antrim don't play GAA. There isn't really an avenue for a player to excel in GAA in Antrim in the same way as there is in Dublin or Kerry.

If there was an Antrim club that had grown to play in the National club league you'd have something better for youngsters to aspire to.

I look at the increased funding in Antrim and I worry that it's not going to work because at the minute we don't have a strong enough presence at the elite level for children to aspire to.

Players and volunteers are the lifeblood of the association. Players in particular are walking away from the game after juvenile level in numbers that the other sports don't see.

I think the structures we have contribute to that."
Antrims structures have its faults, that is true in most counties to be fair, but I think you know the issues in Belfast but have come up with the wrong solution.

A youngster growing up 30 odd miles up the road in Loughgiel believes that one day he'll play for his club in an AI final. Why? Because he's seen it done in his lifetime and reared on stories of the time in the early 80's when they did it for the first time. They go out to their U10 or U12 training with local hero's to emulate.

Is it too big of an ask for a child reared in the city not to have the same dreams considering that St Galls have also won an AI club title in football. The model and the appeal is already there.
I just think Belfast has suffered most in so much that the spirit of volunteerism has been watered down by full time coaches of dubious quality floating around the place with no vision of where they want and need Belfast GAA to go in 5 years time or whatever. They're paid clock watchers not evangelists like Paudie Butler and the likes.

Belfast GAA needs a Paudie or Ned Quinn not glorified civil servants setting the agenda."]This is somewhat my point.

If you are a very talented individual and are a part of the St Gall's club then great you do have something to aspire to.

What if you are a very talented individual at Davitt's, Sarsfields, St Agnes.

Why should you not be allowed to move to a club that can fulfill your ambitions.

Part of the reason it's discouraged is because the GAA organises it's club competitions on a county level, it'd be bad for the competitions if all the players flocked to one team.

If there was say a Provincial league where St Galls were playing Cavan Gaels, Slaughtneil, Crossmaglen etc. it wouldn't be a big deal if some of the better players from other clubs left to join them. There'd still be a competitive Antrim league left behind.

I think you guys when you talk about the death of the club game as a result of something like this are being histerical really.

When Randalstown lost Michael Magill, there best player, to Cargin I'm pretty sure those coaching the youngsters didn't just wrap it all up. "What's the point lads, they'll all just go to Cargin now". It didn't make a blind bit of difference.

Clubs lose players and often very good players all the time and things go on because there are plenty of other people there left behind to continue things and make their own successes.

Allegiances to clubs aren't set in stones for generations until the end of time either and people are quite capable of having allegiances to more than one club.

There are plenty of people raise their children in a different club than they played for. You have cousins playing against each other all the time. There's been a switch of allegiance there at some point.

No big deal.

Why is it such a problem for someone to move clubs during his playing days.

Whammo86 (Antrim) - Posts: 4201 - 01/05/2018 12:21:33    2095947

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