Can 'rich' sports learn from Gaelic games? - Amateur pursuit

[Cabbage/Turnip]

[QUOTE=Sync;2535515]No one disputes that. Your argument though is that it hurts the GAA's claim to be an amateur sport. My point about Rugby (Which can be extrapolated out onto the Olympics board) is that every national and international amateur sport have paid professionals who run it. So your understanding o"amateur sport" is different to the rest of the world's understanding.[/QUOTE

Completely agree with you sync.. After training last night our senior team 30+ players had a meeting to discuss what this years expectations are.. After leaving this meeting i realised why i love the GAA, no one gets paid a penny but everyone spoke gave their opinion and the general consensus was we are going to break our balls to win the champsionship. From this i left feeling everyone there had pure pride in their club and were commiting to the long slog for the next 8 months due to pure pride and wanting to be the best. If money came into it that pride would be thrown out the window for greed. ini my opinion

[Rocky]

[quote=Cabbage/Turnip;2535534]

No one disputes that. Your argument though is that it hurts the GAA's claim to be an amateur sport. My point about Rugby (Which can be extrapolated out onto the Olympics board) is that every national and international amateur sport have paid professionals who run it. So your understanding o"amateur sport" is different to the rest of the world's understanding.[/QUOTE

Completely agree with you sync.. After training last night our senior team 30+ players had a meeting to discuss what this years expectations are.. After leaving this meeting i realised why i love the GAA, no one gets paid a penny but everyone spoke gave their opinion and the general consensus was we are going to break our balls to win the champsionship. From this i left feeling everyone there had pure pride in their club and were commiting to the long slog for the next 8 months due to pure pride and wanting to be the best. If money came into it that pride would be thrown out the window for greed. ini my opinion

And it's the exact same in 99% of Football clubs in the country.

[tooler]

READ THE QUESTION
Can 'rich sports' learn from...

the answer is no! ALL sports have been there and done that already..they have just realised that in a competitive sporting environment every small edge you can have matters. Better training, better diet , better facilities...they all cost money. The higher you go the better and more expensive it gets .
All sports have an amateur ethos at its heart and are broadly supported by countless numbers of volunteers. Why is the GAA so different ?
What expenses do players get? At the highest level in Hurling for example ?
The difference here is that GAA players at the top level dont need to get any better because there is nowhere else to go ie World Cup etc
With full time training and wages they would all be better but whats the point ?
Keep them unpaid, send them back to work on Monday and happy days for the top men and the TV men !!
Whats wrong with being paid anyway ? How long before someone does a Kerry packer and pays a fair wage for a fair days work..hardly a crime

[Morte]

There's one obvious point missing from the article. The GAA doesn't generate enough money to pay all the players full time. So it's hardly amatuer by choice. Other sports do and so it's much harder to keep the genie in the bottle. Besides, why shouldn't the players get it as opposed to everybody else involved?

[The_SR]

Completely agree with you sync.. After training last night our senior team 30+ players had a meeting to discuss what this years expectations are.. After leaving this meeting i realised why i love the GAA, no one gets paid a penny but everyone spoke gave their opinion and the general consensus was we are going to break our balls to win the champsionship. From this i left feeling everyone there had pure pride in their club and were commiting to the long slog for the next 8 months due to pure pride and wanting to be the best. If money came into it that pride would be thrown out the window for greed. ini my opinion

Thats the same in every sport though. The overwhelming majority of sportsmen and women in the country do it for love of their game. What makes you so special?

The main difference between the GAA and other sports though is that volunteers in rugby, football, basketball, boxing, athletics, tiddlywinks etc don't feel the need for this quite frankly tedious self congratulatory rhetoric.

We all know that many intercounty players get paid under the table, as do managers. The recent attempt by the GAA and the players union to get the state to foot the bill for professionalism should be a wakeup call to all you 'purists' in GAA land.

As for the GAA itself, I do have to laugh at the idea that they are some form of role models. They play filthy dirty when it suits them, from the ban, to spreading broken glass on football pitches, the Tallaght stadium disgrace to co-opting land that was given to them to act as trustees into the GAA portfolio which they then ban the original users from acess too (pitch in Kerry, handball courts beside Croker). No other sports body got the assistance from the state they did in terms of free pitches from the Land Commission and exclusive grants up until recently. The IRFU and FAI are running rings around them these days.

Their amateur status is nice at one level, but there are serious questions to be asked about where all the money goes if it isn't to the players. It isn't into the grassroots, as there are more footballers than hurlers and gaelic players combined these days. Infrastructural improvements have stopped with some county grounds having fallen into serious levels of disrepair.

[The_SR]

Interesting piece in the Indo on GAA 'amateurism'. Steers clear of player payments though unfortunatly.

Colm Keys: GAA payments make a mockery of amateur rule - Analysis, Opinion - Independent.ie

[Shilts]

I laugh at the title of this thread. Can 'rich sports' learn from Gaelic games?
In Ireland no sport is richer than the GAA...by a long shot.
In fact the GAA are the greediest shower around.

Regularly they arrange fixtures for maximum inccome generation.
My favourite, Cork have regularly qualified for All-Ireland quarter final in both codes and instead of rewarding loyal Cork supporters by playing both games on the one day they have often played these games on a saturday and sunday of the same weekend. They are taking the piss.

As for renting Croker to the IRFU and FAI; They made a big deal of opening this 'holy ground' to foreign games. They used the argument that this was a big compromise on their part to negotiate an extortinate fee for these games. I'm delighted that this deal is over as Croker is unsuitable for soccer and rugby anyway. The pitch is too big.

But then after the deal was finished they have come out and said that Croker will still be available for "big matches" if needed. No thank you. You have fleeced us enough already (even though it was taxpayers money that helped build Croker). You can keep your 'sacred ground' to yourself from now on.

The GAA have realised that they will miss the income from the FAI and IRFU and will have to come up with some replacement income. How about a 'foreign sport' like American Football... AGAIN!!!

The richest sport IS the GAA... because it is the greediest.

[The_SR]

But then after the deal was finished they have come out and said that Croker will still be available for "big matches" if needed. No thank you. You have fleeced us enough already (even though it was taxpayers money that helped build Croker). You can keep your 'sacred ground' to yourself from now on.

It was quite entertaining to see them try and fail to pimp Croker out for the Brazil game - to the wrong people - and despite halving their fee were still 3 times more expensive than the Emirates Stadium in London.

[controller]

Not correct - ........The President is unpaid and holds office for 3 years. ...........

Are u sure. I understood that the president was paid the same salary that he would get if he stayed on in his full time job

GAA's amateur ethos undermined by president's €150,000 salary

GAA's amateur ethos undermined by president's €150,000 salary - Gaelic Football, Sport - Kerryman.ie

So the salary would change from President to President

[Dasayev]

A related story about Shane Supple

Shane Supple was once tipped to be Shay Given's successor for Ireland, but now he has his sights set on breaking into the Dublin GAA team

Supple happy on road less travelled