Why would we take money out of a successful sport and pump it into a sport that has never managed to achieve traction in Ireland…

I would argue that we should take some of the money in GAA & give it to the players…

Delaney and Co., are very well paid for a small Country and compare it to the Spanish FA boss? The problem is within, look there instead and demand action there!

What an utterly ridiculous comment.

That was directed at Popeye btw !!

@paul, no traction? Are you kidding me football is the most played sport on the island followed way down the line by gaelic football and then hurling with less than half of what football numbers achieve

What money is “pumped” into the GAA? Do you mean the way GAA clubs apply for and receive sports capital grants? Are you aware that these grants are open to and available for all sports clubs who get their act together to apply for them?

Spain has a population of 50 million and is soccer/football crazy. No amount of investment is going to swing that. Especially not when the best young Irish players get snapped up and coached in England.

Exactly. Keep blaming the GAA will get you nowhere.

You do mean your national sport.

Ok, so the the problem lies solely with Delaney not the barstoolers who stay at home and leave loi stadiums empty every friday, so we get rid of Delaney save 400k on his salary and then what??? We magically become a small, efficient football powerhouse like Croatia??…

No personally I think it’s going to take a little more than that, though I don’t doubt the FAI are a bunch of bandits, the interest and appetitive for domestic football just isn’t there in this country!

People prefer to spend their money on the gaa and the rugby, fair enough I say, but that being the case, lets not get all bitter and pretend we’re a football nation.

True Colm, but those stats are misleading because all those kids playing football give it up at 18 or switch to Gaelic, unless an English club signs them, there is a massive talent drain because tv LOI is neither amateur nor a lucrative professional league, it makes no financial sense to keep playing so they all quit at 18 and we lose out on all those potential stars.

Well said Aidan.

If the fai wasn’t full of idiots that might happen. The Gaa pays mostly for itself as does the ifru. They have common sense something the failure has none of. Look at kidney, he failed to develop the younger players and lost winnable games and he got sacked. Trap won’t even play some of our best players and he’s still there. Look at the aviva stadium. The irfu nearly has its half played off, the fai has only like 20% paid off (I forget the exact figure it was in the prime time documentary) and yet Delaney is paid more than his English Spanish and Italian counterparts combined. This has nothing to do with gaa favourtism, which will always be the most popular sport in Ireland regardless of public expenditure, and everything to do with the incompetence of the fai.

Its refreshing reading these positive comments about the LOI and how we can improve it rather than the usual BS drama from the EPL “is Jose coming back, is he, isn’t he”
The F.A.I-lures need to pull their head outta the sand, Delaney makes more than the LOI champions do.
The LOI should mimic the GAA and have one team per county, that encapsulates the whole county rater than a town/city. Its crazy for a medium European size city like Dublin having 5 teams – 2 at most, the league will never prosper with these small Parochial clubs! Build a few academies and nurture our young footballers like Belgium have done!

Why would anyone want to watch LOI football when it is worse than the muck the national team play??

Martayyy – That attitude about the LOI is why we play MUCK football, if we don’t have a healthy domestic league, how are we going to have a successful national team, but i guess u like most Irish people are content with England’s hand-me-downs and Watching the likes of chelsea and man u from your arm chair.
If we didnt have the granny rule, there is now way Irl would of qualified for the finals in the 80′s, 90′s and possibly 2002. F.A.I – lures OUT!

I used to go and watch LOI but after one league game when my team played frustrating football and got slaughtered to then see a number of players in the pub in their club trackies full and laughing and joking about the match sickened me, why should I pay upwards of 15e to watch players not even try then use whatever small wage the club gives to go out and get pissed…problem with lower end LOI teams is the majority don’t give a damn if they win lose or draw as long as there’s a piss up and its the fans that suffer so I’m not paying for that…

i agree, attitudes have to change

Low wages = poor attitude (especially from the older pros who have no incentive or motivation)

Maybe then, if more fans attended, clubs could offer better wages, attract more professional, higher calibre players, more competition and this in turn would drastically improve existing player attitudes.

IRFU and GAA are only self sustaining because they have fans paying money to attend games every year (average GAA championship attendance was 16 542 in 2012) that’s almost the same as all LOI clubs put together) , if like with LOI, the fans stopped attending matches tomorrow, both organisations would be screwed!

We could rely on England to develop our players back in the 80s and 90s because back then the prem lge was almost entirely uk and irish players, now that figure is is only 30% however, so we’re relying on converted Nordies, Glasweigans and 3rd generation irish (English) to carry the national team…. This is why a better irish domestic Lge with much more fans attending is so badly needed more than it ever was before.