Rob is dead right,it’s very hard to stop when you have a crowd willing you on.

He’s correct; as one well-known sports journalist once put it, no matter what sport you’re in, once you get above the Club level in Ireland (and sometimes before even then), sports administration is “a crock of shit”.

That being said, there are a *lot* of people who put a huge amount of effort into their sports for love of those sports. They’re being hamstrung by state administration above them and an incredible lack of funding and manpower. For example, we have a shooter – Sean Baldwin – in London right now representing Ireland in the Paralympics, but the Irish Sports Council doesn’t recognise his sport’s governing body purely due to political silliness. That sort of thing cripples sports.

On top of which, until such time as you can make a living wage through sport (whether competing or coaching or being in administration), you won’t ever get people doing it fulltime; and outside the big Five, that’s where we are right now.

dead right rob…. Irish have great winning attitude but its the boys in grey buildings who can’t supply funding to a well supported aspect in social culture in the world that bring all cultures together in a good sporting way… well done again Rob…

Congrats Rob.. Yeah its tough on our athletes..they are not taken seriously enough…funding is the big issue as we know..but we are over reliant on athletics to perform..we should be also trying the non traditional Irish olympic sports such as judo,bmx racing, archery, mountainbiking, triathlon etc and see if we have potential talent in them fields…P.E as a subject in schools should be made compulsory as the life long benefits are im-measureable…

If the government cant afford to put more guards on the street to protect us what chance does athletics funding have ?

And he’s spot on so he is!

Amazing to think we had more gold medals than Great Britain in Atlanta ’96, GB set a sporting plan and look at them now!

People say we do so well given our small population but in fact alot of smaller countries finished above us on the London 2012 medals table.

You might argue that we don’t have the money to compete but still plans were not put in place during the so-called “Celtic Tiger” era!

Sporting infrastructure in Ireland is a disgrace!

From my own experience funding your training can be tough! Before major competitions a lot of time was spent bag packing, busking and asking companies for sponsorship. Knowing that the financial side was covered could help you to focus energy on the sport rather than how to fund it.

Cut some fat out of GAA , share with these guys and boxers !!

There is ample funding in Irish sport through commercial and government sponsorship but unfortunately the majority of it is channeled into sports not played outside these shores. In any parish in the country you will find a sports venue that is invariably closed to sports other than GAA. Much of the funding for those grounds will have come directly from government funding through Lotto and indirectly through the GAA central council. If you look inside these grounds you will find them adorned with the adverisments of local businesses. More often than not the only sports body in a locality that could afford to own their own grounds is the GAA. Until this year applications for capital expenditure were limited to bodies who owned their own grounds effectively excluding the majority of sporting bodies from even submitting an application. It was simply a question of the rich getting richer, while the poorer bodies struggled to raise funds to improve rented facilities.

The only other sport to benefit from any substantial form of funding from government sources is horse breeding. This has been turned into a multi million euro industry by the application of tax breaks and again the result is that commercial bodies help with sponsorship due to the exposure that can be gained by its assocation with the sport.

This is not to bash the GAA or horsey set. It is merely a statement of fact. The Irish sporting public and media focus their attention on international events only when there is a football international on or when something like the Olympics comes to town. Then mostly they query why our performance has not been up to scratch. Once the event is over the newspapers, radio and television will agian focus 90% of their attention on Horse racing and GAA. If the sporting public want to get success then they will have to start demanding that the media start to promote other sports rather than pay lip service to them.

What’s really wrong with amateur? Originally it mean doing something for the love of it, but has now received negative connotations.

I found out recently that US Olympic Team receives zero government funding. Of course they can get money from elsewhere (tv rights, sponsorship) but it’s still interesting, and certainly surprised me.

Dead right Rob , Keep her lit :)

The craziest thing to come out of the whole Olympics, and Pat Hickey and his buddies in their ivory tower at IOC HQ haven’t denied it, was the Rob Heffernan and his wife were going to have to get the bus home from Dubljn Airport. There was no arrangements made for the Athletes once they got off the plane..
Can’t imagine many IOC getting the bus,

amateur sport is for everyone and concerns us all. govt support through schools, for example, is a great idea

but professional sport is business and should concern only those who make a living from it along with their employers

let sky sports and other business enterprises finance the professionals