My 2 kids were playing football up until a week ago when both decided they had enough (10 and 7). My wife and I decided that we were not going to try and change their mind. The organisation has a serious discipline problem from bottom to top. We now hear reports of assaults and abuse on a daily basis. It’s been going on for years.
As an organisation it needs to get it’s shit together. A lad gets a red card from a ref, he goes to some committee above in Croke Park and they overturn it. What’s the ref supposed to do? It’s no wonder there’s no discipline.
There was two managers red carded at the end of a match in Meath yesterday, one shoved the other onto the ground and it was passed off as a “schmozzle”.
Stuff that goes on the pitch is atrocious, and should be called out for the thugish behaviour it is.
It’s a wonder that their “partners” (sponsors) aren’t beginning to push the issue because it’s not a good look. This nonsense about community that they spout out is bullshit. It’s deplorable behaviour, is what it is.
> He said the alleged behaviour was “not something we would condone.”
Fucking really? That’s not something you would condone.
That’s just assault. Plain and simple. Lifetime ban and a stint behind bars.
I’ve come to the conclusion that GAA is too rough for my lad. You do hear a lot of stories anecdotally and even in the canteen with the people who have teenagers playing…..theres a lot of stories about the young lads being really upset and really under pressure.
The teenage girl next door to me almost cracked up last year with the pressure of football in addition to the pressure of exams. She was run ragged with training and matches. And not even getting much of a shot at playing then so it’s all grind and little reward. It massively affected her mental health but she was made to feel so guilty about quitting by the coach that even that affected her mental health.
My young lad just isn’t robust enough mentally for it. It’s a real shame as I live in the sticks and there’s literally fuck all else for kids to do around here.
[deleted]
The GAA is a disgusting opportunity cost to every athlete in this country. Think of the world class soccer, rugby, tennis, golf, and lord only knows what else athletes we could have if so many people didn’t hyper focus on an amateur sport that takes up professional amounts of time, for absolutely no reward.
[deleted]
Had situation with one of mine before the end of the season at under 9s. The coach wanted us to grade our children and sent everyone home with forms to fill.
Don’t think he got much of a response from parents. Absolute nut job. Shouldn’t be near kids development.
The absolute state of some of the parents involved. In GAA they don’t start taking a score until 12s. Why in Christ would you want to grade them. Let them run and have fun. Lots of time be serious about sport when they are mature enough to understand.
The amount of physical and mental abuse that happens to kids under the GAAs watch is just shocking.. People like this guy act like this because it was also done to them or people around them. The whole thing needs to be addressed
Buddy of mine used to be a ref for rugby, different sport I know but similar issues happening that being the interference from the sidelines.
The entire underage game has legitimately discussed banning all sideline noise in rugby or particularly at certain age groups and I can only highlight that as I’m not a GAA head I was turned off the sport from a young age.
But apparently it’s gone crazy altogether now parents shouting threats and abuse as opposite sides making fools of themselves for nothing would like to see the GAA make a statement on this and actually punish someone ban them from games or whatever they think will work.
One incident won’t damage the game but we’ve seen a fair few now in a short space of time eye gouging, referees attacked, children attacked by adults now 🤷🏻♂️
What a side life it must be to feel compelled to grab a child like that like all it takes is seconds for that to have a lasting effect and I’d worry some small minded ppl would think little of it and say ‘sure he’s grand’ or ‘it was hardly anything’ but this is an adult vs a child you have to take this stuff seriously in actual fact it should be referred to the guards
We have a great national sport but it’s surrounded by an impenetrable layer of mucksavgery.
It’s bog ball that’s what they do.
I’m an U9 girls soccer coach and was recently speaking to parent-friends about getting their daughters involved with our team – 2 of them have told me that their daughters never want to be involved in sport after experiences that they had with local GAA clubs.
I’ve also had some shambolic experiences in my days involved in hurling, and I’ve seen my brothers also lose out to intercounty squad and match-day selections due to club-favouritism and corruption in County Boards.
While I did think the sport was becoming very inclusive of race and background recently, what I’m hearing and seeing now actually doesn’t surprise me and leads me to believe that there needs to be more professionalism in GAA coaching and administration so that the old-fashioned fools in there who think they’re above the required standards are gotten rid of.
Gaelic football is a joke of a sport. Saw people going mad on Twitter recently because some guy scored a goal that was too like soccer. And then again going nuts because a great team goal was too like basketball.
The GAA has always had a toxic sink or swim atmosphere, I had it when I was a kid. Switched my boys to rugby and it’s very different, there’s a position for people of ever ability. On the pitch it’s tough but there’s much less negativity off the pitch. In GAA there’s lads from different teams kicking the heads off each other if they’re spotted on a night out, ‘my townland is better than your townland’, mad stuff.
GAA nutters not having any respect for children?
Colour me surprised!
GAA is poison
Similar situation at our recently set up hurling junior club. Two young fellas both only playing a few months pulling on a ball between them, out of nowhere one of the started cracking the other poor chap on and around the knees. Keep going when he was on the ground, the young fella was left in bits and I think only for the trainers got on the pitch ahead of the injured kids father this would have ended badly. It was a shocking attack by a child and I wouldn’t like to think how I would react seeing my own child attacked like that.
Ah sure….tis a man’s game
As a less worthy GAA fan – not affiliated to a club, don’t watch club games. I’m baffled how the inter-county game can have such a great atmosphere while this kind of thing (assault of referees and now children) is not uncommon at the grassroots.
Sure there are bad challenges on the pitch, shemozzles and eye-gouges on the side-line in inter-county, but the best thing I ever saw at a game was at the 2014 Hurling Final (my first) after Bubble’s match-winning free was judged wide by Hawkeye. I was right behind it and thought it went over.
If Wexford had a last minute-score to win an All-Ireland chalked off by Hawkeye I’d take to the bed for a week. The Tipp people around me immediately, **immediately** turned to their Kilkenny neighbours and congratulated them on a great game.
Ha this brings back memories when I used to play football as a kid. I’ll never forget playing an under 12 final and having the father of the kid I was marking threatening me constantly from the sideline that he was going to kick my head in after the game.
His son very timidly apologized to me during the game multiple times for his aul lads behaviour. Think it was Menlough we were playing
I ended up pushing the aul lad because he tried to grab the ball from me when I was taking a sideline kick at one point
Good few other stories of mainly the parents of players doing shit like this throughout my 15 years of paying gaa.
It happened once playing soccer, that shit wasn’t tolerated at all.
Never happened during the few years of playing rugby.
Nothing new. One of the coaches from Westport Gaa attacked a Castlebar Mitchels under 17 player because the player in question was fouling his son.
The game was abandoned by the ref.Westport were thrown out of the competition.
This week Westport appealed the ban and got re-instated. 2 match ban for the coach.
Prob not related at all but the man in question is married to a family member of a prominent business family, and he is also management in one of the biggest hotel groups in the area, who happen to sponsor various Mayo teams. Also, was barely reported up in the Mayo News either(Westports based local paper). Nothing untoward with that.
You wouldn’t have seen this in the 80s…shorts were short, hair was long and men were men….the 9 year old would’ve taken the lit major out of his mouth and stubbed it in that cunts eyeball…he would have had a mullet and a moustache and shovels for hands
GAA fans are cancer
People would have to pry me off the person that grabs my kid by the throat.
The person should spend a minimum of three months in prison. Maybe six. I don’t care what their status or job is. 100% unacceptable.
Grown men trying to live though children because they were useless themselves. Absolute madness , was at my daughters Camogie blitz a few weeks ago ( u10s ) when a manager of another team was screaming and roaring at his girls all the parents didn’t bat a eye they seemed fine with it , one of his girls stuck the hurley into the ribs of one of our girls, ref stops the game checks on the girl who’s in pain the girl from the other team got a small telling off by the ref just explained how she needs to be careful with the hurley etc he was lovely in how he explained it . The girl starts crying saying her coach told her to stick to her player and give her a jab into the side . Everyone was just silent bar him he shouts and roars saying they are u10s now have to get tough. Our managers refused to play the rest of the game against them disgusting attitude. Some people shouldn’t be left near kids at all
GAA has problems with abuse and assault for years. It’s interesting it’s only really coming to light now. Feck I remember playing it as a young fella before leaving. Left due to a number of factors. Favouritism/nepotism is a massive and I mean MASSIVE issue with the GAA. If you’re NOT a relative of the coach or some cousin good luck getting a game. Then the parents who take it so seriously like it’s the most important thing ever. Swearing at the ref and in many cases other kids is beyond immature. A really lack of team spirit due to an inner circle developing where that said inner circle gets on the team no matter what. Joke of an organisation!
The appeals process seems to be a joke and corrupt as fuck. That needs to be outsourced to a third party.
A long ban for the offender with a large fine for both the club and county.
If both things were implemented, a lot of these issues would go away.
That comes under rule 17.7, subsection b.
“if said juvenile is deemed to be acting the
i. maggot
Or
ii. goat
It is then deemed acceptable to either/both
i. Grab throat
ii. Issue a threat of “I’ll box the head off
you, you little bollix”
“
The comments here .. ye must all have been useless at sports .! Some sort of republican neck beard gathering in this sub reddit. It’s toxic as fuck – everyone in the GAA knows there are cunts involved. It’s about the same as general life. Theirs cunts everywhere, in the GAA and all over this post.
33 comments
A 9 year old.
The GAA really is packed full of thugs
My 2 kids were playing football up until a week ago when both decided they had enough (10 and 7). My wife and I decided that we were not going to try and change their mind. The organisation has a serious discipline problem from bottom to top. We now hear reports of assaults and abuse on a daily basis. It’s been going on for years.
As an organisation it needs to get it’s shit together. A lad gets a red card from a ref, he goes to some committee above in Croke Park and they overturn it. What’s the ref supposed to do? It’s no wonder there’s no discipline.
There was two managers red carded at the end of a match in Meath yesterday, one shoved the other onto the ground and it was passed off as a “schmozzle”.
Stuff that goes on the pitch is atrocious, and should be called out for the thugish behaviour it is.
It’s a wonder that their “partners” (sponsors) aren’t beginning to push the issue because it’s not a good look. This nonsense about community that they spout out is bullshit. It’s deplorable behaviour, is what it is.
> He said the alleged behaviour was “not something we would condone.”
Fucking really? That’s not something you would condone.
That’s just assault. Plain and simple. Lifetime ban and a stint behind bars.
I’ve come to the conclusion that GAA is too rough for my lad. You do hear a lot of stories anecdotally and even in the canteen with the people who have teenagers playing…..theres a lot of stories about the young lads being really upset and really under pressure.
The teenage girl next door to me almost cracked up last year with the pressure of football in addition to the pressure of exams. She was run ragged with training and matches. And not even getting much of a shot at playing then so it’s all grind and little reward. It massively affected her mental health but she was made to feel so guilty about quitting by the coach that even that affected her mental health.
My young lad just isn’t robust enough mentally for it. It’s a real shame as I live in the sticks and there’s literally fuck all else for kids to do around here.
[deleted]
The GAA is a disgusting opportunity cost to every athlete in this country. Think of the world class soccer, rugby, tennis, golf, and lord only knows what else athletes we could have if so many people didn’t hyper focus on an amateur sport that takes up professional amounts of time, for absolutely no reward.
[deleted]
Had situation with one of mine before the end of the season at under 9s. The coach wanted us to grade our children and sent everyone home with forms to fill.
Don’t think he got much of a response from parents. Absolute nut job. Shouldn’t be near kids development.
The absolute state of some of the parents involved. In GAA they don’t start taking a score until 12s. Why in Christ would you want to grade them. Let them run and have fun. Lots of time be serious about sport when they are mature enough to understand.
The amount of physical and mental abuse that happens to kids under the GAAs watch is just shocking.. People like this guy act like this because it was also done to them or people around them. The whole thing needs to be addressed
Buddy of mine used to be a ref for rugby, different sport I know but similar issues happening that being the interference from the sidelines.
The entire underage game has legitimately discussed banning all sideline noise in rugby or particularly at certain age groups and I can only highlight that as I’m not a GAA head I was turned off the sport from a young age.
But apparently it’s gone crazy altogether now parents shouting threats and abuse as opposite sides making fools of themselves for nothing would like to see the GAA make a statement on this and actually punish someone ban them from games or whatever they think will work.
One incident won’t damage the game but we’ve seen a fair few now in a short space of time eye gouging, referees attacked, children attacked by adults now 🤷🏻♂️
What a side life it must be to feel compelled to grab a child like that like all it takes is seconds for that to have a lasting effect and I’d worry some small minded ppl would think little of it and say ‘sure he’s grand’ or ‘it was hardly anything’ but this is an adult vs a child you have to take this stuff seriously in actual fact it should be referred to the guards
We have a great national sport but it’s surrounded by an impenetrable layer of mucksavgery.
It’s bog ball that’s what they do.
I’m an U9 girls soccer coach and was recently speaking to parent-friends about getting their daughters involved with our team – 2 of them have told me that their daughters never want to be involved in sport after experiences that they had with local GAA clubs.
I’ve also had some shambolic experiences in my days involved in hurling, and I’ve seen my brothers also lose out to intercounty squad and match-day selections due to club-favouritism and corruption in County Boards.
While I did think the sport was becoming very inclusive of race and background recently, what I’m hearing and seeing now actually doesn’t surprise me and leads me to believe that there needs to be more professionalism in GAA coaching and administration so that the old-fashioned fools in there who think they’re above the required standards are gotten rid of.
Gaelic football is a joke of a sport. Saw people going mad on Twitter recently because some guy scored a goal that was too like soccer. And then again going nuts because a great team goal was too like basketball.
The GAA has always had a toxic sink or swim atmosphere, I had it when I was a kid. Switched my boys to rugby and it’s very different, there’s a position for people of ever ability. On the pitch it’s tough but there’s much less negativity off the pitch. In GAA there’s lads from different teams kicking the heads off each other if they’re spotted on a night out, ‘my townland is better than your townland’, mad stuff.
GAA nutters not having any respect for children?
Colour me surprised!
GAA is poison
Similar situation at our recently set up hurling junior club. Two young fellas both only playing a few months pulling on a ball between them, out of nowhere one of the started cracking the other poor chap on and around the knees. Keep going when he was on the ground, the young fella was left in bits and I think only for the trainers got on the pitch ahead of the injured kids father this would have ended badly. It was a shocking attack by a child and I wouldn’t like to think how I would react seeing my own child attacked like that.
Ah sure….tis a man’s game
As a less worthy GAA fan – not affiliated to a club, don’t watch club games. I’m baffled how the inter-county game can have such a great atmosphere while this kind of thing (assault of referees and now children) is not uncommon at the grassroots.
Sure there are bad challenges on the pitch, shemozzles and eye-gouges on the side-line in inter-county, but the best thing I ever saw at a game was at the 2014 Hurling Final (my first) after Bubble’s match-winning free was judged wide by Hawkeye. I was right behind it and thought it went over.
If Wexford had a last minute-score to win an All-Ireland chalked off by Hawkeye I’d take to the bed for a week. The Tipp people around me immediately, **immediately** turned to their Kilkenny neighbours and congratulated them on a great game.
Ha this brings back memories when I used to play football as a kid. I’ll never forget playing an under 12 final and having the father of the kid I was marking threatening me constantly from the sideline that he was going to kick my head in after the game.
His son very timidly apologized to me during the game multiple times for his aul lads behaviour. Think it was Menlough we were playing
I ended up pushing the aul lad because he tried to grab the ball from me when I was taking a sideline kick at one point
Good few other stories of mainly the parents of players doing shit like this throughout my 15 years of paying gaa.
It happened once playing soccer, that shit wasn’t tolerated at all.
Never happened during the few years of playing rugby.
Nothing new. One of the coaches from Westport Gaa attacked a Castlebar Mitchels under 17 player because the player in question was fouling his son.
The game was abandoned by the ref.Westport were thrown out of the competition.
This week Westport appealed the ban and got re-instated. 2 match ban for the coach.
Prob not related at all but the man in question is married to a family member of a prominent business family, and he is also management in one of the biggest hotel groups in the area, who happen to sponsor various Mayo teams. Also, was barely reported up in the Mayo News either(Westports based local paper). Nothing untoward with that.
You wouldn’t have seen this in the 80s…shorts were short, hair was long and men were men….the 9 year old would’ve taken the lit major out of his mouth and stubbed it in that cunts eyeball…he would have had a mullet and a moustache and shovels for hands
GAA fans are cancer
People would have to pry me off the person that grabs my kid by the throat.
The person should spend a minimum of three months in prison. Maybe six. I don’t care what their status or job is. 100% unacceptable.
Grown men trying to live though children because they were useless themselves. Absolute madness , was at my daughters Camogie blitz a few weeks ago ( u10s ) when a manager of another team was screaming and roaring at his girls all the parents didn’t bat a eye they seemed fine with it , one of his girls stuck the hurley into the ribs of one of our girls, ref stops the game checks on the girl who’s in pain the girl from the other team got a small telling off by the ref just explained how she needs to be careful with the hurley etc he was lovely in how he explained it . The girl starts crying saying her coach told her to stick to her player and give her a jab into the side . Everyone was just silent bar him he shouts and roars saying they are u10s now have to get tough. Our managers refused to play the rest of the game against them disgusting attitude. Some people shouldn’t be left near kids at all
GAA has problems with abuse and assault for years. It’s interesting it’s only really coming to light now. Feck I remember playing it as a young fella before leaving. Left due to a number of factors. Favouritism/nepotism is a massive and I mean MASSIVE issue with the GAA. If you’re NOT a relative of the coach or some cousin good luck getting a game. Then the parents who take it so seriously like it’s the most important thing ever. Swearing at the ref and in many cases other kids is beyond immature. A really lack of team spirit due to an inner circle developing where that said inner circle gets on the team no matter what. Joke of an organisation!
The appeals process seems to be a joke and corrupt as fuck. That needs to be outsourced to a third party.
A long ban for the offender with a large fine for both the club and county.
If both things were implemented, a lot of these issues would go away.
That comes under rule 17.7, subsection b.
“if said juvenile is deemed to be acting the
i. maggot
Or
ii. goat
It is then deemed acceptable to either/both
i. Grab throat
ii. Issue a threat of “I’ll box the head off
you, you little bollix”
“
The comments here .. ye must all have been useless at sports .! Some sort of republican neck beard gathering in this sub reddit. It’s toxic as fuck – everyone in the GAA knows there are cunts involved. It’s about the same as general life. Theirs cunts everywhere, in the GAA and all over this post.
GAA is life
Just GAA things.