BERNARD BROGAN HAS dismissed the suggestion that Dublin’s greater financial muscle has played an integral part in the county’s enduring dominance at national level.
Jim Gavin’s side lifted the Sam Maguire for the fourth time in six years last weekend as they edged past Mayo at Croke Park, a victory which has led to further accusations of ‘financial doping’ by the GAA.
Many quarters believe that the money being given to Dublin GAA by the association, and the board’s ability to entice sponsors on board, has facilitated the emergence of the Blues as football’s dominant force.
But Brogan, a four-time All-Ireland winner, rejects the idea and insists their sweeping success is down to the structures and coaching in place at all levels in the capital.
“Dublin have always had more money because they’re the capital,” Brogan said yesterday.
“Fifty years ago or 100 years ago they would have always had more money. I don’t think it’s money, I think it’s about the structures that I talked about.
“The Under-13, Under-14 team has Jason Sherlock as manager with David Henry, I think, Declan Lally, Paul Casey… I know Collie Moran has the team above that, I think Ciarán Whelan has one, Paddy Christie is involved. These are all players who do it for nothing that are heroes of the game and they go back and give up their Saturday or Sunday morning from eight o’clock on.
“I know Jayo’s team because Declan Lally is good pals with me from home, they carry 60-80 kids a week, training or upskilling them. Like, every county can do that. Every county can instead of bringing 15 lads on one team, bring loads of lads in and try and bring them all the way up and use their heroes of the game, inter-county players.
“I’d say there’s not another county in the country that has every age group that has legends of the game that have played for years and been looked up to by kids and imagine if Jason Sherlock was your coach at Under-13, you’d be breaking yourself to impress him.
“That’s the difference I see – the county board has put the structures in, asked lads who have retired, ‘will you give a bit of time back?’ to help the future of the game. That’s what Jim did, he came up through the ranks with the Under-21s.”
Speaking in his role as president of the Federation of Irish Sport, Brogan continued by explaining that success stems from the grassroot levels and it’s down to something no sponsorship deal or funding package can buy.
“Money, what’s it give you? We haven’t been away at all for a training camp at all, we go down the country. Every other team has gone to Spain and Portugal and all this stuff. So there’s loads of teams that have money to do that and resources to do things.
“There’s no-one that doesn’t have a pitch and a set of balls and jerseys that they can go out and train.
“There’s obviously more finances in Dublin because it’s got more population and that’s what leads to more sponsorship, but at grass-roots level it’s about participation, teaching these kids and getting them to evolve.
“When we had the cup in 2011, we went around to 400 schools to try and get more kids involved in GAA and that’s the knock-on effect of how you kind of breed the future of the game. So that’s the answer to the financial question.”
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