----------------------------------------------------------- New Message on Irish Fencing Forum
----------------------------------------------------------- From: DexterSin Message 20 in Discussion OK, now we've established that the Federation has no say in whether Ms. Byrne gets 30K a year, and that she has no obligation, legal or moral, to compete in the country that pays her this money. Who are we to complain - most of our best soccer players play in England! What I would like to know is: how come no-one else (apart from Conor Nagle - and he gets about a seventh of what Ms. Byrne receives) seems to be getting this sort of money? I'm not just talking about individuals, either - clubs, and the sport in general, would benefit from the injection of a few score grand a year. Another thing: this policy of paying out relatively large sums to individual athletes does not necessarily benefit the sport, no matter how talented the individuals in question may be. For example, Ms. Byrne failed to qualify for the Olympics. She appears to have been very unlucky, so I'm not criticising her, but surely it would be better to spend smaller sums on individuals, spread the money about more, and try to develop as many (preferably home-grown) fencers as possible? That way, we would build up a pool of experience, which everyone else would benefit from and which could be used to improve the standard of fencing generally, as more of these home-grown talents would return to Ireland and share their experience with the rest of us. It seems to be a larger problem with sport: no-one wants to pay until athletes produce results, but they can't produce results until they get proper funding... ----------------------------------------------------------- To stop getting this e-mail, or change how often it arrives, go to your E-mail Settings. http://groups.msn.com/IrishFencingForum/_emailsettings.msnw Need help? If you've forgotten your password, please go to Passport Member Services. http://groups.msn.com/_passportredir.msnw?ppmprop=help For other questions or feedback, go to our Contact Us page. http://groups.msn.com/contact If you do not want to receive future e-mail from this MSN group, or if you received this message by mistake, please click the "Remove" link below. On the pre-addressed e-mail message that opens, simply click "Send". Your e-mail address will be deleted from this group's mailing list. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
