The Olympic qualified men's Irish hockey team, the first team sport to represent Ireland in over 60 years at the Games, is short of funding to the tune of €225,000 for their programme and preparations for Rio.
In a needs must decision and with yesterday’s draw of India, the Dutch and Germany the first three matches over four days representing a serious challenge to the Irish players, the sport has undertaken a crowdfunding campaign under the banner “Obsessed”.
Drive awareness
The aim is to drive awareness of the team’s Olympic quest and to generate the funding needed to fulfil that. In past years the hockey public have been more than generous with donations and when the men’s team threatened to pull out of a Champions Challenge event in Argentina in 2012 because of a shortfall of €45,000, the public responded with over €55,000.
Britain is not in Ireland’s pool but the teams could face each other in the cross over matches. Britain allocated €352,448,768 to sport between the years 2013/’17. British hockey alone was awarded €20,708,422 for that period.
The “Obsessed” campaign is focused on raising funds to supplement the Government funding.
Given the list of warm-up matches, it’s not difficult to see where that money will go. Ireland’s challenge in Rio is the biggest the national team has ever faced and the warm-up schedule is also a monster.
Ireland will play four games in Dublin against Korea in May and June, four more in June against Canada in Stormont and Dublin and two games against the world number two ranked side and defending Olympic Champions, the Netherlands in Cork in July.
The side will also play Germany in a three-match series in Hamburg on May 12th, 13th and 15th and compete in a Six Nations tournament (Ireland, Argentina, Spain, Germany, New Zealand, India) in Valencia from June 27th to July 3rd.
HOME WARM-UP SERIES
May 31st : Ireland v Korea, 7pm, Dublin
June 2nd: Ireland v Korea, 7pm Dublin
June 4th: Ireland v Korea, 2pm Dublin
June 5th: Ireland v Korea, 2pm Dublin
June 9th: Ireland v Canada, 7pm Stormont
June 10th: Ireland v Canada, 7pm Stormont
June 12th: Ireland v Canada, 2pm Dublin
June 14th: Ireland v Canada, 11:30am Dublin
July 4th: Ireland v The Netherlands, 7pm UCC
July 6th: Ireland v The Netherlands, 7pm UCC
