O Cinneide clarifies quotes
November 14, 2007

Dara O Cinneide rasies the Sam Maguire Cup
All-Ireland winning Kerry captain Dara O Cinneide has expressed his disappointment that an interview he gave at the start of the year is being quoted now to give the impression he said that players were too demanding following the decision of the GPA to strike.
O Cinneide, who has written in the past how he is in favour of grants to GAA players, was quoted in a national paper in recent days as saying that he had issues with the way some footballers portray representing their counties as a 'chore'.
"I don't like the direction football is taking at the moment. The attitude of people gets to me. People going on about what their diet is and how serious they are about football. They're almost giving the impression that it's a chore to play for your county," stated the former full-forward.
"What pisses me off most of all is players, young fellas, telling you how to play the game-all the sacrifices they'd made. Telling you that there should be government grants at the end of it and how they felt their image rights were being infringed upon. You're playing for your county. There are kids out there who'd love to do it."
These selective quotes were in fact taken from an interview which the former Kerry player did at the start of 2007 and he is understandably unhappy that people might think he gave them in recent days.
"I never claimed modern footballers were becoming too greedy," O Cinneide explained to www.hoganstand.com. "I never gave the interview to the paper that published these remarks.
"They are part of a wide ranging interview with Joe O Muicheartaigh at the start of the year when he was compiling his new book 'Princes of Pigskin'. The timing and context are of utmost importance in relation to this issue."
Kilkenny hurler Eddie Brennan hit out at the quotes attributed to the Kerry man saying that is was unfair to brandish modern players as greedy, which is part of the reason why O Cinneide is keen that it is clarified that he never made such a statement and it is unfair if anybody thinks that these quotes were made in recent days, when in fact they were made a number of months before the idea of a players strike was even mooted.
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