This is not about England or the history of the stadium. It's about us helping our competitors gain an upper hand and I don't think a lot of GAA people realise how serious the consequences are going to be in years to come.

Sure, we are making money out of all this, but rugby and soccer will be making three times as much. They'll have far more than us to pump into their facilities around the country and to win over youngsters who are choosing which sport they want to achieve in.

What's really annoyed me over the past while is that you can't have anything other than a positive view. If you complain and speak your mind, there's something wrong with you. You are not acting in the best interests of sport and of Ireland. I've never seen the like of the triumphalism I've had to put up with all week. And if I hear another person mention the money we got to build Croke Park. . . The taxpayer's money has gone into Croke Park but with the amount of money the government got in tax, PAYE and PRSI when Croke Park was being built, well, we just got some of that back.

That's number one, number two is this: other sports got the same and we got that money to do up Croke Park because we couldn't have had the Special Olympics here without the GAA and Croke Park. They gave a lot of money to soccer and rugby and they had to do nothing with it, just pocket it and walk away.

Up to a few weeks ago, Croke Park was a GAA stadium. That's gone now and it will never be a GAA stadium again. Why? Because any logical individual will have doubts over whether Lansdowne Road will ever be built.

I hear our Minister for Sport this week suggesting that Croke Park might have to be opened into 2009. This is an extra year and they haven't even got planning permission for Lansdowne yet. To John O'Donoghue I would say, we don't tell the government how to run the country so I don't think it's any of their business, telling people how to run the GAA.

But in the GAA, we are not looking after our own. The people in our association want to play in Croke Park and they should be allowed.

You look at ladies' football, they only have a provisional date for the All Ireland finals in 2007 in Croke Park. Yet they are promoting other games, soccer and rugby, games that are in opposition to us and they have assured dates for 2008. Now where is the logic in that? We can't play our Ulster final in Croke Park this year and we are going to lose money that we have pumped into it. There is no fairness in this.

And it's not a question of the others having to play abroad. Couldn't they play in Dalymount Park, didn't they play there for years? It's plenty big, sure aren't the pitch dimensions perfect. If you're talking about size of crowds and so on, that's a different matter. That's an issue of making money. They could play in Windsor Park either.

There are loads of options.

And anyway, every weekend there are loads of boys going over to Glasgow, London, Manchester to watch games and they won't watch their own teams here so why can't they go abroad for the Irish team as well. They seem to enjoy the trip. The GAA has matches in every little town over the whole year, we're bringing money in with all those and we are made feel like the bad boys. It makes me sick.

But it's too late to stop it now. You take the first Sunday there's a rugby match in Croke Park. Not only did we give up Croke Park, we changed times of all our games to suit them and make sure they had no opposition.

Not until all our teams are accommodated in Croke Park at times that suit, should we look at letting others near the place. Nickey Brennan has a tough time ahead, he's inherited a problem people don't realise the scale of.

Mic�al Greenan is exchairman of the Ulster Council