League of Ireland brand review.

**Nah Nah Nah Nah** · 16/12/2016, 11:51 AM

http://www.independent.ie/sport/socc...-35298462.html

**Nah Nah Nah Nah** · 16/12/2016, 12:42 PM

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif][COLOR=#292f33]You can download Jonathan Gabay's LoI branding report from the following link.
[/COLOR][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif][COLOR=#292f33]http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/626268/LOI%20Brand%20Report%202016.pdf[/COLOR][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif][COLOR=#292f33]You're welcome...

[/COLOR][/FONT] [FONT=Arial, sans-serif][COLOR=#292f33]http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/626268/LOI%20Brand%20Report%202016.pdf[/COLOR][/FONT]

http://www.filehosting.org/file/deta...ort%202016.pdf

**Stuttgart88** · 16/12/2016, 12:49 PM

What a pile of utter claptrap, amazing even by FAI standards.

**pineapple stu** · 16/12/2016, 12:58 PM

Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

amazing even by FAI standards.

The more you read about the presentation, the more this seems to be the key conclusion alright

**NeverFeltBetter** · 16/12/2016, 2:05 PM

That Balls.ie article makes for equally hilarious and grim reading. What a clownshow. I mean, that last report was shockingly biased towards praising the FAI, but this?

**joey B** · 16/12/2016, 2:12 PM

'Under John Delaney it's been amazing'
To start a report like that is genuinely unbelievable ,even if they were giving the league a decent shift why would you start a review of the problems the leagues brand faces with that line,complete bull****!

**NeverFeltBetter** · 16/12/2016, 2:22 PM

The creation of a specially designed League of Ireland bus that would travel up and down the country brandishing a new logo: I mean, OK, whatever. Seems like the kind of short-term idea that you wouldn't expect the FAI to waste money on.

Bank Holiday games with sides from America's MLS and NASL: Total nonsense.

A Hollywood walk of fame leading up to grounds commemorating star players: There's something to be said for clubs promoting their legacy I suppose. This seems a bit much. Presumably they'd have to get local government permission.

Uplifting pre- and post-match music: I am always very uplifted by "Right Here, Right Now", let me tell you.

Local bus stops painted in club colours: Window dressing is a very important part of the FAI's strategy.

Local bus stops offering live scores: Knowing RTI, they'd probably be the wrong scores.

Half-time EA Sports gaming tournaments on giant screens in the stadium: If the FAI are willing to buy a giant screen for every ground in the LOI, I think they can put whatever they like on them at half-time.

Managers encouraged to speak controversially in the media: Oh God, spare me with this manufactured horse****, it's a disease in modern sport.

Name change from SSE Airtricity League to the 'League of Ireland sponsored by the SSE': Longer names are always better!

Crackdown on use of flares and discouragement of anti-FAI chants at matches: Know your place everybody, lest you wind being "discouraged" by the FAI.

What a diabolical load of claptrap.

**pineapple stu** · 16/12/2016, 2:58 PM

Manager controversy underway

https://mobile.twitter.com/collieone...50175564566528

**Pablo Escobar** · 16/12/2016, 3:31 PM

I knew it was a p1sstake when he said our chips were nice!

**NeverFeltBetter** · 16/12/2016, 3:46 PM

Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Manager controversy underway

https://mobile.twitter.com/collieone...50175564566528

I love this league. Managers should send the most over the top insults to each other all season long.

**Dodge** · 16/12/2016, 3:51 PM

All you need to know about the independence of this report is that the FAI selected who he spoke to

Some people, in some clubs

**pineapple stu** · 16/12/2016, 4:06 PM

I'm kind of surprised he went ahead with the whole thing. He seems respected in his field - you don't work for Saatchi and Saatchi otherwise. How much money do you have to be thrown to make a complete arse of yourself professionally? Or is he reckoning a story about the LoI will never make it out of Ireland, and he can add the FAI to his list of clients?

An interesting view into modern business anyway. Definitely who you know, not what you know in this case

**Longfordian** · 16/12/2016, 4:28 PM

This is poor form as well.

http://twitter.com/garethpenrose/sta...10999255715840

Edit: Sorry, they've credited Extratime, so not poor form just inexplicably lazy.

**nigel-harps1954** · 16/12/2016, 4:59 PM

Originally Posted by Longfordian

This is poor form as well.

http://twitter.com/garethpenrose/sta...10999255715840

Edit: Sorry, they've credited Extratime, so not poor form just inexplicably lazy.

The best thing to come out of it, they're around 20,000 over the figure for total attendance in the league this season.

**pineapple stu** · 16/12/2016, 6:35 PM

A few of my favourite bits from the report -

under the FAI’s professional leadership, internationally, football is currently achieving remarkable results which leave other world teams conspicuously lagging behind on the world stage.

Bit of a stretch, that one.

Meanwhile, some clubs at the bottom of the League’s First Division, argued that whilst they could appreciate the need for a wider vision, for them, the daily ongoing struggle to meet short-term overheads, rather than become overconcerned with long-term strategies, had to take precedent

So Gabay would rather that clubs had nice shiny plans of where they were going to be in five years' time, while being subjected to winding-up orders for not paying bills. Right so.

Beyond the clubs as entities, certain cliques of die-hard delinquent supporters such as Shamrock Rover’s Ultras and the so-called, Casuals had, through primal tribal force, rather than rational campaigning, somewhat added to tainting the League’s overall reputation.

I'll leave that - together with typos; he apologises for them later, but doesn't bother his hole actually fixing them - stand.

Attending the Irish Daily Mail FAI Cup Final, I witnessed flares thrown onto the pitch by some hard-core fans – at one point almost setting fire to goal netting. The tribes also chanted
abuse criticising the FAI. Given that the FAI – in all its broader aspects – from national administrators to associated volunteers - are in fact the League’s greatest supporters, and that the brazen chants were yelled in front of leading public dignitaries attending the game, as an outsider, despite the football play on the pitch, the entire experience left the impression that the brand as a whole, lacked solidity and pride.

This is glorious stuff. Fans are "tribes" now? "Brazen" chants? And in front of public dignitaries?! By Jove.

This bit may actually be a hint that Gabay is deliberately taking the **** in order to get revenge on Delaney for asking him to publish such tripe.

League of Ireland clubs have a responsibility to their local communities. It is not enough to simply ban rabble-rousers from grounds. Instead a dialogue is needed to explain how loutish
activities only serves to hurt such die-hard fans’ own beloved clubs (through fines, poorer ticket gates and so on). From the club point of view it simply pushes the problem towards the surrounding local community areas just beyond the gates (tribal ‘patches’) forcing wellbehaved fans who are as passionate about clubs as die-hard fans, to circumnavigate intimidating areas on the way to games. (I delve further into brand implications from this, in Rippled Realties, and Tribal Psychologies, Part Two).

Rippled Realities is an appropriate phrase here alright. Any more removed from reality, and Gabay is in danger of writing a 60s psychadelic classic.

From the outset, I did not approach this 12-week project NOTE 1 as a biased, avid football NOTE 2 fan.

NOTE 2 here is a subnote indicating that while football is really Gaelic Football, he will refer to soccer as football as it's the Football Association of Ireland. So he actually sees the need to define the term "football". Except later, he writes about "soccer (football)"

when visiting local pubs close to grounds – such as The Horseshoe Inn, frequented by Cork City supporters, I asked around 30 people for views on the general state of professional play (excluding clubs from the Premier Division, notably, Dundalk, and Cork City, and to a lesser extent, Bohemians, Galway United, Derry City, Shamrock Rovers, Sligo Rovers, St Patricks and Bray Wanderers).

Can anyone figure out here what clubs he was asking about?

The fact remains that since the Football Association of Ireland’s administration, conditions have been implemented which allow clubs to better manage themselves, and so improve the
standard of League football (in all its manifestations). Take Dundalk: only four years ago, the club played in front of 250 diehards — finished bottom of the League and were only saved from relegation by another club going out of business.

Ah yes. Fran Gavin's classic "The FAI created the conditions for Dundalk to thrive" line. But this is still an independent report of course. Pure coincidence there. And of course, the unaddressed elephant in the quote is that a club went out of business under the FAI's highly professional and hugely improved stewardship.

In the 2007-08 season, Irish players made up to six per cent of footballers in the Premier League (the second most represented nationality after England). In the 2013-14 season, Irish players accounted for 4.7% of top-flight participants - the fourth most represented nationality.

There's no exploration here here about why the number of Irish players in the Premiership has dropped by 25% in just seven years.

A popular mantra repeated time after time from club management was the plea for the Football Association of Ireland to hand out more… and more… and yet still more money to clubs to invest in players.

You can't hand out "still more money" if you never handed out any ****ing money in the first place.

Some of the clubs suggested that prize-money should be increased to finance affiliation fees and fines whilst still showing a small surplus after a long season of living hand-to-mouth.

Burn them all!

He then suggests increasing prize money would lead to clubs going bankrupt. At least he admits licencing is a farce anyway. Even if I doubt he knows what licencing is.

Anyways, that's just the first 20 pages of the 100 page document.

What utter, utter drivel.