The League Is A Joke

[Duggie]

lads as much as we would hate to say it the league is a joke. drogs going part time now - feck sake. cork almost going bust. how long will bohs and pats keep it going ? crap stadiums (apart from cork), stupid petty incidents like wexford youth v limerick still happening etc etc. practically every other club in dire money problems. either it will just fold or some proper solution will be needed. clubs merging makes sense to me. i dont know, ****es me of. how can we get it so wrong when u see a team from cyprus and bate borislov in champs league this season. there going forward but our league is going back.

[Dodge]

Simply put, they get people to go to the games, and people to invest in the teams. BATE also posed into this years Champions League, no dount at all that if Drogheda had their draw they'd have qualified.

Not sure why you need to start another thread on it mind, as there's tons already there

[garyderry]

lads as much as we would hate to say it the league is a joke. drogs going part time now - feck sake. cork almost going bust. how long will bohs and pats keep it going ? crap stadiums (apart from cork), stupid petty incidents like wexford youth v limerick still happening etc etc. practically every other club in dire money problems. either it will just fold or some proper solution will be needed. clubs merging makes sense to me. i dont know, ****es me of. how can we get it so wrong when u see a team from cyprus and bate borislov in champs league this season. there going forward but our league is going back.

Dont talk Crap, clubs merging WOULD be a nail in the coffin
would happen and only an idiot would suggest it.

Money pumped into facilities, marketing, long term an AIL,
there are lots of things wrong with the league and we all
know what needs done, but it takes investment,
and that isnt going to happen for a while

[Duggie]

Dont talk Crap, clubs merging WOULD be a nail in the coffin
would happen and only an idiot would suggest it.

Money pumped into facilities, marketing, long term an AIL,
there are lots of things wrong with the league and we all
know what needs done, but it takes investment,
and that isnt going to happen for a while

clubs merging makes perfect sense. drogs/dundalk cork/cobh maybe wexford/waterford etc. happened in AFL in australia. it makes business sense, more money and combined supporters. Tough for supporters but thats life. All your proposals are tired and old and will never happen.

[Ash]

If Athlone merge with Longford the new club name should take the Athlone from Athlone Town
and the Town from Longford Town and be called Athlone Town :D

We could use Flancare Park as a alternative pitch if Limerick refused to warm up on the training pitch
in Lissywollen and contact Freedom Finance or someone to consolidate all loans and debts into one
low monthly payment :D

[Dodge]

yeah but it'd play in Longford ;)

[finnpark]

I think that its very clear that rural clubs need a much bigger catchment area.

2 clubs from Ireland's smallest county in the league doesn't make sense. Towns like Drogheda, Sligo, ballbofey, Cobh etc cannot support professional football teams on their own, they need to catch the imagination of a wider market.

[Salmon Coloured]

Barstooler + No Soul = Situation.

[don ramo]

i couldnt see many cobh fans goin to turners cross every other week, just as i wouldnt expect harps fans to go to derry or wexfordians go to waterford ETC ETC, wed all be the blowins from the country,

[Guitd]

the fai must have more control over the press who have brainwashed the irish sporting public into following english soccer and setting the standard with premiership .every paper in this country gives huge coverage to soccer across the irish sea while sometimes you would find it impossable to get eircom league results same as tv or radio headlines given to preimership games while the sometimes dont even give a mention about eircom league games until this changes the eircom league will never get any respect from so called soccer fans.

[Duggie]

i couldnt see many cobh fans goin to turners cross every other week, just as i wouldnt expect harps fans to go to derry or wexfordians go to waterford ETC ETC, wed all be the blowins from the country,

well if there was only 1 team in cork then you would support them. you would get used of it.

[John83]

I think that its very clear that rural clubs need a much bigger catchment area.

2 clubs from Ireland's smallest county in the league doesn't make sense. Towns like Drogheda, Sligo, ballbofey, Cobh etc cannot support professional football teams on their own, they need to catch the imagination of a wider market.
The size of the county means jack****. The population is the important bit.

If every club is run at its real level - no bad debt ruining the reputation of the club with every bank and business for miles around, no Pyrrhic success built on the sale of the club's only tangable asset, no empty promises from greedy builders - then if Sligo (for example) isn't big enough to support a good team, Sligo Rovers will naturally slip back behind bigger clubs. How pathetic is this league that a town of 5000 people can support a successful club? The problem isn't that club. It's the failures of the bigger ones.

[Louth4sam]

I think that its very clear that rural clubs need a much bigger catchment area.

2 clubs from Ireland's smallest county in the league doesn't make sense

Dundalk has 500,000 people living within a 30minute commute. Drogheda prob has closer to 1,000,000. How in the name of god are they not large catchment areas?

You obviously know nothing about football or rivalry to suggest something as ludicrous as merging. Why not merge Man Utd and Man City, Everton and Liverpool or Arsenal, West Ham, Spurs, Fulham, Chelsea and QPR they could call it London utd and it could dominate the champions league for years...:rolleyes:

[don ramo]

well if there was only 1 team in cork then you would support them. you would get used of it.

well to be quiet honest why does it have to be cobh that step aside weve been around for 86 years while city have been around for 25, would you go to athlone if you clubs merged and played in ahtlone

[A face]

The size of the county means jack****. The population is the important bit.

Exactly, that is a valid point that clubs should be looking at in their own area. how big towns around them are.


If every club is run at its real level - no bad debt ruining the reputation of the club with every bank and business for miles around, no Pyrrhic success built on the sale of the club's only tangable asset, no empty promises from greedy builders

That calls for management with good policies and vision, who are building for success at a reasonable realistic pace.


How pathetic is this league that a town of 5000 people can support a successful club? The problem isn't that club. It's the failures of the bigger ones.

What town of 5000 are you on about, Sligo? I'm lost

The bigger ones definitely do more damage to reputation.

[jinxy lilywhite]

I think that its very clear that rural clubs need a much bigger catchment area.

2 clubs from Ireland's smallest county in the league doesn't make sense. Towns like Drogheda, Sligo, ballbofey, Cobh etc cannot support professional football teams on their own, they need to catch the imagination of a wider market.

Louth maybe the smallest county but their catchement area is higher than the population of Louth. Dundalk and Drogheda both have pops of 35,000 which is big enough to support a football team but you could argue that Drogs pull some support from east meath and we could pull some support from sth armagh and sth monaghan (Blayney and Carrick). I don't believe county models of football teams (Gaelic Intercounty) would work. The local rivalry and all that would be ruined and i don't believe it would capture the imagination of the general public. No Drog
When clubs get off the field activities right and stop making a joke of themselves then we can possibly plan ahead. otherwise I think franchise clubs are crap

[Duggie]

well to be quiet honest why does it have to be cobh that step aside weve been around for 86 years while city have been around for 25, would you go to athlone if you clubs merged and played in ahtlone

i never said cobh would step aside. just one team in cork and call it whatever u wanted. i just used cork as an example. as i say with one team the crowd that would or should be achievable 5000+.

[Dodge]

DO you think Cobh are the thing that is stopping Cork City get those crowds now?

[Duggie]

Dundalk has 500,000 people living within a 30minute commute. Drogheda prob has closer to 1,000,000. How in the name of god are they not large catchment areas?

You obviously know nothing about football or rivalry to suggest something as ludicrous as merging. Why not merge Man Utd and Man City, Everton and Liverpool or Arsenal, West Ham, Spurs, Fulham, Chelsea and QPR they could call it London utd and it could dominate the champions league for years...:rolleyes:

maybe u dont know much about football man, this comparision is stupid. all these clubs have millions to spend they wouldnt need to merge would they.

[jinxy lilywhite]

maybe u dont know much about football man, this comparision is stupid. all these clubs have millions to spend they wouldnt need to merge would they.

No mate your comparison is crap. To say that Louth as the smallest county in the country that she should only have one football club is ludicrous. AS L4S pointed out the catchment areas of both clubs is massive. He used the english clubs proximity to each other to disprove your point. The people of Dundalk and Drogheda would never support a combined team and both towns would rather see their teams play in the LSL than have a louth franchise club. Rivalry is good for clubs. We always look out for their scores and vice versa. Actually I'll go as far as to say that football itself is built on local rivalry. All top clubs in the world have firece local rivals.

You need to stop looking at Louth as one place but look at it with a small area with a high population.
Leave the county teams to the GAA. Kildare County has already proven that County teams don't work.

[Duggie]

so ur content with dundalk playing in a dive of a ground(apart from the surface) to crowds of prob less than 1000 at most home games, part time for the rest of time. a longterm picture is needed for the future of the game, if there is one.

[jinxy lilywhite]

so ur content with dundalk playing in a dive of a ground(apart from the surface) to crowds of prob less than 1000 at most home games, part time for the rest of time. a longterm picture is needed for the future of the game, if there is one.

What are you on about?
OP is far from a dive. Needs refurbishment but is very far from a dive.
We have got consistent crowds of 1300 to 1800 (Shels home match 2,500 last month) that some of the lesser premier sides would only dream of. Stu's figures on the attendence will give an approx figure.
If being Part time means the long term sustainability of my club then so be it. I'm all for it
If our crowds ever hit over 4,000 a game I would want us to go full time.
Listen all my life of being a Dundalk fan we have gone from one financial crisis to another, from being on the brink of going bust even when we where one of the best clubs in the country. We have suffered for that and to an extent we still are. I never want to see us go through that again. At last we have a chairman who is adamant of what comes in will be spent and foundations have been put in place that we'll never ever spend beyond our means. Realism is needed not a effin pipe.
To suggest that all Dundalk fans and Drogheda fans will set rivalry behind them to support a franchise club is rubbish and would never take off. I think this is the only thing that Drogs will agree with me on.

[brianw82]

Any 'investment' needs to be in facilities, youth programs, etc.
The media needs to give the league some positive press for once.

Businessmen have to stop subsidising player wages, because that is what their so-called investment is doing at the moment.

[Heliodorus]

I believe that the LOI is simply the first league to show the effects of the world wide downturn. This is going to affect much more than Irish clubs believe me.

[holidaysong]

Louth United FC :D

[Schumi]

clubs merging makes perfect sense. drogs/dundalk cork/cobh maybe wexford/waterford etc. happened in AFL in australia. it makes business sense, more money and combined supporters.
I'm sure you'd be happy to travel to Galway every fortnight to support Connaght Rovers. :rolleyes: Supporters won't support made up teams that have taken the place of their clubs and barstoolers still won't care. As usual, people's 'solutions' to major problems involve daft, short term ideas.

The way the league can get away from its current money difficulties is to operate within its means and build things up slowly. By not wasting all their money on players' wages, clubs will have money to spend on improving stadia, marketing the club and the all the other stuff that nobody bothers with because they're more concerned with winning tomorrow's match than what state the club will be in in 10 years.

[the-blue-harp]

I believe that the LOI is simply the first league to show the effects of the world wide downturn. This is going to affect much more than Irish clubs believe me.

the league of ireland never seen the effects of the worldwide upturn so i dont see how the down turn should make any difference on it.

[ronburgundy]

lads we have to be realistic. in this countr no club in any sport makes money or is a success. this country doesnt do clubs. its all about your parish or your county, or in rugbys case, your province. if cork had one team they could market it like munster, and get your hangers on and people on the bandwogon. by god do we need them. forget all this purist nonsense because we will have nothing but memores of our clubs left if we dont give the ordinary take it or leave it 'fan' something to shout for and feel part of. sad but true

[Heliodorus]

the league of ireland never seen the effects of the worldwide upturn so i dont see how the down turn should make any difference on it.

Were you around in the 1980s? If you think things are bad now it was much worse back then.

[jebus]

lads we have to be realistic. in this countr no club in any sport makes money or is a success. this country doesnt do clubs. its all about your parish or your county, or in rugbys case, your province. if cork had one team they could market it like munster, and get your hangers on and people on the bandwogon. by god do we need them. forget all this purist nonsense because we will have nothing but memores of our clubs left if we dont give the ordinary take it or leave it 'fan' something to shout for and feel part of. sad but true

So what's your suggestion? Scrap clubs and form provences and ask the Scots and the Welsh if they want to leave Uefa and form a Celtic league? Or scrap clubs like Limerick FC and form......Limerick FC

[Terry]

you could start clubs Jebus that represent there counties and call them maybe ..... I dont know..... Limerick 37, Galway United, Sligo Rovers, Derry City, Wexford Youths, Waterford United ...etc.

[Longfordian]

It's only kind of on topic but the more I talk to people within our club the more I know that the majority see that we've come a good way since the dark days of the early '90s even if our league position this year is nothing to write home about. For example the main ambitions of the club now seem to be to get ourselves into a position whereby we can draw down lottery funding and do what needs to be done in Flancare whilst still keeping some team on the field. We've had our successes but there's no chance of us meeting that budget again any time soon so keep a team alive and work towards capital projects and that's all we can realistically aim for in the next year or two.

[Kingdom]

I think the killer in all of this is the lack of cohesion between the various strands of football in the country. I've said in discussions with friends at home etc that its a scandal that clubs like Belvedere, Stella Maris have no senior representation, yet they ship as many kids as possible off out of this country as they can. With the quality of players going into these clubs at a young age, they should have an outlet within their own clubs for kids to play football at senior level. I'm not sure whether these clubs are catered for in the U20's league but i believe they should be.

As an outsider, it would appear to me that football, both in standards, facilities and indeed atmosphere has improved very well in the LoI. There is more exposure of recent times, both good and bad, but surely this can only increase. Its hard to feel for clubs who have purposefully overshot themselves when they fall on hard times, yet it has been brilliant to see Irish clubs do so well on European adventures.

Of the LoI clubs how many field underage teams?

[Battery Rover]

Of the LoI clubs how many field underage teams?

All of them field at least one Under 20 and one under 18 as it believe it is a category A part of licensing to have these

[Kingdom]

All of them field at least one Under 20 and one under 18 as it believe it is a category A part of licensing to have these

Battery thanks, but I didn't ask the correct question. How many of them would have complete schoolboy/girl structures a la Bohs, Shamrock Rovers etc?

[bigmac]

the league of ireland never seen the effects of the worldwide upturn so i dont see how the down turn should make any difference on it.

Yes we have seen the effects. Massive unsustainable wages and clubs spending way beyond their means to gain short term success. Where do you think all the money came from?


if cork had one team they could market it like munster, and get your hangers on and people on the bandwogon.

Cork essentially does have one team - Cobh have a small hinterland to draw from but even in their unopposed position in the city and with plenty of recent success, Cork City struggle to get sufficient support to run a professional full-time club.

[Battery Rover]

Battery thanks, but I didn't ask the correct question. How many of them would have complete schoolboy/girl structures a la Bohs, Shamrock Rovers etc?

All clubs again must have these as part of the club itself or ties to a club within their area as an affiliation agreement. The club then passes on money to the underage affiliate from part of their solidarity money received from UEFA

[Dodge]

Battery thanks, but I didn't ask the correct question. How many of them would have complete schoolboy/girl structures a la Bohs, Shamrock Rovers etc?

Pats and Shels have similar.

[mypost]

We have got consistent crowds of 1300 to 1800 (Shels home match 2,500 last month) that some of the lesser premier sides would only dream of. Stu's figures on the attendence will give an approx figure.
If being Part time means the long term sustainability of my club then so be it. I'm all for it
If our crowds ever hit over 4,000 a game I would want us to go full time.


Only the English league draws full houses. Look at the crowd at Pats match in Berlin. 7,000?? :confused:

The top teams in Spain draw full houses when they play each other, but rarely at other times. You can buy tickets for any Italian game, even you can buy Ireland home tickets relatively easily at the moment, going by the ticket threads.

With the amount of football on tv these days from all over Europe, and working class fans the first to feel the effects of the economic situation, people are going to spend that €15 or so here and elsewhere, on more important things, like providing for their families, and securing their homes.

€50 a ticket to watch Liverpool home games plus travel expenses, or watch free on tv? For most, it's a no brainer tbh.

[Dodge]

Only the English league draws full houses. Look at the crowd at Pats match in Berlin. 7,000?? :confused:


It was 13,000 adn their average league crowd is over 40,000. Full house or not, thats impressive

[HarpoJoyce]

Battery thanks, but I didn't ask the correct question. How many of them would have complete schoolboy/girl structures a la Bohs, Shamrock Rovers etc?

In the early 1990's, Shamrock Rovers merged with a successful Intermediate club Tallaght Town FC which fielded many sides, to form Shamrock Rovers FC. With the promise that Shamrock Rovers would soon move to Tallaght. This has yet to happen.
I know some posters above disapproved of the merging of clubs.

As late as 2005, coaches of the LSL and Junior sides questioned the wisdom of continuing with Shamrock Rovers and queried whether to revert to Tallaght Town FC again.

Shamrock Rovers will now use the new improved Sacred Heart FC grounds in Killinarden estate.

[brianw82]

Cork City struggle to get sufficient support to run a professional full-time club.

They do not get enough support to pay the contracts that they offered. If they were paying the money that Sligo are paying, for example, and not the stupid 2grand contracts that they were paying pre-Arkaga debacle, they would definitely be able to support full-time football with 3K crowds.

[the-blue-harp]

Yes we have seen the effects. Massive unsustainable wages and clubs spending way beyond their means to gain short term success. Where do you think all the money came from?

ah come on. in comparison to all the other leagues in the world, we seen peanuts!

[Kingdom]

In the early 1990's, Shamrock Rovers merged with a successful Intermediate club Tallaght Town FC which fielded many sides, to form Shamrock Rovers FC. With the promise that Shamrock Rovers would soon move to Tallaght. This has yet to happen.
I know some posters above disapproved of the merging of clubs.

As late as 2005, coaches of the LSL and Junior sides questioned the wisdom of continuing with Shamrock Rovers and queried whether to revert to Tallaght Town FC again.

Shamrock Rovers will now use the new improved Sacred Heart FC grounds in Killinarden estate.


I was aware rovers merged with Tallaght Town schoolboys, but they were never successful as a club themselves (certainly not on the level other dublin schoolboys were) thanks for the update though.

[bigmac]

ah come on. in comparison to all the other leagues in the world, we seen peanuts!

I didn't say we'd seen billions pumped into football - just that we have definitely seen the effects of a general boom filter down to football. If you don't think so, then just ask yourself would all those financial troubles have been created in the current economic climate or would clubs and investors be a lot cagier blowing their money?

[Pauro 76]

If Athlone merge with Longford the new club name should take the Athlone from Athlone Town
and the Town from Longford Town and be called Athlone Town :D

We could use Flancare Park as a alternative pitch if Limerick refused to warm up on the training pitch
in Lissywollen and contact Freedom Finance or someone to consolidate all loans and debts into one
low monthly payment :D

Booooo!!!! Hissss!!!!! ;)

[BohsPartisan]

This is the dumbest idea ever. I identify with, Bohs, the football club. So do most of the people I know around the place. Its our club. If we merged with Shels or Pats to form a new club Dublin Whatever, I would feel no connection to the new club and I'd imagine a good number of Bohs and Shels/Pats fans would be the same. It would in that case reduce crowds, not increase them.

[Student Mullet]

This is the dumbest idea ever. I identify with, Bohs, the football club. So do most of the people I know around the place. Its our club. If we merged with Shels or Pats to form a new club Dublin Whatever, I would feel no connection to the new club and I'd imagine a good number of Bohs and Shels/Pats fans would be the same. It would in that case reduce crowds, not increase them.

I know it's not directly analogous but a lot of people in Wales said the same when their rugby clubs were merged into 4 made up provinces and they've seen a big improvement since.

[Dodge]

I know it's not directly analogous but a lot of people in Wales said the same when their rugby clubs were merged into 4 made up provinces and they've seen a big improvement since.

And yet the clubs are threatening to sue the WRU

[Student Mullet]

And yet the clubs are threatening to sue the WRU
I think it would be a mistake to expect all disputes to disappear following any single change.

Because changing the number of clubs doesn't solve all problems, it is wrong to conclude that it therefore solves no problems. In the same way that half a loaf isn't the same as no bread.