How the rest of the world see us....

[mypost]

Good post and fair point, although this is where we should rightly expect the FAI to come in.

It's not the FAI's job to market the league. That's what they have a deal with RTE for. The FA doesn't market the EPL, that's Sky's job, and a job they do very well.

Marketing isn't an hour of highlights, or two hours of poorly-produced, badly-scheduled, and non-promoted live games. It's snazzy, imaginative advertising, showing why people can and should attend LOI football. Sky could market a league game between Morecambe and Grimsby and make it look appealing. What do RTE do?


the Irish League is on SKY and it hasn't exactly made it more glamourous

That league on Sky is 2 games a year. It receives no promotion, no advertising, no marketing, and no coverage outside of those two games. No it's not glamourous.

[SwanVsDalton]

It's not the FAI's job to market the league. That's what they have a deal with RTE for. The FA doesn't market the EPL, that's Sky's job, and a job they do very well.

The Premier League's doesn't have to market itself because it's blimming huge and people will pay to consume it 24/7. But club's - particularly smaller one's such as Swansea, Blackburn, Southampton - do need to market themselves. Fortunately the Premier League's incomparable SKY deal and ticket sales can budget for that.

Irish club's are not in that position and it's fair to say the FAI should do a lot more to market the league or at least assist each club in getting a marketing campaign together to attract punters. Its situation is world's removed from the EPL.

[OwlsFan]

People seem to think that football didn't exist before the EPL in England. A Sheffield derby in 1979 in the old Division 3 attracted over 49 thousand people. There were huge crowds in Division One at that time. All there was was Match of the Day and the Big Match on Sunday on ITV. Very little live football. The difference was the players were paid a pittance and the grounds and pitches were sub standard but the fans still loved it with little or no marketing. The difference is that football is in the culture of the Engish people to support their local team from Liverpool, Sheffield Wednesday, Doncaster Rovers or Carlisle United. The culture in Ireland is primarily to support your local county team in the GAA with diehard football fans staying loyal to their team.

I am not sure what the answer for local football is in this country. Something along the rugby lines perhaps (2 teams in Dublin north and south), Leinster, Cork, Connaught and Ulster. 6 teams but without other teams from perhaps Northern Ireland/Wales/Scotland like the Rabo Direct league, LOI will struggle like it mostly has, although I do remember almost getting crushed to death in Dalymount at a few cup finals involving the Hoops as a kid.

[Stuttgart88]

I think the key difference is that the EPL benefits from the marketing might of SKY and football is now ubiquitous, replica shirts are everywhere, the players are celebrities etc.

In the old days football was still popular but was seen as a slightly quirky pasttime and people like us who were fascinated by it were seen as a bit odd. Fever Pitch changed that perception.

This applies to both sides of the Irish Sea.

The Irish haven't attached themselves to football like the English have - as you say it's a cultural thing in England - but football has infiltrated Irish households now much more than it had done in the pre-EPL days. It's a big telly show now, just like Corrie or Eastenders.

[Crosby87]

For any of you old coots, what was football like in the 60s and 70s before there was an EPL? Did teams just arbitrarily play each other? Was it a free for all? Did you have to get the result via smoke signal? It must have been hard to follow unless it was still organized to some point.
I could never have been alive in those days. I would have gone crazy.

[Charlie Darwin]

It's not the FAI's job to market the league. That's what they have a deal with RTE for. The FA doesn't market the EPL, that's Sky's job, and a job they do very well.

Marketing isn't an hour of highlights, or two hours of poorly-produced, badly-scheduled, and non-promoted live games. It's snazzy, imaginative advertising, showing why people can and should attend LOI football. Sky could market a league game between Morecambe and Grimsby and make it look appealing. What do RTE do?
The FA don't run the Premier League though, but the FAI do run the League of Ireland. Sky do an amazing job of marketing the EPL but the clubs took the trouble of creating the product and continue to package it in a way that is attractive to Sky and rival networks. The FAI does fcuk all to aid promotion of the league and gives RTE next to no incentive to do the job for them.

[Junior]

Hard to believe that no local tv station have the St Pats game against Hanover tonight. They do have the Liverpool game however........

[Stuttgart88]

The clubs didn't do that much to be honest.

The definitive piece on the birth of the EPL was David Conn's "The Beautiful Game: Searching for the Soul of Football".

Basically, the late 1980s had seen crowd trouble and decrepit stadia etc. all damaging football's appeal, so change was required.

But there was a power struggle between the Football League and the FA. The Football League fired the first shots towards change, by producing a document calling for greater harmony between themselves and the Football Association (FA). The League and the FA often clashed on issues such as the release of players for international duty and, more importantly, distribution of money. Conn corrected the popular misperception that some elite club chairmen, in some kind of visionary manner, identified the commercial potential of televised football. The Football League’s document actually identified the changing broadcast landscape as representing “an era of unprecedented opportunity”.

However, the FA saw the Football’s League’s proposals as a threat, and in an effort to stamp its authority it embraced the idea of a breakaway from the Football League of several of England’s most commercially attractive clubs.

Conn said that this was a big misjudgment on the FA’s part. The Football League was certainly representing its clubs’ financial interests, led by the larger clubs’ demands for more distributions from the FA’s FA Cup and international match revenues. However, it was these same large clubs that were threatening to breakaway and which the FA supported in its 1991 Blueprint for the Future of Football. Most of the Blueprint was never implemented, except for the creation in 1992 of the Premier League. The rationale for endorsing the breakaway was purely for footballing reasons according to the Blueprint. A smaller elite league would place less demands on England’s international footballers. However, Conn identified the desire to “smash the Football League” as the real motivation. As it turned out, the Premier League was never reduced to its intended 18 clubs and the Premier League was never held to account for this by the FA. The anticipated flow of TV revenues materialised from the broadcast deal with BSKYB, and the vast majority of the revenues were now no longer shared with clubs outside the top flight, a break with one of the Football League’s founding principles. The club versus country conflict was never resolved – it arguably got worse.

In an effort to gain more control over English football the FA actually ended up with less! The EPL was allowed to call the shots and the EPL, in my opinion, is for all intents and purposes a captive vehicle for SKY / Murdoch. SKY did all the heavy lifting when it came to marketing and packaging. Where the EPL does deserve credit is for seizing the opportunity and for benefiting from the FAs incompetence / misplaced objectives.

[Stuttgart88]

Marketing isn't an hour of highlights, or two hours of poorly-produced, badly-scheduled, and non-promoted live games. It's snazzy, imaginative advertising, showing why people can and should attend LOI football. Sky could market a league game between Morecambe and Grimsby and make it look appealing. What do RTE do?That's different though. Football is SKY's "killer app" opening up their channels and platforms to millions. For RTE football is an inconveniece I'd say - there's little upside to RTE compared to the return that SKY gets for its investment.

Take away the TV money from English football and it's a small business, a cottage industry almost.

Remember as well that promotion is only one part of marketing. Product (all important), price and place are critical parts of the mix too. I wrote in quite a lot of detail on this here last month (c'mon - I know you've read it!). In English football the "place" which in sport is a critical piece of the "product" actually benefitted from post-Hillsborough legislation and government subsidies (via the Football Pools (or state lottery type game) as far as I can recall).


For any of you old coots, what was football like in the 60s and 70s before there was an EPL? Did teams just arbitrarily play each other? Was it a free for all? Did you have to get the result via smoke signal? It must have been hard to follow unless it was still organized to some point.I presume that's a joke. Jeepers, I really hope so :)


Hard to believe that no local tv station have the St Pats game against Hanover tonight. They do have the Liverpool game however........Staggering.

[Eminence Grise]

All too true, Stutts, but marketing also uses physical evidence (two teams playing samba football in an all-seated stadium on a scald day in Bray), process (trouble-free administration of clubs and a supply line of talent from underage up) and people (high profile footballers and coaches).

The first is hard to achieve without funding for ground development. The second is costly and requires professionalising administration in clubs and the FAI. The first is achievable at very little cost...

There is a hankering for reality TV programmes, so pander to it. Apart from Shamrock Rovers on some TV3 cookery programme with Conrad Gallagher, I can’t recall seeing any LoI player on a non-sports programme since Stephen Geoghegan modelled that orange strip. If retired GAA and rugby players have a second life as celebrity banisteoirs, chefs, beauticians, farmers, dinner party hosts and what not, or plugging duh hoi performance vittuhmin or online degrees, then why, with a little orchestration, can’t current LoI players? Also, RTE could promote MNS at no cost: occasionally have an LoI player or manager (from a small panel of 5 or 6, all media trained) on the panel of the Premiership and plug the programme for all its worth. If something funny/interesting happens in world football, have an LoI player as the go-to for John Murray, Sean Moncrieff, Ray Darcy, local radio stations etc etc.

The key to increasing the league and players’ profiles is not targeting those who already know about them, but making them visible in areas where they’re not expected. It's not an overnight solution, but over time public awareness would increase.

[paul_oshea]

For any of you old coots, what was football like in the 60s and 70s before there was an EPL? Did teams just arbitrarily play each other? Was it a free for all? Did you have to get the result via smoke signal? It must have been hard to follow unless it was still organized to some point.
I could never have been alive in those days. I would have gone crazy.

You wouldnt have known any different.

[DannyInvincible]

It's not the FAI's job to market the league. That's what they have a deal with RTE for. The FA doesn't market the EPL, that's Sky's job, and a job they do very well.

Marketing isn't an hour of highlights, or two hours of poorly-produced, badly-scheduled, and non-promoted live games. It's snazzy, imaginative advertising, showing why people can and should attend LOI football. Sky could market a league game between Morecambe and Grimsby and make it look appealing. What do RTE do?

Couldn't the FAI get an organisation more competent to market it then? Are you just being pedantic or denying that the buck ultimately stops with the FAI?

[mypost]

The FA don't run the Premier League though, but the FAI do run the League of Ireland. Sky do an amazing job of marketing the EPL but the clubs took the trouble of creating the product and continue to package it in a way that is attractive to Sky and rival networks. The FAI does fcuk all to aid promotion of the league and gives RTE next to no incentive to do the job for them.

That's because the FAI are administrators, not marketeers. They leave it to the broadcasters to market the league. If they don't do it, the clubs have to. If the clubs don't do it, nothing is done at all.

The EPL clubs didn't create the product, it has always been there, and the original qualities of English football remain the same. You'll still have poor defending, long ball showpieces, and 100mph caveman football. Sky just make it more appealing. If a number of leading clubs play each other on the same day/weekend, they dub it "Super Sunday". A title decider between the clubs concerned has an "Unmissable" tagline in bold font, is plugged during every sports bulletin, and other live game leading into it. It captures the viewers attention, and goes a bit further than "Airtricity League Live", which was last plugged as a kind of P.S. statement on a show, a few days before.

As for the LOI clubs, they have to cater for their customers, not their employees as is the practice now. Catering the other way around, never works in football or any other industry.

[SwanVsDalton]

That's because the FAI are administrators, not marketeers. They leave it to the broadcasters to market the league. If they don't do it, the clubs have to. If the clubs don't do it, nothing is done at all.

Other league's not fortunate enough to have the cache of the EPL do marketing, either in-house or by employing PR companies/external experts. The idea the FAI shouldn't consider the same, particularly for a league as publicly shunned as the LOI, is crazy.


The EPL clubs didn't create the product, it has always been there, and the original qualities of English football remain the same. You'll still have poor defending, long ball showpieces, and 100mph caveman football. Sky just make it more appealing. If a number of leading clubs play each other on the same day/weekend, they dub it "Super Sunday". A title decider between the clubs concerned has an "Unmissable" tagline in bold font, is plugged during every sports bulletin, and other live game leading into it. It captures the viewers attention, and goes a bit further than "Airtricity League Live", which was last plugged as a kind of P.S. statement on a show, a few days before.

The SKY comparison just doesn't fly. If your suggestions are limited to sticking 'UNMISSABLE' in front of the next big live LOI league game, you're not really getting the problem.


As for the LOI clubs, they have to cater for their customers, not their employees as is the practice now. Catering the other way around, never works in football or any other industry.

Yes, but how? Better facilities? Better marketing? If so, with what finance? Isn't it fair to suggest the FAI could assist with all of this instead of washing their hands of the league in favour of paying ludicrous wages and doubling down on international success to keep the boat afloat?

[mypost]

Other league's not fortunate enough to have the cache of the EPL do marketing, either in-house or by employing PR companies/external experts. The idea the FAI shouldn't consider the same, particularly for a league as publicly shunned as the LOI, is crazy.

Isn't it fair to suggest the FAI could assist with all of this instead of washing their hands of the league in favour of paying ludicrous wages and doubling down on international success to keep the boat afloat?

The clubs bitterly resent the FAI getting involved. Look at all the moaning over the league "participation agreement"?

The FAI haven't the cash nor the expertise to get involved in marketing the league. They even had to rely on outsiders to recruit the national team coach. Their job is to administer the league, i.e. organise the games, appoint the officials, draw up a fixture list, a participation agreement, and hand out a few fines/suspensions during the year. They're not there to either run the clubs or market the product. That's for others to do.


Yes, but how? Better facilities? Better marketing? If so, with what finance?

All covered in post 325.

[SwanVsDalton]

The clubs bitterly resent the FAI getting involved. Look at all the moaning over the league "participation agreement"?

Any gurning doesn't mask that the clubs voted for it. They'd hardly be miffed at getting a marketing boost from the FAI. with the potential of extra punters through the gate.


The FAI haven't the cash nor the expertise to get involved in marketing the league. They even had to rely on outsiders to recruit the national team coach. Their job is to administer the league, i.e. organise the games, appoint the officials, draw up a fixture list, a participation agreement, and hand out a few fines/suspensions during the year. They're not there to either run the clubs or market the product. That's for others to do.

They patently do have the money if the chief executive is paid serious dough. And we're not talking about a massive undertaking here - the FAI even employing one marketing graudate to oversee and co-ordinate marketing of the leagues and/or assist clubs in spreading the word to local communities would be a small slice of Delaney's take home.

And of course they have to do it. To say it's not their job is to miss the point entirely - the domestic league remains chronically banjaxed. It's imperative the administrators of the game here do something to assist clubs, hopefully so they can stand on their own two feet in some miraculous future. Right now that isn't possible, but it's up to the FAI to at least put in motion some forward thinking measures which can take the game forward here.


All covered in post 325.

Decent post that. Can't see where it says who's going to pay for clubs to do up their stadia, do special offers for tickets, persuade the RTE to cover the league more, run proper marketing materials etc? Or are you suggesting it's up to a few have-a-go entrepreneur's? I reckon a centrally employed marketing expert or two at FAI HQ would be a more realistic start.

[ped_ped]

The message: you can get 3 of the 4 Ps right but if the product - the quality of football that people want - isn't there, there's only so much you can do.

90 minutes of football doesn't constitute the entire product of an Airtricity League ticket. Are there any regular attendees on here who'd say that that's all your ~€12 gets you?

It's the atmosphere. It's the chants and sing-songs. It's the banter in the stands. It's the feeling of being some small part of a game rather than just a spectator. (On top of all that it's supporting your team, your locality et al but that obviously isn't a draw for everyone.) As I said on here before, a novelty like the Yanks that arrived in Jackman a few weeks ago meant my €12 got me far more entertainment than just the game on the pitch.

Worse teams and worse spectacles get attendances in this country. It's not for the aesthetics.

Not even the GAA doesn't advertise their product (Kilkenny-Tipperary) for the spectacle, but for the "82,000 beating hearts" in Croke Park on a Sunday.

[Stuttgart88]

True, the product is a complex mix of things, and different parts appeal to different people.

[paul_oshea]

Complex mix of things, what are they again stutts? product, price, promotion and place? The 4 P's of marketing is that what you call them?

[Stuttgart88]

What we have been saying is that product is one of the 4 Ps (product, price, place & promotion). Eminence Grice added some additional factors that enhance understanding of the concept.

I was saying that the product (by and large) is the standard of football. ped_ped added that the product is more than just the football and I agree. In fact I had said a few weeks ago that the event in its entirety is part of the product and that product and place (of consumption, rather than promotion) are hard to distinguish in sport.

However I don't think you're going to get the bigger crowds, better atmosphere, better facilities without a better football offering - unless some very successful use of the other factors in the marketing mix is achieved. It's classic chicken & egg.

In other countries the government would see this and offer incentives (maybe via the tax system) but I've long felt that government gives feck all to football in Ireland. Brine 3's gombeen men and all that...

[DannyInvincible]

Is Aidan Fitzmaurice being fair on the Great Irish Sporting Public?: http://www.herald.ie/sport/soccer/tallaght-snub-shows-best-fans-label-a-complete-myth-3189022.html


JUST a quick question for the tens of thousands of Irish supporters, 'the best fans in the world', who travelled to Poland to see an Irish team play last June.

Just where were you all at 7.45pm last night? Were you plonked in front of the TV watching Liverpool play in Belarus? Watching the Olympics?

It's a pity, then, that there were so many empty seats at a game in Dublin when St Patrick's Athletic represented this country in the Europa League.

Only 4,236 punters turned up at Tallaght Stadium last night to see Pats lose 3-0 to Hannover. With around 1,000 of those coming from Germany, that left just over 3,000 people who were bothered enough to get off their backsides and come to a real, live game involving a classy looking side who had nine senior internationals in their starting XI, on a night when there was not much else to do of a sporting nature in Dublin.

Last night's attendance at Tallaght Stadium knocks a hole in the theory that we have the best football fans in the world. We don't. If we did, Tallaght Stadium would have been packed to the rafters, if only to see an impressive side like Hannover.

Top marks to the Pats fans, and the supporters of other LOI clubs, who also came along, and kudos to the supporters from Germany, who lustily sang their way through the 90 minutes and more. But Ireland as a nation once again turned its back on proper football, just opened another can of beer and stayed in front of the TV. Shameful, too, that once again the Irish management team of Giovanni Trapattoni and Marco Tardelli snubbed Irish football by not attending last night's game.

[Stuttgart88]

I think he's happy to promulgate the 'best fans in the world' fallacy as if that's what the masses who went to Poland label themselves, which they don't. I think it's mainly a sacasm-laden term used by people with a particular viewpoint.

Also, there's a lot of assumption going on there, beer swilling hordes watching Liverpool on TV staying away from real events.

The Olympics are a major draw as it happens, and 3,000 isn't a bad turnout actually. It's quite good I think, but yes, it could have been better.

I'm not sure it'd have been good use of Trap and Tardelli's time either. Is any Pats player really in contention for a squad place? Hardly a "snub".

If I was living in Dublin I'd definitely have gone myself, and quite enthusiastically, but I think Aidan Fitzmaurice is making a very cliched and very weak argument.

Look at the Olympics here where I live. All the athletes are going on about how great the crowd is yet nobody attends athletics on a major scale for ordinary meetings. There's lots of grass roots participation though so in one sense athletics is in good shape. There are hundreds of 10k, half-marathon and marathon type events all over the country all the time.

Fitzmaurice misses the point that context is everything and guess what, major events draw major crowds. Small events draw small crowds. I haven't seen any disgruntled hack moaning about how the GB public is a fickle beer swilling couch potato that doesn't really support athletics or beach volleyball or whatever.

[Stuttgart88]

Also, I think the Olympics illustrates the Irish sporting conundrum. At major sport we're on the outside looking in. Whilst enthralling I also find the Olympics very frustrating because Ireland is such a marginal participant. That's why - in the world's most popular sport - when we get a chance to sit at the top table we grab it with both hands. Ireland qualifying for a major finals is like an athlete making an Olympic final in some respects. By no means should we ignore the weaknesses that the euros exposed (that were also evident in qualifying) and that includes structural and governance weaknesses, but let's also accept that getting to the top table deserves a bigger sense of excitement than an essentially local event.

GAA and rugby can combine localism with being at the top table because they're not glabal sports. I also think the Olympics are a bit of an odd concoction of historically English public school sports which skews things slightly, but there's no doubt that major visible sporting success is an economic asset that is worthy of state investment. Does Ireland have the vision or motivation to realise this? Even during the boom I was never convinced that this was recognised.

[Stuttgart88]

The clubs bitterly resent the FAI getting involved.
does nobody else find it odd that with all the anti-FAI feeling vented by loyal LOI fans on this forum and with the seeming antipathy of the LOI clubs towards the FAI, and despite the LOI clubs having 22 votes out of 55 on the FAI Council, and a motion for debate or voting on needs 20 supporters, that not one single question was asked at the recent AGM? What's the explanation for this?

[Stuttgart88]

I see GR thanked my post above, which I appreciate. That planted a thought in my mind: golf is a bona fide 32 county sport at which we excel (more so NI golfers recently it must be said!) but how do we do this in such a competitive sport?

A very basic superficial assessment (a guess mainly): we have superb facilities, but mainly privately funded. And we have well trained coaches. Do young golfers compete from a young age or are they given time to develop their talent? I'm sure it's a mix of both but proper competitive play is probably fostered only once the technique is taught properly.

If our island can produce world class golfers can it produce world class footballers, or is there some dynamic at play that I have overlooked - perhaps the fact that young footballers are economic chattels, tradeable assets, whereas golfers don't have transfer values?

By the way, if anyone thinks Ireland doesn't produce world class tennis players, they're wrong. this guy won the British Open clay championships in his age group recently (http://www.itftennis.com/seniors/tournaments/tournament/info.aspx?tournamentid=1100025627) and was ranked number 9 in the world in June (http://www.itftennis.com/seniors/players/player/profile.aspx?playerid=100235012). I don't think he's exactly representing the future though :)

[Eminence Grise]

golf is a bona fide 32 county sport at which we excel (more so NI golfers recently it must be said!) but how do we do this in such a competitive sport?

A very basic superficial assessment (a guess mainly): we have superb facilities, but mainly privately funded.

I heard a stat a few years ago that I haven't been able to confirm, though casual observation suggests it might be accurate: we have more golf clubs than public playgrounds in this country. Certainly, only one of the three towns near where I grew up has a playground, but all three have golf clubs.

[osarusan]

Fitzmaurice misses the point that context is everything and guess what, major events draw major crowds. Small events draw small crowds. I haven't seen any disgruntled hack moaning about how the GB public is a fickle beer swilling couch potato that doesn't really support athletics or beach volleyball or whatever.
I think you are missing an important point of the debate which is that a good number of those who don't watch LOI stay away on the basis that it isn't very good,and they'd go 'if the standard was better.' Well, they had the chance to see the standard of the team that finished 7th in the Bundesliga and got to the quarter finals of the Europa league, but not too many turned up.

I'd speculate that if most of the GB public was asked about athletics or beach volleyball, they'd admit not really caring about it, but getting behind the GB team for the olympics. However, if they insisted that they were true fans of those sports, and the only reason they attend domestic events was because, amidst a few other reasons - there was no team in their locality / the standard wasn't good enough / they didn't get involved in the local club growing up / the facilities weren't good enough / their dad had always been a fan of a club in Spain / it was too expensive to go / sure anybody could play that sh!te / the superior attitude of the local beach volleyball club put them right off, then perhaps the 'disgruntled hack' might be the slightest bit sceptical.

[tetsujin1979]

of course, if the crowds had shown up, the line would have been "they're only here to see Hannover, they won't be be back next week"

[bennocelt]

I see GR thanked my post above, which I appreciate. That planted a thought in my mind: golf is a bona fide 32 county sport at which we excel (more so NI golfers recently it must be said!) but how do we do this in such a competitive sport?




Heh Stutts i gave you one too!!:o

[bennocelt]

of course, if the crowds had shown up, the line would have been "they're only here to see Hannover, they won't be be back next week"

Tets that simply doesnt happen in LOI (again!lol)

By the way - man city or Limerick - tough choice?

[Stuttgart88]

Benno, I posted that before you thanked it!

I didn't miss any of those points of the 'debate' osarusan. For a start I think 3000 (assuming Fitzmaurice is accurate with his claim that 1000 were Hannover fans) is a decent enough crowd for a second qualifying round tie against a side with few household names. It could be better but it certainly wasn't bad either. I don't think many of the stay away football fans call themselves 'true fans' and that assumes anyone other than LOI loyalists has a firm idea of what a true fan is. The 'best fans in the world' mantle is just a stick for some people with fixed opinions to beat people with.

[Gather round]

I see GR thanked my post above, which I appreciate

My pleasure. As an outsider who hasn't watched Irish domestic football regularly since the 80s, I see plenty of strengths as well as weaknesses in the LoI. Results and facilities seem better even if financial stability and public enthusiasm lag behind. In this case, I agree that 4,000 for an August Europa tie looks respectable enough.

I watch most of my football in the Semi-Pro and even amateur leagues over here (my local side won their Level 10 League last term, so have the problem of moving from one to the other). Average crowds are about 100. If they reached the FA Vase final, 10,000 would travel to Wembley, of course the other 99% mainly support Prem and Championship teams.


That planted a thought in my mind: golf is a bona fide 32 county sport at which we excel (more so NI golfers recently it must be said!) but how do we do this in such a competitive sport?
...if our island can produce world class golfers can it produce world class footballers, or is there some dynamic at play that I have overlooked - perhaps the fact that young footballers are economic chattels, tradeable assets, whereas golfers don't have transfer values?

Don't a lot of players from Ireland (and eleswhere in Europe) develop their game on the American college circuit?

Anyway, that golf course outnumbering kids' playgrounds stat really irritates me. Ideally the sport would be nationalised and limited to links courses on marginal land (eg beaches) where you can't grow anything :rolleyes:

[mypost]

They patently do have the money if the chief executive is paid serious dough. And we're not talking about a massive undertaking here - the FAI even employing one marketing graudate to oversee and co-ordinate marketing of the leagues and/or assist clubs in spreading the word to local communities would be a small slice of Delaney's take home.

The FAI don't employ people these days, they unemploy them.


Decent post that. Can't see where it says who's going to pay for clubs to do up their stadia, do special offers for tickets, persuade the RTE to cover the league more, run proper marketing materials etc? Or are you suggesting it's up to a few have-a-go entrepreneur's? I reckon a centrally employed marketing expert or two at FAI HQ would be a more realistic start.

The clubs have to do more to help themselves. If you want to sell a product, you have to ensure it's in good condition for people to buy. You also have to get yourself noticed, and in this country, that means tv coverage. Currently the FD receives no promotion or tv coverage of any kind. People won't buy a new product if they have no idea what they are getting for their money.

[Charlie Darwin]

of course, if the crowds had shown up, the line would have been "they're only here to see Hannover, they won't be be back next week"
The line would be correct though.

[Junior]

Mypost, as nice as it is of you to further reduce the role and responsibilities of JD and the FAI to merely adminstrators of the game, I am not sure if the following role recruited by the FAI earlier this year necessarily agrees with your point.

I would hazard a guess that this guy earns a 6 figure sum per annum. Is he still around? If so, does he think its his role to promote the Airticity League?

FAI announces appointment of Commercial and Marketing Director

The Football Association of Ireland today (January 13) announced the appointment of Max Hamilton as its new Commercial and Marketing Director.

Mr Hamilton, who is originally from Greystones, is currently the National Basketball Association's (NBA) Senior Director of Business Development for EMEA and will take up his new role with the FAI from February 6.

In this new position, he will assume overall responsibility for the FAI's business development and marketing, working closely with all of the Association's sponsors to develop and strengthen their involvement with the sport. He will also be responsible for marketing the Association's activities and developing new business relationships to support the continued growth of football in Ireland at grassroots, domestic and international level. Max will bring with him a wealth of experience and a strong background in sports marketing gained with the NBA and previously his work for leading international advertising agency network TBWA.

Welcoming the appointment, FAI Chief Executive John Delaney said;

"I am delighted to welcome a candidate of Max's calibre to this important position. Max will start with the Association ahead of the Euros and the 2012 Airtricity League season and will play an important role in helping to shape our continued growth during a very exciting period for Irish football."

ENDS

[tetsujin1979]

The line would be correct though.my point was that no matter what size the crowd is, it would have been criticised.

[Charlie Darwin]

And the criticism would be 100% valid.

[tetsujin1979]

And the criticism would be 100% valid.so there's no way that any size of crowd would not have been criticised in the press?
It's just another negative article about the potential fanbase for the LOI. If you're going to get criticised for going to a game (any game) why bother going at all?

[Charlie Darwin]

Either outcome neatly exposes the apathy and hypocrisy at the heart of the average Irish football fan. If you complain the league lacks quality, then fail to show for a top-class German side, then you're obviously looking for something other than quality. If, on the other hand, you do come out and witness a quality Pats side playing good, competitive football, then you can't persist with that criticism.

[DannyInvincible]

so there's no way that any size of crowd would not have been criticised in the press?
It's just another negative article about the potential fanbase for the LOI. If you're going to get criticised for going to a game (any game) why bother going at all?

Who goes to games to draw compliments or favourable opinion though? (Other than opportunistic politicians and the like...) There are plenty of worthwhile reasons to continue going to games, irrespective of criticism or not. I don't see why the prospect of criticism should necessarily put people off. It'd be like saying, "Why bother doing anything if it's going to draw criticism?" One'd need to be a real defeatist if that was their guiding philosophy in life.

[peadar1987]

Either outcome neatly exposes the apathy and hypocrisy at the heart of the average Irish football fan. If you complain the league lacks quality, then fail to show for a top-class German side, then you're obviously looking for something other than quality. If, on the other hand, you do come out and witness a quality Pats side playing good, competitive football, then you can't persist with that criticism.


I strongly suspect that the class of person who shamelessly picks the English team that are winning, and considers 3rd place in the Premier League crap, would have zero appreciation of the quality of a good Bundesliga side. They're the same sort of people who had a massive culture shock at the Euros, when they weren't able to feign allegiance to the team they though was going to win.