A Rough League Structure Thingy

[Lim till i die]

Seeing as the attendances thread is full of it heres my suggestion.

Feel free to poke holes tis for promoting debate so tis.....

A 16 team league.

Every team taking part has to cough up 100k at the start of the year.

50k of this goes into the prize fund. The other 50k is for admin.

A sponsor needs to be found (I know, I know) to match the 800k the clubs are putting into the prize fund.

Teams play each other twice.

Suppose at the end of the season the league finishes as follows:

Sligo
Drogs
Shamrock
Pats
Bohs
Shels
Cork
Bray
UCD
Dundalk
Waterford
Longford
Harps
Athlone
Wexford
GUST

(I've left out Limerick to avoid any "why wasn't my team picked" style whinging)

I'd break that down as follows:

Sligo - Champions. Here's 400k have a good rest and enjoy the Champions League Qualifiers.

Drogs
Shamrock
Pats

Well done on a good year. Here's 200k each. Now playoff against one another for one Europa League Spot. Don't worry if you miss out because you've still recieved twice the prize money of

Cork
Shels
Bohs

You've done well to finish in the top half of my ultra competitive new league. Have your deposits back also playoff for the other Europa League Spot.

Bray
UCD
Dundalk

Kept yourselves out of the mire, fairplay, you can also have your deposits back. Now have a playoff betwen ye for two of the Setanta Cup spots.

Waterford
Longford
Harps

Must try harder. We'll keep your money but as a reward for just about keeping out of the relegation mire playoff for the other two Setanta spots.

Athlone
Wexford
Gust

Oh dear. We're keeping your money and you have to playoff to see who goes down with the bottom team being relegated to the reserve leagues. And you don't want to end up in the reserve leagues.




A few points:

Every one of the 16 teams must field a Reserve team in a reserve league feeding into the top flight. North and South, two groups of twelve, the winners of each group playing off to decide who gets into the top flight. Obviously reserve teams will not be eligible for promotion.

The 65% rule to be enforced vigourously. Any club found guilty of breaching it lose their deposit and have to pay double to enter next season, the excess entry money being set aside in a hardship fund.

Any club missing two straight wage payments to be deducted ten points.




I've loads of other mad cap stuff about wage caps and central contracts and youth players and the like but that will do for now.

Discuss the issues. :ball:

[SkStu]

just a consideration, if it is a rough league structure then HQ should be in Limerick.

I really like it by the way. We probably need more discussion around sanctions but that looks like a good structure. Would it get more bums on seats? Have you just doomed the Setanta Cup to extinction with it though?

[nigel-harps1954]

Pretty solid, I like the wage restrictions. The 10 point deduction would really entice clubs to live within their means, but I'm just pretty positive that 2 payments is very harsh on smaller clubs. Increase that to one month without payment and it's 10 points and you're onto something

The only thing I would challenge is the entry costs. 100k at the start of a season is a massive amount for any club in the league to cough up straight off. I'm not sure there's many clubs who could afford that bar maybe 3 or 4 of the richer folk for want of a better word.

Would be a great structure though, although, I'd increase the teams to 18. Leaves 3 division one league clubs north and 3 south with a chance of promotion each season with 9 reserve north and south.

In my opinion, there would be much much more interest in a league of Ireland with bigger money to be won, more clubs, less derbies, and bigger sponsorship.

[Nesta99]

100k entry fee would mean that most of the clubs would be starting on -10 points for missed weeks wages (therefore not such a major sanction). I like it as a general outline though. The key is, as you say, proper unbiased thorough enforcement of financial rules like the 65% wage cap - no appeal after appeal, judicial reviews and so on!

[Lim till i die]

Have you just doomed the Setanta Cup to extinction with it though?

The argument could be made that a lower end club would have more excitement about a "foreign" competition so you'd actually get an increased profile.

Point taken though. The other way of doing it if it was decided it would kill the Setanta cup would be to rejig the prize money and playoffs as follows:

2nd - 5th playoff for first Europa League spot. 2nd and 3rd get 200k prize money, 4th and 5th get 150k.

6th to 9th playoff for Second Europa League spot. All get their deposits back.

Setanta Cup spots to be allocated to the second and third placed teams in both those groups of four.

10th, 11th and 12th have no playoffs at the end of the year. 10th and 11th get 50k each.

Still keeps it competitive up to the very last day as depending on their circumstance 10th, 11th and 12th will either be desperately trying to reach the Europa playoffs or desperately trying to avoid the relegation playoffs.


Pretty solid, I like the wage restrictions. The 10 point deduction would really entice clubs to live within their means, but I'm just pretty positive that 2 payments is very harsh on smaller clubs. Increase that to one month without payment and it's 10 points and you're onto something.

I was thinking monthly wage payments anyway to be honest so two payments would be two months.


The only thing I would challenge is the entry costs. 100k at the start of a season is a massive amount for any club in the league to cough up straight off. I'm not sure there's many clubs who could afford that bar maybe 3 or 4 of the richer folk for want of a better word.

I'd disagree with you here.

Obviously in the current circumstance in the league 100k is a bit stiff but this plan isn't for tomorrow morning. :)

To be honest when given a good run in to it, if a club couldn't raise 100k they should be having a good look at whether they should be involved in senior football.

That's not a dig at anyone at the moment as I explained above I'm just saying that if clubs in the new structure couldn't put together that fairly small sum with a plan going forward then you'd still end up with the same nonsense going on as you have now.

[Lim till i die]

100k entry fee would mean that most of the clubs would be starting on -10 points for missed weeks wages

I think you need to have the substansial entry free to focus clubs minds and stop them ****** acting.

A ten point deduction in a tight league could be the difference between 150k prize money and zero prize money and given that they've already stumped up 100k it might focus the clubs minds on paying their way.

[Eminence Grise]

Some good thoughts in the OP and others. I’d agree that 18 teams would make a better top flight, and think the idea of a reserve league incorporating ‘real’ teams has great merit.

I would also have no relegation from the top flight for 5 seasons: this would allow new entrants to the lower division get acclimatised to national football, and all teams to get their houses in order. I’d be bolshie enough to impose a salary cap of 50%, with 15% being put into ground development, or, where a team has a ground that doesn’t need development (Cork, Rovers, Harps and Limerick, soon, hopefully) to be spent on income-generating football infrastructure or an academy.

For me, though, there would be no play-offs for Europe: 34 matches shows who deserves to get in. A play-off for a Setanta cup spot (4th to 7th and 8th to 11th ) is not a bad idea at all, though I think there is a good case to be made for the league cup winners to get a spot also. Increase it to 8 teams per league? Then you could have play-offs from 4-6, 7-9 and 10-12.

€100k is a steep amount to raise alright, but, to be honest, if it’s root and branch reform that we want there’s an argument to make participation as exacting and serious as possible. Miss two pay days – you should be severely punished. This kind of idea, with rigorous enforcement allowed by a completely rewritten rule book, would force clubs to take their administrative and financial responsibilities seriously.

If this was packaged as a major relaunch of the league, and properly marketed at national and local level, it could be the kick that football here needs. Not thinking of crowds alone, but the culture of administration, training, professionalism etc.

One other thing, on finance: has anybody in the FAI or a club ever thought of tapping into philanthropic resources in America?

[Spudulika]

I'm with EG on the 50% cap. Also very stringent rules on licencing - a club must have an academy or teams down to the youngest (or under 10) age group. Also womens/girls teams and a Special Olympics teams.

100k is good, if a club is serious then they pay up.

If there is a well worked, well promoted and well thought out league, sponsors will take a little punt. Promotions improve and fans turn out, grounds look good to them, sponsors see it working and tv pays up.

I know it was debated to the death on the attendances thread, however one angle we whinge about yet don't use to our advantage is the opinion that Irish people are event junkies, closer to the Yanks than the Brits in that sense. So play-offs keep it honest and keep people watching until the end.

[pineapple stu]

I think if every team gets into a play-off, it defeats the purpose of having play-offs in the first place.

Strict adherence to duh-simple financial stuff is obvious, but in fairness to the FAI, they're not exactly the only association to be utterly inept at getting clubs to cop on to themselves.

A deposit that rolls from one year to the next wouldn't be quite as hard to sort as it sounds. Though I wouldn't take a cheque for E100k off any club in the league as things stand.