Royal League

[bawn79]

I cant say I know much about it but I saw someone in the friendlies thread mention that all the Scandanavian teams play in it. I presume we are talking, Sweden, Norway, Denmark & Finland?
Could it be a good money-spinner if the FAI approached them about possiblity of Irish teams joining? Maybe let Iceland in as well to even things up?

[Ash]

Its an annual tournament for the top 4 clubs in
the domestic leagues of Norway, Denmark and Sweden.

3 groups of 4 who play home and away legs.
Group winners and runner up go through to 1/4 finals
along with the 2 best finish 3rd place.

F.C. Copenhagen are reigning champions

[BohsPartisan]

I presume we are talking, Sweden, Norway, Denmark & Finland?


Finland is not in Scandinavia.

[ifk101]

The competition is driven by a Nordic tv channel/ company on similar lines to the Setanta Cup. It hasn't been a great success in attracting crowds - in some cases as little as 100 paying punters have been recorded at matches. Part of the problem is that not all clubs competing can supply a suitable playing surface during the winter months. For example Vålerenga have been forced to play some Royal League matches in an indoor arena and all the Stockholm clubs play on an artifical pitch 30 miles outside of Stockholm. It's a big money-spinner for clubs so club chairmen want to keep the competition going. The general public and players (Henrik Larsson for one has voiced his opinions on the Royal League) haven't shown much interest and because of this the competition mightn't continue for much longer.

Despite recent results against Nordic opposition, League of Ireland football is still looked down on and an invitation to bring LOI clubs into the Royal League would be viewed, by fans at least, as diluting the quality of the competition. All Icelandic and most Finnish clubs are part-timers and there are no calls to bring them into the Royal League. Similar to LOI football, Icelandic and Finnish club football is just not rated in the other Nordic countries.

Being realistic, there's no way an LOI club can match what FCK (Copenhagen) can in terms of wages, crowds, facilities, organisation, etc. I'd imagine a club like FCK can't see any benefits from playing LOI clubs.

[bawn79]

Just throwing the idea out there because I never saw it mentioned before. Well there would be merit in the FAI pursuing this so it seems but as the above say the Scandanavian teams probably wouldnt be interested as they look down on Irish football.
For Irish clubs the additional income from competing would be welcome and Im sure the matches would attract reasonable crowds here being that they are quasi-European games. Also would be a good way to show off our players, look at players in the Scandanavian leagues in terms of transfers as well.
The new 5 country league could be called the Viking league!

I think it is worth putting out there as an idea.

[bawn79]

Finland is not in Scandinavia.

Denmark isnt in Scandinavia either but is from the Scandinavian family of countries.
I presumed Finland were invited also.

[BohsPartisan]

Denmark is considered Scandinavia.
They have the same language (more or less) as Norway and Sweden. Finnish is very very different.

[ifk101]

Denmark is considered Scandinavia.
They have the same language (more or less) as Norway and Sweden. Finnish is very very different.

Yep - Finnish is apparently similar to the Hungarian language. Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are all very similar to each other and nothing like Finnish. AFAIK Icelandic is an "old" form of the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish languages.

[bawn79]

Yep - Finnish is apparently similar to the Hungarian language. Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are all very similar to each other and nothing like Finnish. AFAIK Icelandic is an "old" form of the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish languages.

How about Greenland? Could we include them also?:D

[Ash]

Vålerenga have been forced to play some Royal League matches in an indoor arena and all the Stockholm clubs play on an artifical pitch 30 miles outside of Stockholm.

I'm not 100% sure but I think Helsingborgs were due to play an away game in Norway, it was something like -15 degrees

[ifk101]

How about Greenland? Could we include them also?:D

We could do that ... problem is Greenland is (officially) part of Denmark so with might upset the Danes if we include them ... Anyways I don't know how good alcoholised eskimos would be at playing football, probably a match for Longford though.

[ffffff]

We could do that ... problem is Greenland is (officially) part of Denmark so with might upset the Danes if we include them ... Anyways I don't know how good alcoholised eskimos would be at playing football, probably a match for Longford though.

this thread is the best geograohy lesson I have had sincec i left school.

[Réiteoir]

The whole premise of the Royal League was that it involved clubs from Scandinavian countries that still have a monarchy - hence the name "Royal League"

I know for a fact that Valerenga switched their RL games to the Bislett Stadium - because the crowds weren't coming to the Ullevaal.

Some clubs have started hosting games in their indoor training grounds due to the cold.

The other problem is that games are played midweek - when people can't get to them (booking time off work, etc. to attend a Wednesday night game in a different country)

If they had games played on a Saturday then the crowds would come.

[pete]

Should I move this into Off-Topic so can continue the geography debate? :confused:

[hoggy]

Despite recent results against Nordic opposition, League of Ireland football is still looked down on and an invitation to bring LOI clubs into the Royal League would be viewed, by fans at least, as diluting the quality of the competition. All Icelandic and most Finnish clubs are part-timers and there are no calls to bring them into the Royal League. Similar to LOI football, Icelandic and Finnish club football is just not rated in the other Nordic countries.


That's understandable. It's similar to how we look down on Gothenburg, Djurgardens and Malmo. :D

[osarusan]

this thread is the best geograohy lesson I have had sincec i left school.

all you need now is a spelling lesson.:D

[Jerry The Saint]

Wiki-navia... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavia)



Scandinavia is a historical and geographical region centered on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It is most commonly defined as the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, with Finland and Iceland sometimes included as well.

In linguistics and cultural studies, the definition of Scandinavia is expanded to include the areas where Old Norse was spoken and where the North Germanic languages are now dominant. As a linguistic and cultural concept, Scandinavia thus also includes Iceland and the Faroe Islands.[1]

As a cultural and historical concept, Scandinavia can include Finland as well (of the larger region Fenno-Scandinavia), often with reference to the nation's long history as a part of Sweden. However, in strict geographical terms only the north-western part of Finland lies on the Scandinavian peninsula. Finland is culturally closely related to the other Scandinavian countries, though the Finnish language -- of the Finno-Ugric family of languages -- is distinct from the other countries' languages. [2]

Since the short-lived movements of the Fennomans in the 1830s and Scandinavism in 1850s, the inclusion of Finland and Iceland has divided opinions in the respective states.[3] Although it depends on context which countries are considered Scandinavian, the term the Nordic countries is used unambiguously for Norway, Sweden, Denmark (including the Faroe Islands and Greenland), Finland (including Åland) and Iceland.

There's always controversy when people try to put labels on things - just look at the trouble caused by innocuous terms like 'British Isles'. Why can't we all just get along:confused: :D

[dcfcsteve]

Finland is not in Scandinavia.

Correct BP - you beat me to it !

Finland is a culturally, historically, linguistically and geographically separate country from the 3 main Scandinavian nations. The title for all 4 countries together is 'Nordic', not Scandinavian.

That completes today's rather dull geo-cultural lesson...... :)

As for Irish clubs looking to compete in the Royal League, one question. Why ??? Why would we want to ? And more importantly, why would they want to have us ? If they really wanted to expand to a random country, it would make more sense geographically, and culturally and ability-wise for them to choose somewhere like Scotland.

Sure while we're at it, why doesn't the Irish rugby team look to join the Tri-Nations series......

[dcfcsteve]

Wiki-navia... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavia)



There's always controversy when people try to put labels on things - just look at the trouble caused by innocuous terms like 'British Isles'. Why can't we all just get along:confused: :D


The issue with the term 'British Isles' is about the political/colonial nature of the title, not about what territories are included in the definition. The term is well understand (unlike 'Scandinavian', for example).

I wasn't aware of the Scandinavians and Nordics not all getting along......?

[Jerry The Saint]

The issue with the term 'British Isles' is about the political/colonial nature of the title, not about what territories are included in the definition. The term is well understand (unlike 'Scandinavian', for example).

I wasn't aware of the Scandinavians and Nordics not all getting along......?


Check out the Discussion page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Scandinavia)on the article. Long, tedious angry arguments over what is/isn't Scandinavia.

[bawn79]

Correct BP - you beat me to it !

Finland is a culturally, historically, linguistically and geographically separate country from the 3 main Scandinavian nations. The title for all 4 countries together is 'Nordic', not Scandinavian.

That completes today's rather dull geo-cultural lesson...... :)

As for Irish clubs looking to compete in the Royal League, one question. Why ??? Why would we want to ? And more importantly, why would they want to have us ? If they really wanted to expand to a random country, it would make more sense geographically, and culturally and ability-wise for them to choose somewhere like Scotland.

Sure while we're at it, why doesn't the Irish rugby team look to join the Tri-Nations series......


Well the whole thing about Finland being part of the Royal League, which as far as I know is what I said not that Finland is in Scandanavia, smacks of pedantic pat and really has nothing what so ever to do with the thread.

Fair enough Finland arent in the Royal League.

Why would Irish clubs want to play in the Royal League? The main thing I was thinking of was a tournement of leagues that play summer football. This to me sounded something like an expanded Royal League (Atlantic League, Nordic League, Viking League, Northern League whatever you wanna call it)
I thought it would be of use to generate income for clubs thru prize/appearance money and gate receipts. Would expose eircom league players to a different and very competitive style of football and would allow managers to look at players re transfers both into the eircom league and out of it to the Nordic nations.

Probably will never happen but I was just surprised it hadnt been suggested before.