The Great Soccer Debate

Calling all soccer fans !
Your opportunity to put your thoughts on soccer to those in power.

There will be a debate on soccer on Thursday 23rd February at 8pm in The Heritage Hotel, Portlaoise.
Panel includes John Delaney, Damian Richardson, Fintan Drury, (FIFA agent & Brian Kerr's agent) Gerry Mc Dermott of The Irish Independent and Noel King, womens team manager.
Topics include; prospects for our senior and underage teams, current situation with the FAI development plan, plans for the eircom League, support structures at regional levels and more.

Tickets €20 with all profits going to the development of soccer locally.
For tickets and information call Laois Sports Partnership Tel. 0502 71248 or email: info@laoissports.ie

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Originally Posted by thos mc dermott

Noel King, womens team manager.

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Don't worry, we know who Noel King is alright!

Portlaoise on a Thursday isn't handy for many people who might be interested. Will there be some report afterwards, highlighting the issues raised and various responses given?

I might pop along to that.
Always interesting to hear Rico speaking, I wouldn't mind hearing what Delaney has in store for the League too.

Anyone from the NLSA going to attend this?

Maybe this should be put in the eL section (or at least one of the footballing sections) to give it more publicity :confused:

I have added this to the calendar.

Will there be anyone there with a video camera ?? Will many other media types be there ? It would be great to get an idea of outcome from this, will anyone be taking minutes, or a record of the diaologue, issues debated etc. ??

I'd like to go if anyone can give me a lift back to either Cork or Dublin afterwards.

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Bald Student
I'd like to go if anyone can give me a lift back to either Cork or Dublin afterwards.

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Jeebuz your a little slut, aren't you:D

Anyway I would have wanted to go myself, hopefully there will be some sort of media attention there...

Dear All,
I hadn't planned to do a report - the idea is that people attend to listen and say their piece but it's an idea and I'll look at it. In any case I am hoping that there will be journalists in attendance who will do this. All local, regional and national media have been informed. In the last 2 years the forums have been covered by RTE and TG4 and got extensive write-ups in The Irish Indo.

Would be grateful if you could push this with other clubs/coaches. With the latest John Delaney/ Brian Kerr row and Fintan Drury on the panel it could make for an interesting evening.

Bald student, I live in Crumlin so can take you back to Dublin afterwards.

Any queries please call 087 2311309

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Originally Posted by tiktok

Anyone from the NLSA going to attend this?

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Two of the NLSA committee went down. You got the chance to put questions to the panel on a postcard at the very start - we put in a question about the new league format and basically what we could expect or what the league's/FAI's intentions were, but they didn't get around to it. There was 90 mins of the panel getting asked these questions, and 30 mins of a Q&A at the end, which only involved four questions, so didn't get a look in there either. Gerry McDermott (Indo writer and chair) was giving everyone the chance to have their say, which was understandable but which slowed things down a bit.

An awful lot was FAI back-patting. First question - "What is the FAI doing to improve the game at grassroots level?" just involved FAI propoganda for the first 20 minutes. Fintan Drury started a near-fight when saying it was a disgrace that someone could be an eircom League manager or assistant manager and a scout/agent. McDermott asked Delaney what he thought, but he ignored the question in his usual way and rambled on about something else. When McDermott pressed him on the issue, he claimed not to be aware of any such incidents, but if they were brought to his attention, he would act on them. Noel King described the FAI website as a disgrace at one stage - there was talk of a big revamp, but nothing on the bottom line that the content is the biggest disgrace. King also quite incredibly mooted an idea about a Dublin team playing in the English Premiership out of the new Lansdowne Road.

Other questions involved the standard of refereeing (general consensus - not great, but Rico said the NI ref at the Setanta Cup game on Monday was way below the standard in the eircom League, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been), women's football, a pyramid system to allow junior clubs aspire to eircom League membership if they wanted (JD noted that this was hoped to be introduced next season, as we've heard already) and the issue of youngsters going over to England. On this, Fintan Drury and Fran Gavin said the issue wasn't about stopping the tide completely, but of ensuring those who should go over - e.g. Kevin Doyle - got the chance, while trying to talk those who it was felt weren't good enough out of going. Drury in particular described the English game as entirely corrupt and not a place for a 15- or 16-year old Irish kid, saying that if you were good enough at 15, you'd be good enough at 18. Rico agreed that Kevin Doyle's path to English football was the perfect way to do things - stay in Ireland, get an education and you'll be much the better for it if you do move. The biggest problem here, though, is aspirational fathers, who are all too often to ignore the advice being given them from people who know the game inside out.

The panel session concluded with a unanimous praise of Steve Staunton in general, although Fintan Drury not surprisingly noted he didn't think there should have been a vacancy for Stan to get!

Overall, it was interesting, though not as interesting as it could have been, which was more to the slow way it was chaired than anything else - five people (Fran Gavin stepped in at the last as Jimmy Magee couldn't chair, so McDermott got promoted) often agreeing with each other and putting across the same points when we could have been discussing another question. They were probably being careful as to what questions they chose to ask as well.

Think that covers it. Cheers to Thos for organising it - certainly hard to get a better panel to discuss Irish football than what we had last night.

Thanks PS -- great report.

Very telling that NLSA had to submit questions from the floor, when they should have been on the panel. In what capacity was Drury speaking?

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Noel King described the FAI website as a disgrace at one stage - there was talk of a big revamp, but nothing on the bottom line that the content is the biggest disgrace.

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Fair play to him to note that, particularly as a FAI employee. You'd wonder why he came out with the second thing though.:confused:

Thanks for the review, good work.

In fairness, yer man saw mention of us in the papers at a late-ish stage and made the effort to contact Emmet Malone to contact us and let us know it was on. Maybe next time!

Fintan Drury is Ireland's leading licenced football agent, which was his capacity. Very balanced panel, actually.

Fair play ps, seems like a bit of a sideshow though. Oh and king is an idiot. I'd like to see more of this thing though

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Fintan Drury is Ireland's leading licenced football agent, which was his capacity.

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I think Ireland's leading licensed football agent probably should be on the panel, but not before Ireland's domestic football fans.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Fintan Drury started a near-fight when saying it was a disgrace that someone could be an eircom League manager or assistant manager and a scout/agent. McDermott asked Delaney what he thought, but he ignored the question in his usual way and rambled on about something else. When McDermott pressed him on the issue, he claimed not to be aware of any such incidents, but if they were brought to his attention, he would act on them.

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He's not aware of the existence of a football club in Bray:confused:

What's this crap about having a team based in Dublin playing in the English Premiershi* raising it's ugly head again? And what are the NLSA's view on it?
National League United successfully opposed Wimbledon coming to Dublin in 1996 I suspect there will be no opposition this time as that one seems to have been largely ignored by the postings on this thread :(

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Originally Posted by CollegeTillIDie

What's this crap about having a team based in Dublin playing in the English Premiershi* raising it's ugly head again? And what are the NLSA's view on it?
National League United successfully opposed Wimbledon coming to Dublin in 1996 I suspect there will be no opposition this time as that one seems to have been largely ignored by the postings on this thread :(

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Yeah ... its actually scary that it is cropping up in this current climate, and i just wnoder is it the same people, the people who learnt from their mistakes that last time and have a better way of approaching it this time.

I'd totally agree CTID ... any mention of this should raise alarms bells. The NLSA does need to be more on top of things like this.

Why are we getting worried? It's not even possible and it was just a comment by Noel King of all people. Any such club would have to work their way right up through the ranks of the English league and no one would be bothered to invest that much time and money and take that risk. That's if it could even get by the authorities.

Because in 1996, the first time this particular kite was flown, the entire media rowed in behind the hype. A letter from FIFA saying they would not permit the move, was faxed to all the print media. It was universally ignored. Opinion polls were taken and the Irish public interviewed were all in favour of it seemingly. Even some EL fans did not see any problem with it!

The only exception in the Print media was The Title which back then was a seperate newspaper ( there was no Ireland On Sunday). Cathal Dervan was the only one in print journalism who paid attention to the fact the FIFA were against it, and opposed the idea himself. Merrion Square was silent on the issue. The only one there who openly opposed the idea was Bernard O'Byrne. I am fearful that people of his calibre are not in Merrion Square anymore and people have very short memories.
p.s Noel King is a full-time paid employee of FAIreland... are you still not even a little concerned?

A full-time employee (and a high-profile one at that) of FAI has no business promoting this policy, unless it has been adopted by the association. If it has become official policy, what sense is there in a league merger with the FAI?
FAI should clarify its position on this and if they don't the supporters' association should demand a statement.