FAI bring injustice to a new level with Dundalk dumping
From todays Sunday Independent
Some of the article,the rest is here http://www.unison.ie/sportsdesk/stor...=12&si=1743226
The only problem with this reasoning is that Dundalk did get their act together off the field. In fact, their off-field ranking is joint eighth out of 21. So they would appear to qualify for the premier division on both on and off-field grounds.
However, what has scuppered Dundalk is their low on-field score of 247 points, a mere 15th overall, just three points ahead of the perennially struggling Cobh Ramblers, almost 100 points behind Waterford, who finished bottom of the Premier Division and in a normal year would have been automatically relegated, and 86 behind Bray Wanderers, who previously might have been playing off with the Oriel Park side.
And the reason for this terrible score? The League decided that the on-field ranking would be computed by taking into account the combined results of clubs since the 2002/2003 season. Dundalk have had a bad couple of seasons so they were severely handicapped before they started their campaign at all. You and I might think that Dundalk actually deserve credit for bouncing back from adversity. Then again, we're mere football supporters who cannot appreciate the Borgesian intricacies of the eircom League, an organisation which thinks logic is someone who used to play for Red Star Belgrade.
Whatever the reason for bringing off-field factors into play, this invocation of past results goes against everything competitive sport should be about. Surely the point of a football season is that every team starts with a clean slate and will be judged purely on their results. The only reason I can think of for this clause is that the League were scared that (a) a big club might follow the lead of Shamrock Rovers and get relegated this year or (b) that Shams might not do that well in Division One and might need a leg up. In the end, they needn't have worried. The Hoops won Division One. But it says something about the way the rankings are weighted that, after narrowly winning the title in the lower division, their on-field score is 40 points higher than Sligo Rovers, who finished fifth in the top flight