10 team league. Good or bad idea?

With Galway, Cobh and now Waterford all struggling financially, I've been thinking about this 10 team league format for next year.

Gareth Cronin was quoted as saying that Waterford's attendances are poor this year, as the likes of Cork, Bohs and Pats are not coming to town and drawing the big crowds (Newstalk, Saturday). I really don't think the 10 team league is a good idea for many reasons. It is only being brought in to suit the big teams, not the small teams, but it will eventually effect all teams IMO.

- As per the Cronin's quote above, the smaller teams in the league are going to find themselves in the first division playing against crap teams in front of low gates. That can't be good for the image of the club in the locality. Waterford struggling financially now and never do wells, such as Athlone, Kildare & Monaghan can only dream of playing premier football on their budgets.

- The big teams in the league will play each other FOUR times a season. Add in cup runs, and I for one will be sh*t sick of seeing the likes of Drogheda come to the cross and put 11 men begind the ball. Give me 5-0 wins over Cobh and exciting 3-2 wins over Galway anyday over a 0-0 or 1-0 win over Drogs. Playing big teams doesn't guarantee higher attendances, especially if you are playing the same teams every week.

- The idea behind the ten team league is so we can sustain a 10 team fully professional league. If all the teams are professional, and one of them gets relegated, what happens then? Are they going to have to continue paying the full time contracts they have with players in the first division with no money? That is even more dangerous than having an expanded top flight with more "smaller" clubs. How would Galway survive relegation this year?

- 1st division clubs who have a good season and are pushing for promotion, normally get good gates in the run in. So would it not be better to make promotion easier to achieve? 2 automatically up and a 4 way play off for the 3rd spot would make the first division more interesting and open. With a bigger premier division above that, the professional teams shouldn't have to worry about relegation and the first division teams would have a better chance of getting to play the big boys every second season or so.

All of that makes perfect sense. There is an unfortunate tendency in Irish football to focus on only the few top teams and then only on short term interests when there should be a more joined up approach for improving the whole pyramid.

All things being equal, a bad idea. Too repetitive and exclusive and tending towards familiarity-based contempt.

Under present circumstances, a good idea. Only ten clubs at the very most can sustain Premier Division football at the moment. As an interim measure it would make sense, provided it's reviewed in 2-3 years.

From a financial point of view, I think it has to happen. From a footballing point of view, a 10 team league gets a bit repetitive, as experienced in the 1st Division

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Originally Posted by Sheridan

All things being equal, a bad idea. Too repetitive and exclusive and tending towards familiarity-based contempt.

Under present circumstances, a good idea. Only ten clubs at the very most can sustain Premier Division football at the moment. As an interim measure it would make sense, provided it's reviewed in 2-3 years.

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I agree with most of that, but I don't understand the part in bold. Why is it more expensive to play in the premier division??

Cobh seem to have f*cked up royally this year, by increasing wages because they got to the premier division yet their gates haven't gone up that much (mentioned on ccfcforum). Why would a club do this? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

I'd rather see more teams introduced to make a 16 team premier division with a 10-12 team first division. The 16 teams would play each other twice, with the reduced repetition adding to the appeal of the games. With less league games teams might also start taking the league cup games more seriously. The A league would also have to be further developed below the first division, with much closer ties to junior football being encouraged. A fully professional premier division is very unlikely to be sustainable, whether it's 10 or 16 teams in the top league. At any one time the league is only ever looking likely to be able to support 5-6 full time sides.

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Originally Posted by passinginterest

At any one time the league is only ever looking likely to be able to support 5-6 full time sides.

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Agree 100%. But does that mean we should go to a 6 team league?

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Originally Posted by sullanefc

Cobh seem to have f*cked up royally this year, by increasing wages because they got to the premier division yet their gates haven't gone up that much (mentioned on ccfcforum).

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Increasing wages for existing players under contract doesn't make sense, but if you field a First Division standard team in the Premier and get hammered every week your gates will dip to sub-First Division levels and you'll take an additional financial pounding. Plus, there are significantly higher costs associated with hosting Premier Division games.

while I know its small consolation, 'bigger' clubs in the first division would create good competition toward going up and make it exciting for 3 or 4 or even 5 teams rather than the usual 2/3 horse race and everyone else passing time.

At the moment i would like to see a ten-team league. Pat Devlin has fallen off the face of the earth now so is unlikely to start his whinge fest again this time (i wouldn't write it off yet though, he probably lurking in a corner somewhere waiting for his chance). I would like to see more prize money being given to first division clubs who will be coming up though.

Personally I think a 16 team Premier, 10 team First Division, and regional divisions propping up the whole league is the way to go. A 16 team Premier, everyone playing each other twice with one automatically down and the 15th placed team entering a playoff at semi final stage with the 2nd, 3rd and 4th placed teams in the First Division would be far more attractive for the casual fan than the current set up. I'd nearly go so far as to put the Uefa cup spots up for grabs in a play off as well. Would make for constantly exciting ends to the seasons

normally i would have said no to small, but it prob makes sense. if the ten could just get there house in order though.

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Originally Posted by jebus

Personally I think a 16 team Premier, 10 team First Division, and regional divisions propping up the whole league is the way to go.

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If we had a 16+ team Premier, I don't see why we'd need a national First Division at all. I've always felt it should be regionalised with perhaps a handful of inter-regional games or a single national play-off round.

From a Premier Division club point of view it's bad, as the repetitive nature does take it's toll in terms of quality of football and attendance. Most leagues have moved away from this format towards a larger league. The logic that it will create 10 top professional clubs automatically is flawed imo.

Obviously for the First Division clubs that would be near the top, it's also a bad thing. They miss out on the big gates that they would get from the top teams, which obviously impacts on budgets and the wider quality. Too many clubs in the first are realistically out of the promotion hunt from the very start of the division. It also encourages too much unsustainable chasing of the automatic promotion spot.

Ideally, I would like to see a 16 team league, with relegation/ promotion out of either a first or regional leagus. But as ever, I'd prefer to see decisions made on a measurable basis. We're essentially going for a 10 team league based on a whim, and if clubs "feel" it isn't working we'll change it to something else on a whim too. In the last few years we've had 10 team league, 12 team, and now back to a 10. We've had the move to summer football. None of them gave measurable targets as to what they would achieve, so we've no way of knowing one way or another.

Are the crap attendances (which are contributing to the financial problems) because of the league format or because of summer football - or has the FAI (or club promotion officers) ever bothered their hole to properly research it to find out. Has what needs to be changed to attract more people ever been researched? Has other, more initative formats ever been investigated and researched? I think we know the answer.

Genesis came up with about fifty different league formats, each one more preposterous than the last. What a pile of sh1t that report was.

The crap attendances are (outside of the prevailing cultural issues, which of course are 90% responsible) because of the crap PR and administration of most clubs. There's only so much the FAI can do about that by tinkering with anything.

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Originally Posted by Sheridan

Genesis came up with about fifty different league formats, each one more preposterous than the last. What a pile of sh1t that report was.

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I did say properly researched!

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Originally Posted by Sheridan

The crap attendances are (outside of the prevailing cultural issues, which of course are 90% responsible) because of the crap PR and administration of most clubs. There's only so much the FAI can do about that by tinkering with anything.

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Could well be, but we don't know because the potential people have never been asked in a way that would stand up to any statistical analysis.

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Originally Posted by jebus

Personally I think a 16 team Premier, 10 team First Division, and regional divisions propping up the whole league is the way to go. A 16 team Premier, everyone playing each other twice with one automatically down and the 15th placed team entering a playoff at semi final stage with the 2nd, 3rd and 4th placed teams in the First Division would be far more attractive for the casual fan than the current set up. I'd nearly go so far as to put the Uefa cup spots up for grabs in a play off as well. Would make for constantly exciting ends to the seasons

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What exactly are the teams from 5th to 12th (thats 8 positions, ie.e half of any 16 team league) playing for, for the second half of the season? This would be a disaster.

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Originally Posted by sullanefc

Agree 100%. But does that mean we should go to a 6 team league?

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No it means we should accept that the top of the league will most likely be dominated by this same number of teams regardless of whether it's 10, 12 or 16 teams in the premier division. As it is the gap between the bottom four in the premier and the top four in the first division is fairly minimal.

If 16 teams played each other twice in the premier division it would definitely add to the appeal of the big derby games, and the visits of the top sides to the lesser clubs. I think a national first division would have to be maintained to allow for promoted teams to be competitive. A regional system at this level could lead to certain regions becoming much stronger, with little or no competition in other regions making it difficult for teams to improve. regionalisation should be introduced at A championship level, with a huge drive to get junior and intermediate sides around the country involved.

I like Jebus' playoff system too. Sounds like it'd work nicely.

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Originally Posted by GavinZac

What exactly are the teams from 5th to 12th (thats 8 positions, ie.e half of any 16 team league) playing for, for the second half of the season? This would be a disaster.

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What do they have to play for in most leagues? Usually the gaps wouldn't be that huge that a team in the top half couldn't make a run for a European place or a team in the bottom half might get dragged into a relegation battle. It would probably mean that in the last few games some teams had little to play for, prize money is the only available incentive here, but this is the case in every league, why should ours be any different?

- The big teams in the league will play each other FOUR times a season. Add in cup runs, and I for one will be sh*t sick of seeing the likes of Drogheda come to the cross and put 11 men begind the ball.

Change the fc@kin record will ya for gods sake .You lot are really getting boring .The last time we came to turners cross we played some lovely football and came away worthy winners so dry your eyes and get over it ! :rolleyes: