Very good piece. Thanks for sharing.
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Popular YouTuber StuntPegg visited the UCD Bowl last month for our game with Rovers. Her video is below; 51k views so far and counting. And it's actually really nice about the LoI experience in general.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-HaBf6vqgY
That's the fella - good memory there!
Nice video. But why the subtitles? None of those who were subtitled are particularly hard to understand (and I say that as a non native speaker).
Seems to be a thing a lot of videos on twitter and YouTube do nowadays. It allows people to watch the video in public eg if they’re on a bus or whatever without earphones, while still being able to hear (or see in this case) what the person in the video is talking about
LOI central are having a live night in Rascals in Inchicore on Monday 6th. The last one they had on Grafton street was good.
Not quite a promotional activity I guess, but Shamrock Rovers featured in last week's episode of Only Connect on BBC. Shamrock, Albion, Raith, Forest Green and Doncaster all appeared on the connecting wall, with four of them forming the group of "Football teams named Rovers"
Not sure where to put this but Rovers fans season ticket are apparantly being allowed into the South stand for the promoton relegation playoff.
Good idea and should boost attendance a bit. Im definitly going to go along and see the drama.....peno shoot out ??
Dont know who i will be cheering for , marginally Cork maybe , better away trip
After the disrespect shown by the weak, probably temporary cork manager,as a sup to their support, towards the 2023 champions I sincerely hope for a Waterford victory and a place back in the graveyard division for a cork team to sort out their club and ultra minority idiotic fanbase
Maybe it is a wind up
Fantastic night of nostalgia In Rascals. The stories by Roddy Collins are priceless.
Kerry setting up an invitational Academy tournament for age groups from U9 to U17 level:
https://kingdomcup.ie/
Nice piece in Star on Longford Town cup final win of 2003.
Here's the SIM2 feature. I preferred StuntPegg's style actually, but publicity is publicity. 30k views in the first 24 hours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvVtTqpRBuk
Interestingly both videos say Haaland played in the Bowl when we told the guys he only played the second leg in Norway (because Molde were ****ed off at being taken to penalties with half an hour of the tie to go)
Seems like a weekly occurrence now but another YouTuber (Scottish lad by the name of Blair McNally) was over to cover the cup final and playoff final.
https://youtu.be/mJjzOk_RE04?si=Fx96vpJva9_Nq-98
I heard it mentioned on a podcast recently that Irish football culture is much more similar to continental and Eastern European football culture than British, and it’s really true. My whole time at the cup final it kept reminding me of watching Italian games during the 90s where games would be delayed due to pyro smoke.
Allegedly the FAI pay Jonathan Hill, the CEO of the Football Association of Ireland approximately €270,000 per year while the Airtricity Premier League winners receive a prize of €125,000.
So, Rovers 4 year reign has won them about €450,000, what is Hill's contract, a 3 or 4 year term?
The former commercial director was chosen because of his proven record in driving increased revenue, his previous roles were with Wembley Stadium, Euro 96 and Laureus World Sports Awards.
Michael o Connors dig at government after Sundays women's final well worth a listen. On you tube for anyone that didn't hear it. Sorry can't do links.
Institute are offering £5 match entry for Derry City and Finn Harps ST holders.
Nice idea. Do any other clubs, LSL.for example, do something similar?
Most of the article is paywalled. But it seems an investor was willing to put €90 million into revamping the league and creating an all island premier league. The problem child must be having a bit of a glow up!
https://www.independent.ie/sport/soc...878154725.html
Thought that might get a thread of it's own.
Seems the article is similar to the proposal - light on detail
Gist is of the proposed 90M investment 70M would be ringfenced as prizemoney for first 7 years, and 10M for development and academies. Then unclear if other 10M is 8th year prize money, or some up front infrastructure improvements or just running the thing.
Clubs could expect to share the 70M, over 7 years, minimum or best case would see that rise by almost 50M.
Meanwhile the rights holder (the investors, not the new league company) expect to see 500M return, best case, over 8 years.
It's all based on one division - promotion/relegation or money to clubs outside this don't factor in.
And reading between the lines best case would very much depend on IFA clubs becoming involved and promoting an All-Ireland League.
Oh, and the FAI are supposed to have just stopped talking to them. Can't say I blame them.
And in other deja news - the ECJ is due to give it's verdict on ESL case against UEFA and FIFA soon
Then it won't get past UEFA, who require at least two divisions, with P&R, for them to recognise any league.
If they can't persuade the FAI even to look at it, then there can't be much (any?) hope with the IFA.
While UEFA are also dead-set against cross-border leagues (explains why there aren't any, in Europe at least).
The key to this is to be found in Foley having been "involved" (he claims "heavily" so) in the Caribbean Premier League, which presents itself as the second biggest such league in world cricket. But whether or not it really was his baby; or whether it is so big as he claims; and even disregarding the fact that West Indian cricket is rather different from Irish football(!), ultimately we are talking about a 6 team franchise over there.
And the franchise model is fundamentally incompatible with the league structures which European football has built up over a century or more.
To be fair there some handwaving over P&R, but it's put firmly in the FAI's corner. Essentially adding to the longstanding issues with the overall structure of football, then taking any hypothetical extra revenue and ensuring it can't address the problem.
Does anyone honestly believe the global rights would at any stage be worth 50M plus annually? Or is that idea worthy of a soft furnished room?
Ignoring any other problem, best case by time the deal ended the rights would be worth enough to cover the prize-money. Worst case they're nowhere near that, and there no paddle on the canoe.
I am absolutely dying to know what exactly are the details around the proposal were. Not having relegation would make it a non-runner from the get-go but I'd wager it wouldn't have been the only controversial condition if the firm was stumping up the guts of 100m.
The most interesting aspect to this imo, is the fact that someone is actually coming to the table with a big chunk of money instead of just notions.
It's hard be too hard on the FAI for shutting down the conversations when we know so little about what it contained but I am just that little bit more skeptical of their competence once again given all the same old press we've read in recent weeks.
The simple fact of the matter is that clubs need money to build adequate facilities. As it stands the FAI aren't even going to be able to do enough to qualify for the government money they were promised, never mind lobby the government for the 100s of millions which they'd set out to do earlier this year.
From the outside it looks like the status quo is good for the FAI and not good for the clubs. Unless there's proper progress made on securing government funding I think talks of the clubs breaking away will only increase.
The whole point about a franchise proposal like this is who controls it
Which would self-evidently be the franchise owners (Doh!).
Which in turn would never be acceptable to the FAI or UEFA - see eg the opposition to a European Super League.
And imo, whatever the many and varied deficiencies of FAI/IFA/UEFA etc, I'd still far rather have them in charge of the game than some bunch of foreign money men. For at best the latter will make a profit, then take it out again; at worst they will make a loss, pull out, see the franchise collapse, then leave it to others to pick up the pieces.
Kerry are holding a collection for Tralee Food Aid at Mounthawk Park on Friday during their kit launch - all supporters are asked to donate an item from the provided list:
https://kerryfc.com/kerry-football-c...alee-food-aid/
https://twitter.com/LeagueofIreland/...T8224sIIg&s=19
A new Derby en route in Munster.