10 Team PD: Good or Bad

The 10 team league was bad the last time it was tried and it's bad now. The rationale for going back to the structure was for 10 fully pro teams - well that worked out well didn't it?

16 teams would be better, once there was a structure below for relegation promotion. Part of the pressure that leads teams to overspend is because of the fear of relegation, which is hieghtened with a 10 team league - it might be more competitive, but that brings it's own problems.

The idea I've always thought might work with the wider general mentality of only caring about a few knock out games would be a north-south, or east-west, split of the entire league. Home and away, with one round of interdivisional games (every club plays every other). Title decided on play offs and a grand final for the title. It would give clubs a chance to consolidate, give clubs the chance of big gates throughout the season with which to build. You could have secondary play off's a trophy and shield to keep the competitive down the league - say bottom three of each division have no chance of making grand final day. Have 3 games on Grand Final Day and you'd have pretty much full Lansdowne Road.

Obviously it's only an idea, I've only given it as much thought as the FAI/ League give any of their changes. But back of an fag packet was good enough for a 10 team league, summer football etc....

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Originally Posted by Mr A

Was there really any noticeable increase in standard with the move to ten teams?

Not in any of the premier games I watched anyway. If anything the standard in the league is slipping.

And league structure makes no real impact on whether facilities are better.

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Average standard dropped as there were less proper fulltime teams and quite a few quality players have left the league.

The one big difference was the gap from top to bottom was a lot narrower IMO. E.g. I thought Bray were a very tidy side, played good football and were nothing near the whipping boys most relegation sides in the past few years have been.

But as said, the monotony of playing teams 4 times doesn't help attendences.

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Originally Posted by adamd164

Standard was low enough this year; bringing more first division teams up wouldn't help that.

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Two First Divsion sides in both Cup semis, and one in both Cup finals, hints otherwise. I'd say none of the top four in the First Division this year would have come bottom of the Premier.

I'm with Oriel on this, a 16 team League of Ireland, with promotion and relegation to and from two regional A Championship teams.
I have my own thoughts on the make up of a Prem Division (such as including Derry and Cork) but can't reconcile that with their behaviour this year and with having to leave out, say, established clubs like Athlone who have struggled in the First Division

Opinion for the most part seems to depend what division your team is in. Seems to me anyone supporting a Premier Division team arent too pushed while those supporting first division teams want a Prem Division expansion.

Personally I wouldnt like to see more than 12 teams in the Premier Division. I dont think a 16 team PD would work. Other talk of splitting after x games like the SPL wouldnt work either. People tend to forget we already had this years ago and it wasnt too great.

I dont think the 10 team format has done too badly. I'd prefer to be playing teams like Bohs / Shamrock Rovers more than twice - it's not boring and makes for better games than playing teams who would struggle

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Originally Posted by neutrino

Opinion for the most part seems to depend what division your team is in. Seems to me anyone supporting a Premier Division team arent too pushed while those supporting first division teams want a Prem Division expansion.

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Some of us now in the first were in the premier the last time the 10 team experiement failed. It was crap then, it's crap now.

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Originally Posted by Macy

Some of us now in the first were in the premier the last time the 10 team experiement failed. It was crap then, it's crap now.

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It's crap now ? how ? . The league needs to find a format and stick with it. Changing it about every couple of years will do no good. If we're to make it a 16 team league then who would be in it ? As things stand add in UCD, Shels and Sporting Fingal - what other 3 teams would compete in the Premier Division and not get beaten back out of it ? I believe the format should be kept until at least the participation agreement expires.

Waterford would compete no problem. Then two current First Division teams who could benefit and improve in the medium term from the extra gate receipts and profile.

Playing each other 4 times (at least) a year is crap. It encourages overspending as relegation is terrible, and so skewed against teams getting out (which encourages over spending in the 1st). It does no harm for teams to able to yo yo rather have to go all out every year. 10 team league is a prime example of short termism imo. I'm alright Jack, pull up that promotion ladder.

So what if a team or teams is cut a drift relatively early - happens in every league in the world.

Currently teams can meet each other 10 times in a season (potentially)

4 times in league
once in playoff
2 times in cup (with replay)
1 or 2 times in Setanta, depending on whether they sort the format
once in league cup

That's pretty mental. To me, the 16 team top division is the way to go.

With a proper league under that, not a mickey mouse A League with ten games or something.

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Originally Posted by BonnieShels

I've been discussing this ad nauseum for years. A wholesale change to the structure of all Irish soccer is needed from the ground roots up to incorporate everyone rather than the ad hoc situation that we presently have that just seems tacked on. I mean the play offs this year weren't there last year and I'm not sure we can say that they'll be there next year.
This doesn't happen in Britain or in the Province, and even the IFA went through witha reorganisation over the last few years that was clearly road mapped.

I've been throwing around a few ideas with a friend the last few days since the Kildare and Derry debacles.

I've come to the conclusion that a 14 team Premier with a Scottish style split would be nigh on perfect imo.

That would give you 13 home, 13 away games pre-split (plus a further 6 games post-split).

Then comes the interesting part...

I was thinking about how the split really doesn't effect any major change to the top and the bottom of the scottish leagues and a way to solve that...

If going into the split of the top 7 and the bottom 7 where only the results against the teams on your side of the split are carried over I think you will find that pretty much every game becomes competitive throughout the season as every club still has to fight against relegation in the Bottom split and the winning of the league championship itself would be still open to many in the Top split.

I would also have a straight 2 up, 2 down policy.

I haven't refined my various ideas for the first division but underneath that teh idea of regional feeder leagues is go.

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Sorry but I cannot find anything for the ground roots in there.

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Originally Posted by OneRedArmy

Average standard dropped as there were less proper fulltime teams and quite a few quality players have left the league.

The one big difference was the gap from top to bottom was a lot narrower IMO. E.g. I thought Bray were a very tidy side, played good football and were nothing near the whipping boys most relegation sides in the past few years have been.

But as said, the monotony of playing teams 4 times doesn't help attendences.

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Very well summed up there ORA.

The quality of the league totally depends on the quality of the players you can attract to it.

The biggest draw back to the 10 team division is that familiarity breeds not only contempt but apathy too. It also means that the geographical spread of top flight football across the country is very sporadic.

Like a lot of people have said they should try and find some way to have a 14 or 16 team top division.

In an ideal world, a 16 team premier with at least a 10 team first division would be great but I don't know if there are enough quality players to have 16 teams of a decent standard.

I dont think the 10-team professiona league was the right idea in the first place, what's needed is a 12-team Premier in an All-Ireland League:

Bohs
Bray Wanderers
Cork
Drogheda
Dundalk
Galway
Rovers
Sligo
Pats
Linfield
Glentoran
Cliftonville

And the rest in regional leagues, winner of north and south automatically qualify for Premier, second in both meet in a play-off and the winner plays the 11th placed team in the Premier.

It's just my opinion but I do believe it could work.

I'd say if we tinker with the structure just one more time all our problems will be solved.

I'm dead set against the notion of a regionalised division.

For starters, I enjoy the odd trip to Ballybofey / Monaghan. All ther rest are within a relatively easy distance if you're bothered to make the effort to go.
(I wonder do many of you suggesting regionalised divisions actually travel to many away games - its really not such a big effort, at least not such that I could conceive the leagues survival is threatened by it!!!).
Apart from Derry/Harps, I dont see that there should be much extra cost involved in travelling to any other club in the country.
(Well maybe its more of a problem for Harps/Wexford or others at extreme ends of the country, but the really far off ones would only be a handful of matches a season).

Maybe, just maybe if there's a 16 team premier, I may just be able to stomach a regionalised lower division (but only if Limerick are in the premier ....which by this seasons results would have depended upon Derry being thrown out :eek: ).

I agree that the tinkering with the league needs to stop. But on the other hand the ten team league is such a bad setup, for the reasons outlined in the thread above, that it should not be left in place.

Ideally imo 16 team AIL:

Bohs,
Cliftonville,
Cork,
Derry,
Drogheda,
Dundalk,
Galway,
Glentoran,
Glenavon,
Limerick (?)
Linfield,
Portadown,
Rovers,
Sligo,
St Pats,
Waterford,

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Originally Posted by Riddickcule

Ideally imo 16 team AIL:

Bohs,
Cliftonville,
Cork,
Derry,
Drogheda,
Dundalk,
Galway,
Glentoran,
Glenavon,
Limerick (?)
Linfield,
Portadown,
Rovers,
Sligo,
St Pats,
Waterford,

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I'd also love to see a 16 team AIL. It is probably the only way forward for football both north and south of the boarder . One 16 or 18 team division in the LOI would be great aswell.