National League

olegunnar do agree with alot of your ideas.but i think league and club teams mixed in a national league not good!!! if a countie eg cork galway mayo, have a league team and also have three or four club teams, all enter an national league,i cannot see it working.all team will be pulling from each other etc,so if there are too many teams from one area you will have four ok teams instead of having one/two excellent teams.I think the idea of an national league is to improve the standard of the game.These are just my taughtsThe more ideas we get the better.

Rasper can you arrange a number of meetings with Noel King!!!

whats the meeting for?????????
i'am with olegunnar on this one follow the eircom league format
it is also time to take league teams out of the senior irish club cup cause it is not fair to have the best of maybe 12 clubs playing one club good idea at the time to bring up the amount of teams in it but now there are loads of teams in it and if league teams wanted to play they could join the national league or the best players join eircom league side if they are good enough.

2nd year in a row a league rep side has made to final,congrats to galway - getting players to a final that would not have made it with a club side from the region. but i think that enough time has passed and maybe we should look to having a national league, with only those sides taking part in our senior cup. see how mayo did in uefa this year??

New eircom season starts in March/April, giving us 6 months, the u21 eircom season starts in May/June, giving us 9 months. any chance please wfai?????

Also, in limerick, the eircom club have a senior ladies team that IS a league rep side. If they had a u14-u18 set-up as well, where the players involved would have access to Gaynor cup trials and regular coaching,then this is the correct set-up for a club looking to aspire to any potential WNL.

Does anyone agree/follow???

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Originally Posted by Number9

rasper,
Are League representative teams involved, for example Mayo League, or is it existing bonefide CLUB teams only. 8 teams isn't very much and since most things soccer (and Mr King) are Dublin based I'd have to assume that most of them would be based there despite 3 of this years semi finalists coming from Galway, Clare and Cork.

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Given the problems encountered by the Dublin Women's Soccer League Premier Division, this summer ( some teams still have 4 games remaining in October) in getting games completed because of under-age International commitments at Under 19 and Under 17 level experienced by certain clubs, Stella Maris in particular, anything more than an 8 team National League would be overambitious in the extreme.
Last time I spoke with anyone about a National League within the WFAI I was told September 2008 at the earliest. The cost of running such a team and fulfilling away fixtures in far flung parts of Ireland may be prohibitive to some prospective members however.

There has already been expressions of interest from Dundalk based clubs, there will most likely be some form of representation from Cork and I don't see why other hotbeds of Women's soccer like Waterford and Limerick to name but two , could not also be represented!

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Originally Posted by olegunnar

2nd year in a row a league rep side has made to final,congrats to galway - getting players to a final that would not have made it with a club side from the region. but i think that enough time has passed and maybe we should look to having a national league, with only those sides taking part in our senior cup. see how mayo did in uefa this year??

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Mayo would have done even better if half their team hadn't abandoned the beautiful game half way through their UEFA Cup Group to back and play the Ugly code back home.......:rolleyes:

Last weekend went to see Neulengbach play Arsenal in the next round. The Austrians lost 3-2 to a dodgy penalty late in the game to the Italians.

The Saturday match they lost 7-0 to Arsenal, who had a full team out apart from Faye White the English captain. the Neulengbach time was hardly recongisable as the same team that Mayo played in the previous round. 3 girls were injured from domestic season and previous match and another three were suspended as yellow cards carried through from the previous round.

Rosanna was playing but a waste of space. The Austrians were sloppy in defence with a new centre half and right back the worst. Arsenal very clinical but as most of the Arsenal team are full English Internationals and were just back from the world Cup. 5-0 at half time.

Disappointed with Neulengbach, they had no fight and sat back and let Arsenal come at them. Arsenal played at half speed in second half and only scored two goals, one a great header by Ciara Grant.

It's going to be difficult to pick the "best" teams for a Senior national league -

Look at the Galway League - most of the team play for Galway Bohs, who play at intermediate level. They were well beaten by Kilmacrennan in the intermediate cup, who in turn were beaten by Annacotty who in turn were beaten by Knock-Kiltimagh. Is there really a big difference in standard between the top intermediate clubs and the "senior" clubs?

With two teams having made the FAI Senior Cup semi finals from Munster and having played the Munster Senior Cup beforehand. Does it not show that regular competition can give alot of teams benefit.

So why not stop all the talk and someone set up a National League or regional Senior leagues, for a sport thats only getting bigger!!!!:confused:

Beour37 -
"Its an all Limerick league affair with Limerick37 V Lifford Ladies who play in the Limerick league having made the final out of 8 teams....Tipp League, Limerick37, Wilton, Lifford, Cork League, Ballincollig, Limerick Desmond League and Benfica."

So these 8 teams to form the Munster Senior League? What about National Intermediate finalists Annacotty?

I think this is a crucial time for a National League to be seriously considered and I will help in any way I can. There are several clubs currently in a position to start thinking along those lines but I can understand the hesitancy from the FAI as it is vital it starts and continues in a professional manner. Clubs must be committed as well as often it is very easy to enter, get badly beaten twice and then refuse to travel to an away fixture because they wont win. I do acknowledge this has improved and clubs are a lot better off financially but its still a problem, the under eighteen national cup is on its last legs for that very reason

Wexford Rules - agree with you that it is a crucial time. One thing that must be investigated before a National Senior League or Regional Senior League commences is the current league structures, their affilliations and the seasons they play.
The season should be determined by the governing body - the FAI/WFAI and not a local league. All female leagues should play the same season.
The FAI are encouraging the schoolboy leagues to change to schoolboy/girl leagues. Schoolboy/girl leagues tend to be distinct and separate entities from mens and womens leagues. Players under current legislation can't play in 2 leagues at the same time. This implies that a club who might be short of (women) players can't call upon their U16 girls to bolster their team at what might be a crucial part of the season as the womens team is affilliated to a different league from the girls. Now in National competitions a girl can't play in a womens match until her 16th birthday but in local competitions this rule doesn't normally apply. So the WFAI like (or at least they used to like) to have girls and women under the same banner (ie womens and schoolgirls combined league) as it allows for good young players to play at a higher level (womens) and play at their own age group while the FAI are encouraging the S(choolboy)FAI affilliated leagues to champion girls soccer which in effect stops girls from playing with women even if they are physically strong enough and have the playing ability to do so.
In the male game boys (up to U16) can't turn out for their own age group team and their club's minor, junior, intermediate or senior teams in the same season because the teams are affilliated to different leagues. The same thing is now happening to girls soccer.
This league/affilliation structure needs to be fully investigated and appraised and the best structure for the development of players adopted (not necessarily the current one, nor the one that suits a few local dominant clubs, nor the one that suits a few local soccer politicians). The best structure is the one which will allow the most promising girl players to reach their full potential while allowing for social soccer for the masses. The structure deemed to be the best should be adopted nationwide ie the FAI/WFAI should make the best structure a mandatory structure nationwide, with no exceptions. Clubs in areas which have too few teams for their own league should be allocated a place in an adjoining league by the FAI/WFAI.
For example, a greenfield site called Munster. Year 1 - there are 4 clubs in Cork, 1 in Limerick and 1 in Clare. The FAI/WFAI encourage them all to form a Munster League. In year2 there are 5 clubs in Cork, 1 in Waterford, 1 in North Tipp, 1 in South Tipp, 3 in Limerick and 2 in Clare. The FAI/WFAI step in and declare a North Munster League and a South Munster League. In year 3 an extra 2 clubs come forward in Cork, 3 more in Tipp, 2 more in Waterford and 1 more in Limerick. The FAI/WFAI then declare a Cork League, a Tipp/Waterford League and a Limerick/Clare League. After a few years some of the clubs, normally the ones who have mentors prepared to put in "the extra mile" become "too successful or too good" for their local league and then the greenfield site called Munster has to be introduced again only at a higher level. This is basically where we are now.
The most important question to be answered now is Where will the underage teams of the most successful teams play? Will they also play in a Regional or national League?
Currently, the 2 most successful teams in North Munster are Lifford Ladies and Annacotty Ladies. They acheived this position through strong underage structures within a womens league. Their underage teams were/are also arguably the strongest schoolgirl teams in North Munster. Both clubs need underage players to bolster their womens teams. At the end of the day in most clubs it is a numbers game. Where do their U18s, U16s and U14s teams play now? - currently nowhere. The FAI intervention in womens soccer and their encouragement of schoolboy leagues to run girls soccer has prevented the 2 strongest female clubs in North Munster from further developing girls teams. They have no league to play in. There are not enough clubs with girls teams to form a league. With no regular matches, the girls drift off to the local football team, to the local camogie team, further their interests with the opposite sex etc. Where will Lifford Ladies and Annacotty Ladies teams be in 3 or 4 years time if the current situation continues?
Unless the underlying structure of a National League or Regional League is correct - and I personally think that girls teams and womens teams should play under the same banner, allowing for the best girls to reach their full potential through playing simultaneously within their own age group and with women - it may be that social soccer is ultimately the only soccer which will be on offer. The Munster model, certainly the North Munster model, is broken and needs to be fixed. The FAI/WFAI shouldn't merely be observers of situations such as this, waiting for volunteer local league officials to come up with a remedy. They should be proactive. Look at it as being a greenfield site and move in and fix it. Maybe then the strongest clubs in North Munster can look at participating in a Senior Regional or National League......unless of course the powers that be don't want them to......or simply don't care......

The problem with Under 18 football for young Women is the same problem being experienced in this age bracket in other sports. Drop off in participation. This is caused by a number of factors. 1) part time employment which limits time off and makes attendance at training on a consistent basis nigh on impossible and in worst case scenarios causes games to be missed 2) Drink feck and boys . Once the late teenager hits the pub, they stop hitting the training ground and or pitch. Once a late adolescent gets interested in the opposite gender they get rid of the important things in life like their friends and sport.

Given that the Junior, and Intermediate WFAI Cups, ( not to mention Underage National Cups except Under 18) are currently organised on a regional basis it shouldn't be outside the realms of possibility to set up provincial leagues to underpin a National structure along the lines in Number9's post.