More Aggressive Approach Needed

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Originally Posted by lucanhoop87

because an EL supporter is a proper football supporter is why, one who goes to actual Irish games and doesn't just go along with the ole ole barstoolers

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So;

the person who coaches and or manages a schoolkids team isnt a proper football supporter

the person who puts up the nets and marks the pitches for others to play their matches isn't a proper football supporter

the person who is on the executive committee, who fundraises for thier local club isnt a proper football supporter


Do you think that anyone who does not attend EL games but is reading your posts would be encouraged to go and see a match? I doubt it.

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Originally Posted by Dodge

Ware these mutually exclusive? Why can't someone who runs a schoolboys club be a LOI fan?

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Of course they can be both, and can have an interest in the EL without actually going to matches.

Anyone involved in running a team generally are giving up 2 evenings and a half day at the weekend every weeek of thier time to football. Most of these people have families and you will find that just maybe to take another evening off a week to watch an EL game might just be too much of their family time.


What is needed is to encourage people to attend games and you dont do that by slagging them off.

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Originally Posted by Greenforever

What is needed is to encourage people to attend games and you dont do that by slagging them off.

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Plenty of people have given plenty of encouragement. It doesn't matter. Anyone who doesn't want to support their local loi team will just make up another excuses

Oh and in my experiences, the vast, vast majority of loi fans are involved with junior or schoolboy football. They manage to squeeze it in.

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Originally Posted by Dodge

Plenty of people have given plenty of encouragement. It doesn't matter. Anyone who doesn't want to support their local loi team will just make up another excuses

Oh and in my experiences, the vast, vast majority of loi fans are involved with junior or schoolboy football. They manage to squeeze it in.

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If people dont want to support their local loi team that is there preogative, my original post was that EL supporters dont have a right to get international tickets ahead of others just because they support an EL team.

Interestingly nobody commented on my suggestion to increase the price of international tickets and include a coupon for admission to an EL game. Surely this would have got a few people to give it a go.

The only posts are slagging off those who do not support EL.

Personally I am just as happy to watch a schoolkids game as an EL game or even a premiership game, and i dont go to the pub to watch super Sunday etc nor have Sky. I have been very involved with junior football and know plenty of people likewise who do not go to EL games.

Your claim that most EL supporters are involved in junior / schoolboy football may well be true, but surely if you genuinely want to increase attendances you need to reach out to those who dont go to EL games and slagging off people and saying they've had their chances etc doesnt actually put bums on seats.

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Originally Posted by lucanhoop87

bet they still find time to fit in a trip to the pub for "super sunday" to watch their english football heroes on the tv though

to be honest you are symptomatic of the just can't be arsed brigade who have stopped domestic football from thriving on this "football mad country" of ours

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So what if people go to the pub thats their choice and right. I certainly would not feel like you would welcome me to an EL game, and I dont think others reading your posts would feel like they would be made welcome at your local club.

Domestic football - please define?

As having served on the executive committee of a major Dublin Club for a number of years, having managed both schoolboys and schoolgirls teams and been heavily involved in fundraising etc is this not helping DOMESTIC FOOTBALL, or if it's financially supporting EL clubs, I have been a donor to two of Dublins major clubs over the years.

There again at least I know the real people who support these clubs actually are a bit more knowlegeable about what is neede to help clubs survive, don't mind thrive.

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Originally Posted by lucanhoop87

bet they still find time to fit in a trip to the pub for "super sunday" to watch their english football heroes on the tv though

to be honest you are symptomatic of the just can't be arsed brigade who have stopped domestic football from thriving on this "football mad country" of ours

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What about those that go to LOI games but do nothing with Junior or schoolboy football, are they any better ?

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Originally Posted by Greenforever

The only posts are slagging off those who do not support EL.

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2 people, no more.

And if its their peerogative not to support the LOI surely its the FAI's perogative to favour those who do?

It'll never happen obviously

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Originally Posted by Dodge

2 people, no more.

And if its their peerogative not to support the LOI surely its the FAI's perogative to favour those who do?

It'll never happen obviously

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Taken from the FAI website

The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) is the governing body of football in the Republic of Ireland. Today, over 180 000 people play football in Irish football clubs and schools and many more people are involved as coaches, officials and volunteers. The role of the Association is to promote, foster and develop this activity.


The EL gets a significant amount of money from the FAI and this money is generally generated by the success or otherwise of the national team.

While I don't have an issue with this there is an argument that they would be better off reducing the amount of money given to a league made up of clubs who can't live within their means. And using this money to provide more centres of excellence for schoolkids etc.

Yet again your post ignores my original idea to actually try to encourage more people to attend EL games. From this it appears you just want to stop those who get tickets to the Irish matches if they dont attend your league. The EL accounts for a small percentage of the football family and has no God given right to call the shots and be treated anybetter than any other section of the Football family on Ireland.

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Originally Posted by Greenforever

While I don't have an issue with this there is an argument that they would be better off reducing the amount of money given to a league made up of clubs who can't live within their means. And using this money to provide more centres of excellence for schoolkids etc.

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And where are they supposed to play their senior football if not in the LOI, should we just create a conveyer belt and train them until they are 15/16 and ship them off to England with no education and only a very small chance of making it as a footballer?
Would you not agree that a strong LOI with the best young players staying here instead of going abroad would be good for the national team.

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Originally Posted by Greenforever

Yet again your post ignores my original idea to actually try to encourage more people to attend EL games. From this it appears you just want to stop those who get tickets to the Irish matches if they dont attend your league.

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Firstly, while your idea is good in theory it would never work in practice. I'd say 80% of people that go to Ireland matches couldn't give a crap about the league of Ireland so a free voucher to a league game isn't going to make a difference. For example i have a few relatives that go to matches and i wouldnt even call any of them football fans. They hardly ever watch games even on telly. Out of the 6 of them 5 don't follow football and one is a pats fan. I'd say there are thousands like them that go to matches.
And as for your second part i thought i replied in an earlier post.

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Originally Posted by Louth4sam

I don't think it would be a case of "EL supporter get priority over someone on the block booking for the past 10 or even 20 years" as the new Lansdowne has a far greater capacity then the previous one. Why not give first choice on these tickets to LOI season ticket holders before giving them to people on the waiting list or to the general public?

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Its not stopping anyone from getting tickets its rewarding those who go to league games first.

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Originally Posted by Louth4sam

And where are they supposed to play their senior football if not in the LOI, should we just create a conveyer belt and train them until they are 15/16 and ship them off to England with no education and only a very small chance of making it as a footballer?
Would you not agree that a strong LOI with the best young players staying here instead of going abroad would be good for the national team..

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IF we had a strong league yes, but at the moment we have too many clubs in an unsustainable league. Also the amount of foriegn players been brought into the league is increasing therefore reducing the amount of young local kids getting their chance.

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Firstly, while your idea is good in theory it would never work in practice. I'd say 80% of people that go to Ireland matches couldn't give a crap about the league of Ireland so a free voucher to a league game isn't going to make a difference. For example i have a few relatives that go to matches and i wouldnt even call any of them football fans. They hardly ever watch games even on telly. Out of the 6 of them 5 don't follow football and one is a pats fan. I'd say there are thousands like them that go to matches. .

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Yet they go to internationals that rarey sell out. There are very few home games where tickets are actually very scarce. People who really want tickets can generally get them. Anyway the thread was about encouraging people to go to El games, so have you any ideas for actually promoting the league to those who dont go to matches.

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Its not stopping anyone from getting tickets its rewarding those who go to league games first.

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As Ive pointed out the El has no right to tickets over and above any other affiliate to the FAI. Surely you want to encourage more peole thru the turnsiles and not just reward those who already go.

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Originally Posted by Greenforever

As Ive pointed out the El has no right to tickets over and above any other affiliate to the FAI. Surely you want to encourage more peole thru the turnsiles and not just reward those who already go.

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But surely new LOI fans ouwld be eligible for the tickets meaning that them going to games would be "rewarded" (your word, not mine)

Its a stoopid thing to be arguing about as it'll never happen though

Probably not going to be a popular point of view but I was talking about the future of the LoI in the pub with LtiD on Friday and the conclusion reached was that there is no future for LoI in it's current state. Personally I think the talk of Platinum One being our saviour and pushing attendences up by 150% is nonsense, don't get me wrong, it's whats needed, but it's not going to happen. With that in mind I honestly can't see backers like Jack McCarthy at Limerick, or Arkega at Cork, sticking around for even the medium term, I mean why would they? But as far as POne pushing attendences up, well I'd love to see their actual plans for this. So far they've said it will be marketed better, but no matter what they do it won't be marketed as well as the established Premiership over here. How else do you then get people in the gate? At a time when communities in cities are breaking apart we can hardly appeal to that, the standard isn't even up to League One, so that's not going to get people in, and the production quality on our TV broadcast are **** poor compared to our opposition.

I've said before that we need to accept that our generation of football supporters are the lost generation of League of Ireland supporters, that clubs need to target u-16s and try and build their support from there, but that's as pie in the sky as any POne plan. Truth be told I'm starting to believe that there is no future for League of Ireland football

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Originally Posted by Dodge

But surely new LOI fans ouwld be eligible for the tickets meaning that them going to games would be "rewarded" (your word, not mine)

Its a stoopid thing to be arguing about as it'll never happen though

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EL clubs already get an allocation of intenational tickets and it's up to them what they do with them. I believe most of them pass them on to their sponsors at inflated prices, eg take a full page in the match programme for a season at full price and you can purchase 2 tickets for each international.

I'd agree as the thread was about getting people to support EL and ive seen no posts to actually suggest ways of increasing attendances apart from copying foriegn advertising which may or may not work.

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Originally Posted by jebus

Probably not going to be a popular point of view but I was talking about the future of the LoI in the pub with LtiD on Friday and the conclusion reached was that there is no future for LoI in it's current state. Personally I think the talk of Platinum One being our saviour and pushing attendences up by 150% is nonsense, don't get me wrong, it's whats needed, but it's not going to happen. With that in mind I honestly can't see backers like Jack McCarthy at Limerick, or Arkega at Cork, sticking around for even the medium term, I mean why would they? But as far as POne pushing attendences up, well I'd love to see their actual plans for this. So far they've said it will be marketed better, but no matter what they do it won't be marketed as well as the established Premiership over here. How else do you then get people in the gate? At a time when communities in cities are breaking apart we can hardly appeal to that, the standard isn't even up to League One, so that's not going to get people in, and the production quality on our TV broadcast are **** poor compared to our opposition.

I've said before that we need to accept that our generation of football supporters are the lost generation of League of Ireland supporters, that clubs need to target u-16s and try and build their support from there, but that's as pie in the sky as any POne plan. Truth be told I'm starting to believe that there is no future for League of Ireland football

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The reality is there is no future in LOI football unless there is a major overhaul and reduction in clubs trying to compete on a fulltime basis.

The only answer is a small number of clubs competing in a pan european style league.

Off course this wont happen because of the vested intrests of clubs with limited fan bases and no resources burying their heads in the sand.

An all Ireland league will not boost attendances and not lead to a higher playing standard.

you haven't been reading a lot about the LOI lately have you? Galway, harps and probably sligo will be going back to semi-pro next season, and rumours are circulating that derry are also. The league is going from a twelve team to a ten team also.

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Originally Posted by Terry

you haven't been reading a lot about the LOI lately have you? Galway, harps and probably sligo will be going back to semi-pro next season, and rumours are circulating that derry are also. The league is going from a twelve team to a ten team also.

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so all the leagues problems are solved, brilliant.

we'll see progress now and have a team in the group stages of the champions league next year.

the total average attendance of all clubs last season was 27,570, that is not enough to support 2 top clubs don't mind 10.

cut backs are essential but a drastic overhaul is the only chance of survival and competing in Europe.

slagging off posters doesnt add numbers to attendance figures, what will is a reduced number of clubs max 4 or 5 competing in a higher standard league.

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Originally Posted by Greenforever

The reality is there is no future in LOI football unless there is a major overhaul and reduction in clubs trying to compete on a fulltime basis.

The only answer is a small number of clubs competing in a pan european style league.

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So, your idea for the future of the league is 4 or 5 teams (I presume that's the kind of number you had in mind, or perhaps it was even less ?) playing in a totally different league (which doesn't exist, or look likely to in the near future ... but we'll leave that argument). In what way exactly is this a future for the league ?

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Originally Posted by jebus

Truth be told I'm starting to believe that there is no future for League of Ireland football

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The future will be grand, just like the present and the past. If you accept that most people just don't give a ****, you can get on with supporting your team and stop trying to worry about those who just don't get.

We're a niche market, we ain't a mass appeal product

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Originally Posted by Dodge

The future will be grand, just like the present and the past. If you accept that most people just don't give a ****, you can get on with supporting your team and stop trying to worry about those who just don't get.

We're a niche market, we ain't a mass appeal product

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No I realise this, what I mean is that the future will probably be a lot worse than even the level we are at right now. People expect it to go forward but I personally think it will go backwards. We'll still be here of course

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Originally Posted by TonyD

So, your idea for the future of the league is 4 or 5 teams (I presume that's the kind of number you had in mind, or perhaps it was even less ?) playing in a totally different league (which doesn't exist, or look likely to in the near future ... but we'll leave that argument). In what way exactly is this a future for the league ?

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The league has no future but if you ever want to see top level professional club football in Ireland the only way is through a league with clubs from 5 or more countries. Ireland could provide realistically 2 or 3 clubs which would attract the required amount of sponsorship etc.

However if you're like Dodge you are happy with the status quo and dont really want or care about a successful club in Ireland that can compete on the international stage. We're a niche market as he says, I just wonder does he speak for the majority of Irish football fans? Maybe he does and thats why more support the premiership than the EL.