Actually, you havent finished 6th yet, all we need is a point tonight to finish above ye in 6th..not that it really matters of course bu still just to be factually correct.. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by dcfcsteve
Actually, you havent finished 6th yet, all we need is a point tonight to finish above ye in 6th..not that it really matters of course bu still just to be factually correct.. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by dcfcsteve
There would obviously need to be some format for promotion and relegation to and from an all-island league 'Premier Division', or else it would be stale and self-defeating. No-one is talking about it being a closed shop.
There's 34 other senior clubs - some of whom have very good facilities and would fall just short of inclusion in the country's top 16, so there would obviously have to be some sort of structure including most of these underneath the all-island league. I still argue strongly that some of the weaker clubs - mostly the two-bit ones in the North introduced in the last couple of years - would need to be weeded-out from even that secondary structure, and back down to Junior football where they were only a handful of years ago.
And SLK - to be fair, I think you're being far too cynical about Jim Roddy's motives. Just because our club happens to be based in Derry, does that instantly mean that we can't be motivated in this by anything other than self-interest ? Finn Harps, Monaghan and arguably Dundalk would also benefit hugely from an all-island league in terms of travel costs. Would they be equally guilty of self-interest if the idea progressed and they also come on board with it....?
If they're so weak, they'll drop away naturally to the NI 2nd division (or whatever is in place below the top regionalised tier) where they won't do anyone any harm.Quote:
Originally Posted by dcfcsteve
I have just scanned in the article, anyone who wants to read it can do so HERE!!!!
Interesting read, thanks brandy86.
Thanks Brandy86. Good article - glad to see things are going on behind the scenes without the FAI getting their incompetent hands involved.
For some reason I think this -although a good idea- will never materialise.
What I would like to see is The Setanta, FAI Cup and the IFA Cup(if that's what its called) all scrapped and replaced with a mixed organization Cup and the winner being guarenteed a UEFA Cup spot as well as s*it loads of cash.
What do ye think?
In reality, what's the difference between a regular cup involving all teams from both sides of the border and a league that does the same ?
If a league wouldn't work, why should a cup ? The same issues would be there regardless.
thanx brandy86 !
intresting read but I wouldn't take it as being what is actual going to happen. That tabloid is a rag at times.
I think having one all Ireland Cup is a great idea. That is something that would really work !! Having big prize money at the end like €500,000 for the winner and something smaller for whoever came second would really get the clubs attention.
Pratical issues such as travelling, loosing european places etc would be minimised.
That may be true, but the quotes are all quotes from Jim Roddy and he says everything. No matter where it appeared, there's alot in this story.Quote:
Originally Posted by thejollyrodger
Ironically, the English Premier League could be the saviour of football in Ireland!
The EPL was a breakaway by the top English clubs because they say that they weren't getting a fair deal under the existing arrangements. However the FA saw that a complete break-away would be devastating for them (losing your top clubs is NOT a good thing - look at the state of Welsh football) and managed to keep the Premier League within their structure, but allowed the Premier League to negotiate TV money and the rest.
A breakaway league would be good (although I'm slightly sceptical about it coming to fruition). The European element doesn't matter so much - Apart from Shels (this year only) and Cork to some extent, the European trips don't bring in lots of cash and in many cases, cost the clubs money.
Without viable leagues the FAI and IFA will have problems with the governing bodies. FAI/IFA would have to divert money into the leagues to keep them going or risk not having national leagues at all.
I don't see all this happening, but it can be used as a bargaining chip by the clubs proposing to break away.
Sixteen is a good number, but qualification should ideally be on the basis of merit only. I also think that we could even sustain an all-island 2nd level division too (with Munster, Leinster, Connaught-Ulster, NI) local leagues below that. A clear pyramid, with promotion and relegation all the way down is what's needed. This gives large population centres (like Galway or Limerick) the opportunity to join the party (if their teams are good enough), while not punishing successful small teams like Longford Town or Limavady United.
The top 8 in each league should qualify initially. Thereafter, 16th and 15th place would be relegated automatically and 14th and 13th would play-off against 3rd and 4th in the lower division. This give the possibility of high turnover in early years to rectify any imballances that came about by strictly imposing the 8+8 qualifying model.
I agree with crc,
Initial qualification has to be on merit ie top 8 from each league.
Promotion and relegation will mean the best teams will end up in the top division anyway.
Not sure what Roddy means by Shelbourne keeping "small clubs" afloat. How would that be? With their travelling army of 100 fans?
In fairness Linfield and Glentoran do have good away support and small clubs in the North do make money from their visits.
Just to clarify, the Premiership broke away from the Football League. The FA were the governing body of football, but the Football League (as the name suggests) ran the league divisions 1-4. It was the FA wanting increased power, as much as the clubs wanting more dosh, that drove it. I don't really think it's an effective comparison to what could happen here.
Footballing critea is obviously the most desirable for the initial top 8. However, I would tie it in with a full, non-fudged A licence as well.
As others, I have to laugh - all us lesser clubs feeding off Shels, Derry and Cork. It's hard to take any of the rest of it seriously if he genuinely belives that those clubs are proping up the league. Don't know which smillie to use, this one :D or this one :rolleyes: given that he's supposedly laying down the way forward.
Hang on - did any of you lot making snide comments about Jim Roddy even bother to read the article ? I sincerely doubt it, cuz if you did you'd know he didn't claim anyone was living off of either Derry or Cork. The only 2 examples he gave of 'big clubs' that others were feeding off were Shels and Linfield. No mention of his own club - Derry, and to his detriment no mention of the biggest club in our league, Cork. So get your facts right before throwing everything else he said out the window and making a turkey of yourself....Quote:
Originally Posted by Macy
He was correct in using Linfield as an example of a big club that others feed off, as they have a big fanbase; wrong in the case of Shels as we all know. However - Jim Roddy himself knows the league as well, if not better, than we all do, so I'm guessing he used Shels as an example for a reason - i.e. Joe Average punter reading the sports section of the paper without any knowledge of the Eircom League would assume Shels were a big club because of what they did in Europe this year.
Anyways - stop attributing ballax to him that he didn't say.
4 european slots for an all-ireland league isn't a big blocking point as the current setup won't sustain a 10 or 12 team premier el division with fulltime clubs so need the added commercial benefits of an all-ireland league to malke fulltime status viable for non-european teams.
Can't see all-ireland league for at least a few years as more likely to see expanded Setanta Cup when a success next season.
Why would it be 8 teams each when our population is over 2 even 3 times theirs? Wouldn't 10 and 6 be fairer?
good point Poor Student ! there is no way some of those northern clubs are as good as the clubs down south
In the spirit of equity we should go for 8+8, the poorer teams will be relegated at the end of the season anyway.
This league, while I'm all for it, won't neccesarily solve all the eL's problems overnight. If someone won't come out for Limerick v Kilkenny, why woud they come out for Limerick v Limivady, to gawp at some Northies? We'd need a proper, stream-lined management system, not the FAI/IFA beaurocrats. Also, we'd need a proper merger of the two organisations, none of this regionalised league bolox, running one All-Ireland league, then 14 different regionalised leagues is just pointless and would encourage the belief that these league are seperate from the big one and so not worth supporting. One cup competition and one national team, it's the only way to go. Northern Ireland have great players and if you add them to the Republic squad we'd have an almigty team.
And if we got a proper organisation of the best from the IFA and FAI, we could have a real, working league that could challenge the big boys.
Depends on your vision of equality. To me that is treating the two groups unequally as the North would be well over represented. Population of the island according to last two census 5.7m. 4m Republic, 1.7m North. North's population equals roughly 30% (actually slightly less), 30% of 16 = 5 (actually slightly less), so 6 is even more than they'd deserve population wise.Quote:
Originally Posted by ShelsTim
Big poulation doesn't mean good team, e.g. Limerick, Galway. There's no real way of deciding which teams are better except through a complicated play-off system as someone mentioned, so just have 8+8 and it'll sort itself out in a year or two.
You don't want to risk píssing off the Northerners and having them pull out of the deal. 8 each way works, if they're not good enough they'll get relegated.
I just think that the two FA's would run into to much trouble organising a league- as well as the whole National team problem- and that a cup would be easier to organize.Quote:
Originally Posted by dcfcsteve
8 from each association leaves 7 teams from the Republic.
hmmmmm . . . . .
And that's a good idea and far better than the 12 team play eachother 3 times rubbish we will have next year.Quote:
Originally Posted by sduffy
I think this idea is bollócks tbh. The FA's on both parts of the island are crap at organising things. The league could be a lot better than it is but isnt because no one really knows how to properly organise it. The Swiss are brilliant at this kind of stuff and would have the E.L ship shape in a season or two.
The odds of the FAI and IFA gettting one league up and running and not making a mess of it is pretty slim. Too many back stabbing and small mindedness. Even if they do stop all that, there is nothing to say they actaully get the number of teams right in the new top division and hold on to the European places.
Its European places that are going to really develop the clubs here and there is no point in loosing them. Developing the Sentanta Cup is really the best idea going. Increase the prize money for the winner and runner up and expand it in to Scotland/Wales if needs be for competition.
Now thats a constructive post if ever I seen one!! :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by sduffy
Are you sure yer not just ****ed because, the season 3 got relegated to make way for the 10 team league you missed out on staying up by a point?...oh the joy!! :D
The populations aren't equal (4 million and 1.7 million); but remember, the interest isn't equal either. There's a lot more interest in (Association) Football in the north than in the south, relatively speaking. The north is also more urbanised than the south with quite a few large towns. And in any case, as has been said before the crap teams will soon be relegated.
As it happens the Swiss league has only ten teams, for a population of over 7 million.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dancinpants
What ... you mean like ... sour grapes or something ?? :eek: :p
Okay I take it back about Derry, but he did say Shels and Cork.Quote:
Originally Posted by dcfcsteve
There's enough ways to justify the league without saying screw the little clubs, they only survive because of the big clubs. Especially when it's patently not true, in the eL anyway.Quote:
There are too many clubs vying for government money and too many surviving off the likes of Shelbourne, Cork, Linfield and Glentoran
The Swiss first division has 10 teams, that's not the same thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by crc
And one of those large towns is Derry of which Derry City count for the majority of the town. When you think about it, it woud be 9-7 in their favour if we considered Derry as one of the El teams going in.Quote:
Originally Posted by crc
It's a mere quirk of history that the Brandywell is 2 miles the wrong side of the border. Could easily have happened to Harps, Dundalk, Monaghan etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poor Student
So none of this 9-7 nonesense : we're Eircom League through-and-through. :)
WHo are these mythical people? I certainly haven't come across any yet :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by sduffy
It's no slight on you but when we're talking about things like population you're part of the 1.7m.Quote:
Originally Posted by dcfcsteve
I'm exiled in London, so unfortunately I'm not (unless it's Christmas time....) ! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Poor Student
I'm not picking a row, but I'd say a fair percentage of our fanbase, as with a lot of people born or formerly living in Derry in general, live across the border in Donegal. As Steve said, its only 2 miles.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poor Student
As people have said elsewhere, using population as a proxy isn't always a recipe for success, or else Galway, Limerick and Sligo would be more successful than they are now.
Unless of course you want to start from scratch and go down a franchise basis............ :D
I'm with you on this one - expansion of the Setanta is a better way forward. In a few years we could see something like:Quote:
Originally Posted by thejollyrodger
Seperate Premier divisions (N&S) with 22games (12 teams - home & away) Lower divisions something similar. Also keep the seperate cups (probably get rid of the league cup). This way each jurisdiction keeps their own European places.
Followed by a 10 team all ireland league (again home & away) - 5 best from each league.
Coupled with a league Cup set-up for the other teams - with 8-team reigonalised groups (Home & away), followed by top 2/3/4 going into the last 16/8.
Each team gets at least 15 home games per season
(The figures used to work out perfectly until NI expanded their leagues, ah well)
Beyond FAI/IFA incompetence (more a reason for a change in admin, rather than not changing stucture...), the main justification you appear to be giving for keeping the 2 leagues separate is the idea of loosing European places. This issue is a COMPLETE RED HERRING.
Each jurisdiction currently has 4 European slots - Champs League, UEFA x 2 and Inter-toto. That's a total of 8 Euro slots shared between the 2.
If there was a single league on this island - in straight-forward numerical terms those 8 slots would get reduced to 4, so yes - there would be less European slots available to the island of Ireland as a whole. But in reality it wouldn't change a single thing.
However - there aren't 8 European slots available to any one team in Ireland : just 1 of 4 slots, regardless of which league a team plays in. Under an all-island league, every team would still be playing for 1 of 4 European slots. Therefore, teams would NOT be worse off with regards to European entry - they'd be in the same boat they are now, with the same number of chances of European qualification. No-one would be worse off in terms of qualification opportunities, so we wouldn't in reality as clubs be losing anything.
Well there'd be more teams competing for the same amount of places so they'd have to be worse off wouldn't they?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Longfordian
That arguement could also be used against the change to a 12-team Eircom Premier Division. There's now 2 more teams trying to get our 4 Euro slots - so in that respect everyone in the Eicom League is worse off. It could also have been used against the 1985 expansion of the League of Ireland, the recent major expansion of the Irish League etc etc - they all increased competition for European slots, either immediately (bigger qualifying divisions) or in the longer term (a larger number of clubs in senior football working towards trophies/European qualification). So yes - there's more competition. But we've been increasing competition for Euro slots outside the realms of an All-island league anyway, and it hasn't been raised as an issue in those instances. Why is it therefore only an issue now ?
As an aside - fear of increased competition is nothing more than an excuse in favour of maintaining the mediocrity of football in Ireland. If our teams were that worried about not being the best in Ireland, then we shouldn't even be trying to progress in Europe.
European slots are therefore a complete non-issue....