New clubs have to come from somewhere. At most 4 clubs could be invited to Division One but they could invite only 2 bringing the number to 8 and a 28 game season.Quote:
Originally Posted by L.T.F.C.
The advantage of any alignment of the LoI and Intermediate/Junior league seasons is that they could work towards building some sort of pyramid structure, starting between the district and Intermediate leagues first before they look at a link from intermediate to the LoI somehow.
Most of the games lost would be midweek so wouldn't be that big a hit. The major issue for me with a 16-team premier division is that the extra teams won't be very good.
16 team league - I don't mind - never too keen on the 10 team set-up anyway.
But, please no not Winter football again - I don't miss the freezing cold, & I don't want to go back to all our teams being tossed out of Europe in the first preliminary rounds because they aren't match fit in July :mad:
Very harsh! Division One has been good this season and looking at the Division One table, I think Derry, Monaghan, Waterford, Shel's, Limerick and Cork would all be great additions to the current Premier Division.Quote:
Originally Posted by Schumi
Examples of leagues already run on a 16 club basis:
http://www.soccerbot.com/greece/tables/greece2011.htm
http://www.soccerbot.com/portugal/tables/port2011.htm
http://www.soccerbot.com/serbia/tables/serbia2011.htm
As previously posted, has summer football been the sole reason for good results in Europe? Perhaps it was full-time football. This year, our performances were down in Europe. Northern Irish clubs did ok in Europe this year. Linfield drew 0-0 with Rosenborg in Windsor Park, and Portadown and Cliftonville did decent. These are largely part-time players, and were out of season at the time.
Dont see the point of going back to winter football. The winters have been getting worse over the last couple of years and I can just see it leading to a lot of matches being postponed.
The league is a mess alright but thats not down to what time of year matches are being played.
A joke that decision was made without any consultation with us, the leagues customers.
This decision seems to be based on superstition and nostalgia rather than reality.
Mario
With a 30 game season they can fit in a winter break there somewhere, especially around the beginning of January. In terms of the league improving, a return to winter football is not something I think is needed but if the majority want it, especially they clubs, they should do it.
Had to check the date there.Was thinking it was April 1st for a second!
Return to winter football....................are they mad?
Straw poll, have your say by clicking like to one of these pages on facebook, everyone feel free to spread the word on facebook for whichever option you favour
Stick With summer Football : http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ai...11974025532885
Go back to winter Football : http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ai...12178285511808
personally speaking from experience I much prefer winter football .Theres something romantic about watching a game in the fog,ice ,snow. theres a better vocal atmosphere at them too! I really miss the old xmas loi matches they were always the best craic!!
Exactly, jesus imagine Bray on a winters night, or a January gale force wind up through the middle of Shams pitch................urgh feel cold just thinking about itQuote:
Originally Posted by CuanaD
And our Euro results would be affected. We have jumped something like 10 places in the co efficients table since summer soccer - or am I wrong?
Winter football (;)
http://cache.virtualtourist.com/4676...el-Ireland.jpg
report got it all wrong and was the cause of a lot of the league going backways. They didnt consult anyone outside Dublin id say. All them home games in Ollie Byrnes (god rest him) dublin and 1 or 2 culchie clubs league to save the travelling and more derbies and bigger gates for dub clubs only. It had to fail. Id much prefer a 16 team premier and give different regions a chance every ten years or so to put a league championship team together. aka limerick and waterford in the seventies, derry in the nineties, Galway in the mid eighties and of course Cork.
Stuck down in the 1st destroys any hope of the provincial clubs getting a fair crack of the whip. The league in the summer is hard to organise with fixtures a disaster because of world cups, euro cups etc. Games shoud be every second friday night and this is important in a recession as we need to get the punters in early at the weekend as they havent a red cent come monday or tuesday evenings
I personaly have enjoyed the switch to summer season, but the simple fact remains, I think Dodge mentioned it, too many people have too many other things on during the summer. Ireland is a very active place during the summer, there are festivals on every weekend, family/work/neighbours bbq`s/summer holidays, you name it. Attendances are down there is no doubt about that, with particular declines in our case for June, July & August. This summer our first euro home game in 19 years was almost dwarfed by the frenzy around the county with Louth making the Leinster Final. We couldnt even sell it out, close, but not quite the 3,000 we hoped for.
I have a season ticket and thought I only missed the odd few games, almost every game I go to, I find I`m searching for the right match token to pass over to get in. Loads of friends and family say the same thing.
I think the 16 team PD is the way forward, home and away twice, make it simple and also challenging, no more cosy games around Dublin, instead a proper away game v Limerick, Finn Harps & Cobh perhaps.
A solution if they were to change to Winter could be to have next season from mid Feb 2011 to end July 2011, then start the winter season from mid Sept 2011 to mid May 2012.
I`m not saying we should defintely change, but we should look at all the options, maybe a 16 team PD during the summer could be one ?
It seems to be the decision was made on euros and cents rather than internet postsQuote:
Originally Posted by Mario
There hasnt been any consultation done with fans on this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dodge
What other industry would make a big strategic decision without doing some market research first?
The reaction here seems to suggests more fans than not dont want to go back to winter football. Will be interesting to see the poll findings.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mario
From what I've read on this on various forums today it seems the huge majority of fans favour a return to winter football. Seems to be just Shamrock Rovers fans against it mostly
I'm all for the return to Winter football.
Having 30 league games versus 33 is not really that much of a concern to me.
16 team prem is fantastic, but, if we're not in it it'll be crap and should have been made an 18 team league. This crack of playing each other 3 or 4 times minimum per season is just terrible.
Summer football = Good
Winter football = very good
7 months of no football? At present that's bloody fantastic. We can do our annual, "this season we are going to be class" talking for a full 7 months without being found out.
I'm against it. Have you ever seen our stadium?!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Hibs4Ever
You are right to mention the Genesis report. Some points it made were worth exploring, others weren't. Summer football was already in place before the report was published.Quote:
Originally Posted by geezer
The Genesis Report preferred option had the following features:
• A single National League of 10 teams
• Two Regional leagues below the National League with 10 teams in each
Regional League
• There would be promotion and relegation between the top league and the
Regional leagues via an end-of-season play-off system
• Both the National and Regional leagues would be played in the Summer
• There would be a promotion and relegation mechanism between the
Regional leagues and the Amateur leagues
• Minimum criteria would be set for participation in the National League
• The National League will be made up of full-time and part-time professional
clubs
• The Regional leagues will be made up of part-time professionals, amateur
and representative sides
• All amateur/schoolboy leagues and clubs will be associated with/attached
to a National or Regional league club/team.
• Dual registration of players will facilitate the success of U21, U18 and
amateur and representative sides.
For more on that Genesis report:
http://foot.ie/inc/pdf/genesis.pdf
For the FAI's LoI Implementation Committee's Proposals on the strategic direction of the National League 2007 - 2012:
http://www.irishtimes.com/sports/soc...-proposals.pdf