No Club got a licence

From http://www.irishfootballonline.com/n...hp?newsid=2461


Licensing - The next phase

The fall-out from the club licensing debacle is set to run and run, but as things stand clubs must have their appeals lodged by next Wednesday (February 2nd).
It appears now though that clubs could be allowed to take part in the eircom League if they do not have a licence. That however remains to be seen and there could be a string of challenges if for example an unlicensed premier division club takes their place while a compliant first division side sits in the lower division.
The threats over government funding made by interim CEO John Delaney have been less than helpful and the fact that every single league club has failed must point to some basic flaws in the actual process itself.
Having clubs fail on technical points such as presenting copies of documents instead of originals, as has been claimed, could have been overcome with something as simple as a provisional licence. The club is awarded their licence providing they lodge the original documentation within a week, instead of failing them and forcing them through an appeal process.

The blanket statement of "Clubs fail to gain Licenses" has again cast a shadow on the eircom League and the mainstream media and general public will no doubt be thinking back to the registration debacle of the 2001/02 season.

Although the four clubs qualified for European competition must achieve a higher licence again, they do have until May to reach that level. The three clubs involved in All-Ireland cup action should have no problems in financing their work in that regard.

taken from www.bohemians.ie

The FAI has today announced that NO club in the eircom League has been granted an UEFA Licence.

Hopefully this year, the FAI, on the back of their recent windfall Umbro sponsorship deal, might provide some real prize money, and grants, to enable cash-strapped clubs to make the structural changes needed to obtain the relevant licences.

It might also spur the Irish government to provide, even a fraction of the, funding given to other sports in this state.

best statement ive seen on this tpoic

I've argued it consistently on this site since the "licensing debate" began.

Licensing is a sham.

Longfordonian also had a telling comment - clubs are telling people they've only this and that wrong etc etc - but who knows? Its a confidential process.

I believe theres a lot of smokescreens here - things like tax clearance certs - legal issues - back payment of wages etc etc are not "administrative oversights"

- sure they might clear these things up on appeal - now that they have a gun to their heads but I believe a lot of the clubs that fialed have substantive issues to sort out


the grants situation is ludicrous - we've had a 1 million grant frozen for 5 years now

ludicrous

my biggest fear as an ordinary punter is that licensing will be used as the mechanism to withold equitable distribution of necessary funding - as usual some clubs will be favoured and the league will go further back into the dark ages

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Originally Posted by patsh

All I said was that it would be easy enough to believe that a photocopy will do.

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In fairness, the manual would have laid out quite clearly exactly what was required. If the club can't read it, that's their fault. No point making excuses about it. To say that it would be easy enough to believe that something else was required is all too typical of the lax way clubs in the league have been run in fairness.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

In fairness, the manual would have laid out quite clearly exactly what was required. If the club can't read it, that's their fault. No point making excuses about it. To say that it would be easy enough to believe that something else was required is all too typical of the lax way clubs in the league have been run in fairness.

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HAve you read the manual?
I've looked through most of it, and "copy" is mentioned time and again. They rfer to official copies, but it's not hard to make a "minor mistake" as Breen on the Licencing committee called them.
My whole point is that if clubs were turned down for a licence on such grounds, wouldn't it be better for the image of the league as a whole if those clubs had been contacted and given a few days to recitify these minor mistakes, instead of the whole debacle of the other day, and all the negative publicity it attracted?

What the UEFA Club Licensing needs is to achieve is the right equilibrium between, European, Premier and First Division licences. That all 22-clubs have failed suggests to me only one thing: that the bar has been set too high. The system itself is inherently flawed.

If the overall ambition of the scheme is to raise standards all through the league the fact that every club has failed means that it has failed in this goal. The best run club and the worst, are both in the exact same position as regards licences.

The criteria for setting the licences should have been set at a level that, with a reasonable amount of hard work and effort, a club could hope to achieve. From this basis, each year the process could be enhanced to ensure that no club regresses and that to keep a licence improvements would need to be continually made each year.

If 14 or so clubs achieved a premier licence, which is not an unreasonable proposition, the pressure would be on to maintain that licence as off-pitch matters could see a team relegated to be replaced by a better run first division outfit. Similarly with the European licences, no team would be willing to sacrifice the windfall a run in Europe, with by engaging in 'financial irregularities' or such, knowing that there is another European licensed club easily able to slot into their place.

Unless you believe that the vast majority made no effort to comply with the criteria then, as I have stated, the blame lies with the process itself.

We must also look at the role of the FAI as, according to Bob Breen, the FAI licensing manager, "We have got situations where clubs have actually complied with the financial criteria and done the real difficult things and then they have failed to supply a document either in its original format or a document that hasn't been signed off which is a purely administrative thing and they are items that can be put right overnight." If this is the case, it seems that the FAI has brought yet another PR disaster down on itself and the eircom League, a situation seemingly avoided by a simple communication with the clubs to supply a few missing documents.

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Originally Posted by patsh

I've looked through most of it, and "copy" is mentioned time and again. They rfer to official copies, but it's not hard to make a "minor mistake" as Breen on the Licencing committee called them.

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Course it's a (relatively) minor mistake. We got done for one, so did Galway, so did Sligo. Clubs shouldn't be making them, though. They should be competent enough to read the rules and work out what's required. However, I do agree - and posted it earlier - that in light of the fact that so many of the clubs quite evidently came very very near getting the licence that a preliminary, and non-public, announcement should have been considered first. The outstanding items will take a week to clear at most, and then you can announce who's gotten a licence and who's being run badly. Now it's going to sound like another fudge when most of the league get their licences next week.

Someone posted earlier that the legal guy left it very late with his report...maybe it was intended to go to clubs first and that was the reason they didn't?

However, it shouldn't detract from the good that has already come out of licencing. Clubs are being forced to look at their finances and you would hope that the likes of the massive problems at Harps, Drogheda and Galway of recent years are going to become a thing of the past. Clubs have to produce accounts - never done before, I think? Clubs have to keep an eye on development and continuous improvement, all of which will force them, in the long run, to keep their houses much more in order than before. Which can only eb good for the league.

Just learned that the reason they did not pick up the 'phone and inform clubs of these minor mistakes is because it costs €500 to re-apply. 500 * 22 clubs = €11k = a nice hotel and business class return flight for a couple of blazers. We, the ordinary fans, are paying for this.

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Originally Posted by monutdfc

Just learned that the reason they did not pick up the 'phone and inform clubs of these minor mistakes is because it costs €500 to re-apply. 500 * 22 clubs = €11k = a nice hotel and business class return flight for a couple of blazers. We, the ordinary fans, are paying for this.

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AFAIK, the money will be refunded if the appeal is successful

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Originally Posted by tiktok

AFAIK, the money will be refunded if the appeal is successful

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As monutdfc said "€500 by 22 clubs = €11K = a nice hotel......"

only joking (hopefully)