Shaman
You're missing the entire point.
If I can give a GAA analogy, you don't see fans here worshipping the Australian Rules Football League cause it's professional and because they always beat us at the Compromise Rules do you?
You don't see Clare people supporting Kilkenny cause they win the Liam Mc Carthy Cup more often do you? Or supporting Kerry instead of Clare because they win more Munster titles and All -Ireland? No you don't and that is the way things should be. A lot of foreign soccer supporters here are bandwaggoners and Gloryhunters. The fact that you support Barcelona rather than the English Premier League is the lesser of two evils. So some credit to you for taste !
People who feel as you do, about the League, are now in the media controlling the level of coverage. The Irish Times is full of stuff sent in by wire from The Guardian. If I want to read the Guardian I'll buy the bloody thing. For one thing it's cheaper than the friggin' Irish Times.
The domestic League gets pi** poor coverage in it's own printed press. Incidentally we are the only League in Europe where this is the case. You don't see the English media full of Spanish football where English football is squeezed into a few column inches whenever the paper concerned can be arsed to cover it. We are under siege in this League from the cross channel product and as I said earlier the printed media has done the League no favours.
I have been to countries in Central and Eastern Europe where the domestic League games are poorly attended and in terms of population size the attendances are around 50% of the level here in some cases. I have attended League games in Romania
Their papers are full of the local league games , which is how it should be. I feel like asking the sports editors of the newspaper of this country which country they think they are living in.
Ex British PM Tony Blair supported Newcastle United .... Not AC Milan !
Our Prime Minister ( An Taoiseach) follows Manchester United ! Forgive me if I consider that pathetic but I do.