Quote:
Originally Posted by Bungle
I think it would work better as a sort of expanded, and better run, form of the Setanta Cup. You qualify for it by doing well enough in your domestic competition
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bungle
I think it would work better as a sort of expanded, and better run, form of the Setanta Cup. You qualify for it by doing well enough in your domestic competition
Are people on drugs or what!!! Irish people wont get off their barstool to watch Motherwell V S Fingal, or will there be many travelling fans in these days of economic downturn coming from Scotland to see their team against Distillery or the like.
We have a decent league, anything else is just rubbish
Your pathetic muleings are just that, absolute uneducated drivel, talking out your ****ing arse about a club you obviously know nothing about.Quote:
Originally Posted by backtowalsall
Since you seem to have such a hard on for our Joey I can gaurantee you that he is on no more than a grand a week.
From what I heard before we signed him we had 650 euro a week free on the playing budget so im guessing that its either that or a bit less, he wasnt exactly in a position to command a big wage and we are not a club that pander to big wage players.
As for our facilities I suggest you look at pictures of the showgies 15 years ago to what it is now, its come on so so well, dead proud of our club.
As for youth players unfortunately we do not have a pool of players to pull from like the Dublin Clubs do with the LSL so hence why our club has ALWAYS depended heavily on foreign imports.
This is not a new phenominon, look at our league winning side from the 30's and our league winning side from the 70's.
Sure even in the 90's Athlone fans used to sing "SRFC Scottish Rejects" at us.
Always a large core of foreign lads with a sprinkling of local lads, very much the same as it is now.
As for our finances, as far as im aware our finances are sound.
Last year we were the only club to turn a 6 figure profit so I suggest you educate yourself before you embaress yourself any further with your inane ramblings about our great club.
Now kindly **** off to your barstool.
I think some clubs subsidize wages by offering perks like providing a car or a place to stay. Not saying this is the case with Ndo and Sligo (as I have no idea!) but I know some clubs do that to keep players sweet when they are on lower wages
Why in gods name would the likes of cardiff and swansea give up the opportunity of epl money to join such a rag tag competition?
Let's concentrate on the real problem and realistic solutions and not talk silly with such pie in the sky notions!
I know I'll get slated for saying this but the only way we'll ever get world class football on a regular basis in Ireland is if the LOI goes under and the English FA let some rich businessman put a "franchise" team in Dublin. I can see 50,000+ showing up once every ten days to Landsdowne Road to see a Dublin United type team play in the Premiership. Of course, it will never happen and we'll be stuck with the crap football forever.
every so often you pop up with this crap CR and then every so often i address it - you'd think id have learned by now - but, essentially, if you dont support it then youre not stuck with anything. Keep watching your premiership and enjoy it.
Over 36,00 people would disagreeQuote:
Originally Posted by Colbert Report
I think it's fair to say I have never seen so much rubbish posted in a single thread. Some people simply haven't a clue what they're talking about. Unreal nonsense.
You guarantee he isn't on more than a grand a week! How can you guarantee anything? You know no more about this than anyone else, other than what you were told by some fella behind the goal at the Showgrounds who took one of the board home in his taxi. Even if your right about the figure on paper, we all know what was going on at Derry. How can we be sure it isn't happening elsewhere?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rasputin
I am certainly not having a go at your club, or any other club. I am simply looking in at a dreadfully run league, where club after club spend money they don't have to get to the upper end of the league, only to end up relegated, and picked Sligo at random as an example.
This is a league where a team that have won the title on the pitch, ended up being relegated because of what has been going on off it, a 10 team division which has had 4 members (Derry, Cork, Drogheda and Shelbourne) have various financial difficulties in recent years, as well as all manner of other **** ups from player registration, to UEFA licences.
The problem all this creates is that people don't know what they are watching. If people wanted to see the league title being decided by a committee meeting a week after the end of the season, they would buy a season ticket to the meetings rather than the football matches.
If your happy enough winning the cup and getting ****ed tonight that fair enough, but the way in which you reacted to me questioning how it is all being paid for is exactly why clubs are willing to take reckless financial risks chasing the rainbow.
For what its worth, I watched the cup final on telly. Sligo played very well, and thoroughly deserved their win. It was really refreshing to see a big crowd at a local match in a modern stadium. More of that please.
Perhaps that's because it sums up the whole idea??Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Even certain contributions on the 'Eligibility' thread might seem on a higher plane....
;)
I've said this a million times, the money would be so much better spent on improving the existing structure of the league. A "Dublin United" side would not contribute to the national team, the grass-roots game, or anything else apart from the bank accounts of overpaid prima donnas. I can't believe that anyone would suggest that the collapse of the national league would be a good thing. If you want to see "world class football", with diving cheats and hyperinflated egos, buy a Sky subscription and stop wishing ill on our league. Unless you have a spare billion or two to help set up this "Dublin United"Quote:
Originally Posted by Colbert Report
If there was an independent competition a la the 4 associations tournament for clubs replacing the setanta of course, then I can say yeah... however not as a replacement for the leagues. Thats just idiotic.
Though as Stu has rightly pointed out this thread is full of guano.
You'd swear you actually knew what you're talking about. You've already admitted you know next to nothing about the league, yet you're willing to tar Sligo with the same brush as all of the failed overspending clubs from years past.Quote:
Originally Posted by backtowalsall
Your sole piece of evidence appears to be Joseph Ndo, a 34-year-old player past his prime who long ago decided he was willing to play at a lower level because it suited his lifestyle. You seem to believe he is earning mega wages despite the fact the two big clubs in the country have passed on him and he's joined a smaller club (in monetary terms) and helped them win two trophies.
I don't want to start anything on here and I'll openly admit that I'm very ignorant when it comes to the LOI but I will say that it seems to me that the league doesn't contribute a whole lot to either the national team or the grassroots organisation of the sport in this country.
Before you all pop in going on about Kevin Doyle and Seamus Coleman, ask yourself, do you really think they wouldn't have gotten on with a League 2 club over in England and gone on to progress from there?
It won't cost one to two billion to get the sport going for realsies in Ireland. It would only take twenty to thirty million over the course of a two or three year timespan to get a club into the group stages of the Champions League and build from there. Honestly though, is the sport popular enough in this country to support that? I know people will show up to watch Bohemians play Manchester United one week but will they be willing to show up to see Bohemians vs. Sligo Rovers the next? I just don't see it. I guess we'll just have to keep plodding along with things the way they are. For those of you who like it, good on you for supporting your local team, I only wish I had one to support here in Canada. I'm stuck watching the EPL on weekend mornings.
From the independent:Quote:
Originally Posted by bennocelt
The FAI deserves credit too for reducing prices for today's Cup final and have reaped the reward with sales in excess of 30,000, a throwback to the days when football was an affordable lifeline for people who had time on their hands but little money.
No team? Doubt that. If not, why not get off your a ss and start one?Quote:
Originally Posted by Colbert Report
Nobody's denying it could be better, but I'm sure you'll agree 20 to 30 clubs distributed throughout the country, linked strongly with the local community and amateur football structure have far more potential to produce players, and provide football to the general population than one super club in Dublin, 4 hours travel from footballing hotbeds like Cork and Derry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Colbert Report
It's a lot to ask of a young lad at 15 or 16 to up sticks, and put all his eggs in the professional football basket in a different country. Those two probably would have made it, but hundreds would be left with no qualifications, and no job prospects. Far better to allow them to stay with their families and friends, continuing their education while playing youth football with Sligo, Longford or Dundalk.Quote:
Before you all pop in going on about Kevin Doyle and Seamus Coleman, ask yourself, do you really think they wouldn't have gotten on with a League 2 club over in England and gone on to progress from there?
Maybe you're different, but most Irish football "fans" see teams like Panathinaikos and CFR Cluj as failures, despite regular Champions' League football. It's not enough just to qualify, the team would have to hold their own with the likes of Man United and Chelsea to wrestle the support away from them. That's going to take a squad of 20 ~€20 millon players, plus their wages and signing-on fees.Quote:
It won't cost one to two billion to get the sport going for realsies in Ireland. It would only take twenty to thirty million over the course of a two or three year timespan to get a club into the group stages of the Champions League and build from there. Honestly though, is the sport popular enough in this country to support that? I know people will show up to watch Bohemians play Manchester United one week but will they be willing to show up to see Bohemians vs. Sligo Rovers the next? I just don't see it. I guess we'll just have to keep plodding along with things the way they are. For those of you who like it, good on you for supporting your local team, I only wish I had one to support here in Canada. I'm stuck watching the EPL on weekend mornings.
If we want to bring attendances at Irish football up, it makes no sense to deliberately try and bring it into direct competition with the richest league in the world. Any campaign should focus on local pride and community connections. If you make the only choice on the grounds of quality, Manchester United are going to win every time. Bring community into it, and you're more likely to get the punters in the gates of Turner's Cross, the Brandywell and Tallaght Stadium.
In fairness the thread has shifted significantly from Stutts' original proposal of a re-vamped Europa League. There is a lot of nonsense flying around but maybe best to focus on whatever glimmer's of debate we can, in the interest of good-natured argument.Quote:
Originally Posted by BonnieShels
Personally major domestic league re-vamps, with the potential exception of an All Ireland league, are a no-no since they fundamentally ignore the real issues with domestic soccer. But are there any outlandish, potential innovative, restructuring ideas which could work in the league's favour? Stutts' was fairly pie-in-the-sky, and probably unworkable, but it was still an interesting one given the current Europa League is fairly guff at the moment.
I like Stutts' idea in essence as it would revamp what is a fairly gash tournament however I think there is some merit in figuring out what it is we want from Irish soccer first before we seriously consider anything like what has been said so far in this thread and even concerning ourselves with worrying about the Europa League or the state of Scottish football.There are serious fundamental issues with the game here which we all know and these really need to be addressed and fast the Fingal (open to correction here but it ain't looking good as yet, that may change but we don't know so the uncertainty is unacceptable in my eyes) and Bohs situations showcase what can go wrong when.
There is some time between now and January/Feb when the licences are announced to really discuss what we want.
Should we try to emulate the British systems of soccer or should we be more radical with an elite league and lots of feeder/provincial leagues? These are already in place and need to be worked on so that all parts of the league exist to help out all other parts of the league. I want a vibrant, stable and well supported and exciting league. European football should come next in the priorities.
I have no idea where you are in Canada so I can't point you to a particular place to check out local soccer where you are but if you were to take a minute to peruse canadasoccer.com I'm sure you may find what you are looking for.Quote:
Originally Posted by Colbert Report
Currently there are 3 large professional teams in Canada Toronto FC (MLS), Vancouver Whitecaps (MLS from 2011) and Montreal Impact (USSF D2 Pro, MLS from 2012). They all compete (independently in the Canadian Championship for the Voyageurs Cup, the winner of which gains Canada's place in the Concacaf Champions League.
I'm sure either of these teams could suffice unless now you're in Alberta and you have some deep seated "dur taking uurr oil" problems with Ontario, BC and Quebec.
Below this elite level there exists a National Championship where lower level teams compete on a provincial and then national basis. There must be one local team you can pick and support as your own and considering the level of the league maybe get involved with on some other level.
Supporting the EPL from Canada is not an excuse.
Yes, I live in Alberta, but no, I don't have any inferiority complex about Quebec, unlike most of the people here. I play for the best team in Alberta, we have won the national amateur championships here in Canada several times. The level of football here is terrible - even here, at the "top" level, we only train three times a week and even that's only during the very short summer season. Right now, most of the guys are knocking back hot dogs and drinking beer. The nearest "pro" team, if you can call it that, the Vancouver Whitecaps, are 1300km from where I live and their matches are on far too late in the evenings for me to watch them on television. Of course, their matches are not usually televised anyway. The MLS is the only "local" pro league in Canada or the United States but seeing as how I'm 4000km from places like New York and 2000km from Los Angeles, how can you blame me for supporting a league that is half the world away but a much much higher quality product?Quote:
Originally Posted by BonnieShels
And play against who? Myself? I live in a city of over one million people. The only city near me is 300km away. The next nearest city is 1300km away. Do you not have any grasp of North American geography? Pitiful. "Soccer", as they call it here, has proven itself time and time again not to be a viable commercial product in Canada and the United States. The MLS semi-finals were on this past weekend and I tried to watch them. Before you start knocking me for watching the EPL, I'd like to see you stick out four hours of that rubbish.Quote:
Originally Posted by bennocelt
You've never, as far as I am aware ever mentioned any of that before. That changes the complexion of the argument. Watching any football is allowed but to be a flag waver for the EPL on a consistent basis especially on this site is bizarre and rather insulting to a lot of us who do indeed get off our asses and go to LOI games.Quote:
Originally Posted by Colbert Report
Also the detemining factor of "quality" is incredibly subjective.
Toronto and Seattle actually made a profit in 2009. When you say EPL though are you talking Top4? I'm sure a lot of what was on in the MLS this weekend easily beat Man****ty v ManYoo last Wednesday night. Only Sky and Barstoolers think that the EPL is the best league in the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Colbert Report
Toronto only made a profit because of the sweet deal they have on their stadium. Let's see if Seattle make a profit after their third or fourth year in the league.Quote:
Originally Posted by BonnieShels
Yes, the Man Utd/Man City match was terrible last Wednesday, I did watch it when I got home from work. However, I had a great time watching Sunderland beat Chelsea yesterday and was severly depressed when my once mighty Liverpool team were soundly beaten on Saturday.
Good on you for getting off your behind and getting out to watch the LOI, there's nothing wrong with that and I certainly did not mean to insult anyone on here with what I posted. In fairness, I did readily admit in my first post to being highly ignorant of the LOI and its apparent merits.
Quality is not as subjective a thing as you imply - I can definitely tell the difference between the MLS and the EPL. When I'm watching MLS, it's like they are playing with a different ball or something the way it just bounces wildly off player's feet. I was watching Beckham last night and even though I hate the guy and everything he stands or I had to admit that it really was men against boys, even though his team lost 3-0. Every time he got the ball he was picking out strikers who were in five to ten yards of space up the pitch. It must be very frustrating for him to play in such a Mickey Mouse league.
From everything I've read, and I could be wrong, the MLS is light years ahead of the LOI in terms of quality, organisation, and generating revenue. The LOI has a LONG way to go to re-capture the imagination of the Irish public. I grew up in Kildare and we were all massive football fans - I was born in 1983 so you can imagine the atmosphere regarding football at school when I was a child.
I can never, not even once, remember ANYONE mentioning ANYTHING about the LOI when I was a child. It was all Manchester United this and Aston Villa that. That's going to take decades to get over. Right now the LOI is simply not up to scratch and I fear that things are moving in the wrong direction.
Quality is subjective when you equate that with how much enjoyment you get out of something. I'll never say that the EPL is not of a general better quality that LOI but the enjoyment I get out of going to Tolka no matter how miserable the performance is exponentially more enjoyable than anything I ever experienced as a younger Man U fan.Quote:
Originally Posted by Colbert Report
Though nothing equates with watching Ireland.
Instead of watching Sunderland/Chelsea yesterday you could have gone onto rte.ie and checked out some of the quality football that Sligo played. Exceptional in a lot of cases and superior to the MSL.
The money and the lifestyle helps I'm sure.Quote:
I was watching Beckham last night and even though I hate the guy and everything he stands or I had to admit that it really was men against boys, even though his team lost 3-0. Every time he got the ball he was picking out strikers who were in five to ten yards of space up the pitch. It must be very frustrating for him to play in such a Mickey Mouse league.
Until you watch both you can't really comment on a direct quality aspect of it.Quote:
From everything I've read, and I could be wrong, the MLS is light years ahead of the LOI in terms of quality, organisation, and generating revenue. The LOI has a LONG way to go to re-capture the imagination of the Irish public.
The LOI has got a long way to go to capture the imagination alright. Let's hope yesterday was the start of it going on the right direction.
Ask Keith Fahey. It's not easy going to live in another country, particularly when it involves slogging it out for little money in a basement league. The few years Fahey spent at home allowed him to play in Europe, catching the eye of a few clubs along the way, and growing enough to be able to give it another shot abroad.Quote:
Originally Posted by Colbert Report
Why did you have to quote a newspaper to say that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Colbert Report
The same Keith Fahey that's only played two complete matches for Birmingham all season and only scored one goal? The same Keith Fahey that looked miles off the pace in the Slovakia match? I dont know why you are all so keen on him. Kevin Doyle is world class and hands down Ireland's best player in my opinion, and Seamus Coleman certainly looks like the next big star, but Fahey is just plain terrible everytime I've seen him play.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
Just stating fact, if I hadn't you would all be calling for a link and accusing me of hating the LOI and making up lies. I think it's great that thirty odd thousand people showed up for the FAI cup final yesterday, that's very surprising and restores my faith that maybe, just maybe, the sport might have a future in my country at the professional level. Just out of interest, anyone know how much the tickets actually were? Are we talking thirty or forty euro or are we talking five euro? If we're talking the former then that's a very, very big thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
The same Keith Fahey who demonstrates my point about the Airtricity League preparing players to step up to a higher level. His performances this season are irrelevant to the basic fact that he is currently contracted at a high level.Quote:
Originally Posted by Colbert Report
What? I was at the game. It's not a secret that it cost a tenner in. Premium seats were 30 and there seemed to be a few of them taken up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Colbert Report
A tenner for adults, fiver for children.Quote:
Originally Posted by Colbert Report
And on the standard of the LOI, I've watched my English team, Stoke ( :D ) play in the top three divisions of English football. The standard in the LOI is similar to the lower end of the Championship, top end of League 1. In England, teams at this level, from fairly modest towns, like Ipswich, Plymouth, Southampton and Norwich, can still attract 15-20,000 attendances.
The LOI doesn't have one standard though. Salthill are as much a part of the LOI as Rovers or Bohs are, and where on the English league ladder would they be competitive?Quote:
Originally Posted by peadar1987
I think that crowds of 15-20,000 are nothing more than pipe dreams for the LOI, and for any of the other leagues dreamed up (AIL, clubs in SPL etc) except if a Dublin club was to play in the EPL, which is something that I pray, to all the gods I don't believe in, will never ever happen.
MLS is growing steadily in the US and with Montreal and Vancouver coming in soon is taking a good foothold in the major markets in Canada. Is it profitable? No not yet. New stadiums being built in a number of cities over the last couple of years shows that it is growing. Also, more money and proper coaching is being put into MLS youth academies A good sign is that the first MLS youth academy player is likely to get his first cap with the US on Wednesday(Juan Agudelo).Quote:
Originally Posted by Colbert Report
Of course the play is not at EPL/LaLiga/Serie A/Bundesliga standard. Not many leagues 16 years old are. As I used to tell my barstool friends when I used to go up to Terryland on a cold winters day to watch Galway United, "it might be shyte but it's our shyte".
Quote:
Originally Posted by osarusan
Sorry, that should have read "top end of the LOI". I was too busy checking the population of Ipswich to notice that!
I think one-off crowds of 10-15,000 for the bigger games, like a Shams-Bohs match, aren't completely out of the question at some point. And the average attendance can certainly be significantly higher. A club like Cork, for example, would be attracting over 10,000 on a semi-regular basis if they were in Scotland.
I think that is wildly overoptimistic to be honest,; to be of that standard they would have to be paying championship wages.Quote:
Originally Posted by peadar1987
Even the better clubs would likely struggle in League 2 and the rest more likely a couple of divisions below that. How many LOI players can you seriously see getting in the Ipswich team even with Roy as manager?
Never mind LOI players, I could play in the current Ipswich team.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrock
I'd say presently, 6 LOI clubs could compete well at mid-championship level, if they had those championship facilities and the finances for a full time set up.
Well you could play with yourself that might be a good idea:pQuote:
Originally Posted by Colbert Report
Set up a team, Dublin has about the same population as what u mentioned - no excuses
The LOI is decent enough
I love football so 4 hours of local football would be fine for me, why not - do you not love the game!!!!! or is it better to watch a game from your TV - which even my granny could do - wow what a great fan
For the last ime, I am not having a go at Sligo. I am having a go at the culture that exists throughout the league.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
I merely cited Ndo as an example (there are others), and the reason I speculate he is on big money is that he is the best player in the league (according to the TV analyst yesterday anyway) that he is an international, and that he has been to 2 world cups. Whatever about him, the point remains that neither him nor any other hasbeen international will have any resale value, and will take a place in a side that could have been taken by a local lad who might be the next Coleman/Fahey/Doyle. On top of that the difference in wages, and any sell on fee, could be put towards better facilites for the punters, the benefits of which are clearly outlined in the article about Chesterfield I posted.
It seems there are a few serious chips on shoulders over in north Connacht.