Looking foward to a 12 team AIL Premiership in 2021 with a top 6 bottom 6 split.
I'm surprised MacKenna thinks its a good idea. He hates everything.
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Looking foward to a 12 team AIL Premiership in 2021 with a top 6 bottom 6 split.
I'm surprised MacKenna thinks its a good idea. He hates everything.
and the middle two play a cup final for 7th place ? :bigsmile:Quote:
Originally Posted by Real ale Madrid
You also need to talk about competitiveness. How many of the NIFL teams would realistically challenge in the top half of a 12 team AIL after a few seasons? How many would wind up in the lower tier? A lot I'd say. Hardly makes it attractive to the north.
I maintain the only way an AIL happens is with political unification.
An All Ireland league is a long, long way off.That is part of its attraction as it can be sold as a panacea for all the ills of Irish football without really ever having to be tested. Qualification criteria and 'protected places' (guaranteed minimum number of clubs from each League) would need to be agreed both for start and a number of years. European places, Match days, refs, Junior/ intermediate Leagues would al be issues because the main problem would be that neither the IFA or the FAI would be willing to 'go away' and the two International teams.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeverFeltBetter
As the Setanta Cup (and the Tylers All Ireland Cup before that) showed an all Ireland league dimension is not the answer to all the problems, yes, it would be progress and yes it would be desirable but still a long way off. Too be honest I would nearly see political unity as easier to achieve !
Brexit done and dusted the AIL sponsored by Boris Johnson comes ever closer.
To be known commercially as the BJ League
I obviously didnt put enough sneer and in to this post on McKenna to show i had ironic intent!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Ezeikial
Hmmmm, maybe a possible replacement for Honest John Delaney ? Ridiculous sense of own importance, staggers from one administrative disaster to the next, fond of ahem, stretching the truth, likes a jar and most relevantly (to the FAI) couldn't organise a **** up in a brewery :cool: (even with FAI credit card)Quote:
Originally Posted by sbgawa
speaking about Daniel McDonnell he was involved with Oriel Web wasnt he? Was he involved with them for long before he made it as a journo.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ezeikial
I'm not 100% on the details but he effectively set up Orielweb. Until recently (or possibly still now) you could find his own written reports from the 98-9 relegation season til about 2002. He was one of 2 main men behind the short lived but ever-improving HospitalPass website. Around that time he stepped away from OW as he started at the Star (I think) before moving to the Indo. Over twenty years ago some of that! That's about 6,000 years in internet years!Quote:
Originally Posted by Martinho II
yeah came across his name in match reports SeanD in the Star before he moved to the Indo so yeah your dead right!Quote:
Originally Posted by seand
He saved me a whole heap of hassle asking my folks over a payphone from abroad to go to AERTEL P222 and read me out the results. Prior to that there was nothing online for Dundalk FC. He was about 15 or 16 in the early days travelling the long roads of Division 1 away days and writing up reports, chat forum came soon after iirc and is still often the contrary place today as it was in the days of relegation MkI. 'Fun' times.
Is DMcD gone off Dundalk altogether as anything I listen to him he seems very neutral when hes talking about Dundalk?Quote:
Originally Posted by Nesta99
I think he is just being professional.
Con Murphy is the same when commentating on rovers.
He is being pro about his job. Quietly he is a scarred by the past like the rest of us and is enjoying this era - with the same well voiced concerns also!Quote:
Originally Posted by Martinho II
….So, if the Government(or whomever) would just build an adequate stadium and develop a 'vision' (whatever the hell that is) Limerick, the third biggest city operating in LOI MIGHT be able to sustain a club. Wow, just wow.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr_Parker
I would be more interested to find out what the FAI are actually doing to promote an all Ireland League, or develop the league they currently have - other than say how its up to clubs, partners, Santa Claus to sort. Cliched platitudes of a 'ma's apple pie' view of what football could be is not going to move us forward.
I think the key message to take from the interview in regards to the LOI going forward is his experienced view is that the clubs need to run the league themselves. However, before they do that they need to put firm structures in place in each club. Much of what he said reminded me of what was done with the the formation of the NIFL when the league in the North move away from the IFA. He certainly gave the impression, that while an AIL might be an asperation, he does not think all the clubs have the structure to operate in and to succeed in such a structure as things stand.Quote:
Originally Posted by marinobohs
I wouldn't disagree with the need for some clubs to 'get their house in order', in fact I would commend it, some of the shenanigans of recent years have been appalling, my problem is the FAI are currently responsible for improving the situation and have done little to improve matters and, in all honesty, added to the farce.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr_Parker
Either the FAI (and its spokesman) should accept they are incapable of doing the job and step back or, put in place a realistic business model to develop the league. platitudes about 'visions', new stadia etc are embarrassing unless in some context where they might actually occur.
Clubs shouldn't be waiting on the FAI. Their have a wide portfolio of responsibilities and so will never provide the focus on the league that many want. That was very clear from Noel Mooney's interview. Clubs should not be waiting on others. They have the ability to take matters into their own hands.Quote:
Originally Posted by marinobohs
A tweet this morning from the Chairman of Cliftonville.
"@GerardLawlorCFC: Lots of media & PR around an All Ireland league, I find the current proposals lack substance and are unrealistic, some of our southern clubs joining @OfficialNIFL could be a way forward, we in the north have a very progressive league and we should be weary of tampering with it."
Not entirely sure how anything in the North can be called progressive tbh.
The league maybe punches above its weight in terms of population when you look at crowds (especially away support) and facilities. But the standard is poor, technique hardly seems a consideration in coaching at all, and losing an entire European place is not something progressive leagues do.
That said, I don't blame him at all suggesting the current AIL proposals are too vague for consideration
Team Total Attendance No. Attendances Recorded Average Attendance
Ards 10753 19 566
Ballymena United 27969 20 1398
Cliftonville 24677 20 1234
Coleraine 26946 18 1497
Crusaders 22299 16 1394
Dungannon Swifts 12255 19 645
Glenavon 23999 20 1200
Glentoran 28525 18 1585
Institute 7705 19 406
Linfield 45410 19 2390
Newry City 12601 20 630
Warrenpoint Town 5203 20 260
Found these figures for last season up north average attendances .
Our league performs much better but population has to be taken in to account somewhat
Facilities and attendances have been improving steadily in the Irish League and they have had massively fewer club meltdowns in recent times. I can see why they would look at the LOI and wonder what would be in it for them.
I think they have had fewer basket case clubs as they historicaly never chased the European dream so to speak. That may change with the increase in Euro money
I didnt know with this AIL that the FAI and IFA would still operate. How could this be? I know for 31 years until this states foundation in 1921 there was an AIL but under the NI jurisdiction so cant blame the IFA for doing this!
Historical they did. Several clubs got into serious problems. However the nettle was grasped many years ago and mechanisms were put in place to negate such problems arising again.Quote:
Originally Posted by ashbournebohs
Facilities on and off the pitch have steadily improved, with more planned changes in the pipeline, once we get a government back. Attendances have been rising year on year for many years now. We have at least 16 live tv games. A results show on Satuday. An online highlights show. Various podcasts as well as good newspaper exposure. NIFL clubs have every right to have a positive outlook and rightly be cautious of a project that at this time lacks clarity and has little substance.
Interview with the Chair of Cliftonville on his views of an AIL
https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/sport/...abels-17126488
You are right to say population should be taken into account. Based on the average LOI attendance as given in another thread on this forum, 0.22% of the population go to a LOI over a round of fixtures. NIFL attendances, based on the current average attendances are 0.4% of the population. Not sure it can be claimed that the LOI performs better on that basis.Quote:
Originally Posted by ashbournebohs
Yeah, basically the population of the North is roughly one-third what it is here, so attendances should be one-third as well.
That'd be one team pulling 7k average, and four more pulling in 4k+
Not happening obviously
Its a factor but not entirely relevant .For example how many then conversly should be attending football in China Russia etc etc .I know they are vastly more populated but to say attendances should be x % greater is true . Also the strength of the sport as an industry and a lot of other variablesQuote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
True, but the LoI and the IL are close enough in size that the comparison holds a bit of water.
So progressive that only last year Cliftonville's team found themselves in a position where they had to bow their heads to 'God Save the Queen' before a Cup Final, whilst their fans booed throughout it. Because the DUP forced the IFA to go back on a policy they had introduced to not play the anthem if a 'nationalist' team made the final.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr_Parker
Screams of progressiveness right there.
Some provincial clubs do well in NI for their population size e.g. Coleraine and Balymena. Not so much the rest. Crusaders have pretty poor support, considering their level of success over the last 5 years.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
And it's easy to bring decent numbers of away fans when most of the games they need to travel to are within roughly 30-40mins distance. Many Irish League fans list the short distances as a reason against an AIL, which in my view just smacks of minnowism.
Being realistic, they've had fewer meltdowns because no-one has been putting money into the Irish League.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr A
What has caused almost every club in the LOI to meltdown has been spending to excess to chase the dream - a vicious circle which means other clubs then feel they ned to up their spending too just to stand still. Creating a widespread contagion of financial risk (at Shels, Rovers, Cork, Derry, Drogheda, Sporting Fingal, Bohs). Also the fact that Linfield have an in-built financial advantage due to the deal they have with the IFA over Windsor Park - which means other smaller clubs probably just accept their place in the pecking order (in a way that the likes of Drogheda United and Sporting Fingal didn't in the LOI when they decided that they could live the dream too.
Now that the IL is finally starting to see some external investment at Larne and Glentoran, it'll be interesting to see how and where this all pans out. Money inevitably corrupts sport, and the IL is now starting to get some money put into it.
I think that's a bit of a disingenuous way to look at it though. 5 of the 6 counties in NI have an IL team. Only 12 counties out of 26 in the Republic have an LOI club. So to take a whole-territory approach is essentially to cook the figures against the LOI in terms of macro-population.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr_Parker
Also - what tiers do those figures include for both leagues? Just the top level in each, the top 2 in each, or the IL top tier vs LOI 2 top tiers? If the latter - then again it wouldn't be comparing apples with apples.
That just doesn't work though. No matter where you live in NI, you have a team in the Top 2 tiers of the Irish League to support within a relatively short distance of you - at the very least in your own county.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
The same just can't be said in the Republic, where more than half of all counties have no LOI presence.
And that's before we get into the greater competition from GAA down south, and also the fact that people take a much more parochial view of country boundaries as a result of it (which would impact the number of people from, say, Meath prepared to support an LOI club from Dublin - just as a random example).
Finally - NI's population (1.85m) is almost 40% of the ROI's population (4.85m).
The reason no one can throw money at a NIFL club on a punt is because of the controls in place that I mentioned earlier. That's why there have been no meltdowns since. Yes both Larne and Glentoran have had major financial injections, but those too are constrained by the controls in place and any danger of things going out of kilter will be spotted by the authorities long before they become a significant issue and then a club would be forced back on a straight path. NIFL clubs cannot chase a dream to a point of destruction.Quote:
Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
Stats can always be played with, but the population point was raised and I have provided an answer.Quote:
Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
OK - so LoI has 2½ times the population to draw on, not 3 times. Same basic point.Quote:
Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
True. But why don't Kilkenny, Monaghan, Kildare and Tipp, for example, have an LoI presence? They had one, but there was so little support for it that all the relevant clubs went bankrupt. Teams from Carlow, Kerry and Mayo dipped their toes into the A League, but went no further. So I think that stat reflects badly on the LoI rather than excuses it to be honest.Quote:
Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
Yes, the GAA is an issue - though they have it in the North as well - but if football is culturally more dominant in the North, well that's a plus for them, and part of the reason why they get proportionally better figures. You can't twist that to excuse the LoI's relatively poor crowds.
Bottom line for me is that the IL is a relatively well-supported league for its level, though it's not without its faults; the technical standard, like so much else in the North, is stuck several decades in the past. But there tends to be a bit of a view on here - not from everyone, but from some - that for the IL not to want to join an AIL indicates a lack of ambition, when it's "ambition" that's caused so many problems for the LoI in the first place. I think we in the LoI can look down on the IL to a bigger extent than we're entitled to do.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo....co/JfDxrYe9xS
Looking forward to hearing if there’s anything concrete on these proposals or if it’s all just hot air.
IF they have DAZN on board that would be brilliant, absolutely top notch streaming service.