Are you from Cork though? otherwise you have to have abilityQuote:
Originally Posted by SwanVsDalton
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Are you from Cork though? otherwise you have to have abilityQuote:
Originally Posted by SwanVsDalton
Several current Ipswich players beg to differ.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrock
Thats not exactly presently then is it given the max capacity of an LOI club is about 7000Quote:
Originally Posted by geysir
Presently, qualified by a conditional, as denoted by the use of "if".
Roy says all his players including reserves should be in the Ireland squad so they I figure they must be class actsQuote:
Originally Posted by SwanVsDalton
So presently as in hypothetically , in a unlikely set of circumstances in the distant future sense, rather than in the traditional 'at this point in time' defintion of the word?
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Originally Posted by backtowalsall
I just don't understand why, when there's an example of a Dublin club that has overspent on wages this year, you've chosen as your example a Sligo club that is demonstrably living within its means. If you're trying to make a general point using a specific example, you need to chose your example carefully.
And I'm neither a Sligo fan nor from anywhere close to north Connacht.
At present there are number of LOI clubs, given a similar set of circumstances to a championship club, re full time training, re training facilities, re playing pitch, would be able to compete at mid championship level.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrock
You might not agree but is it such a difficult opinion to comprehend?
this thread is effin hilarious,
so many non loi fans with the quick fix solution, ( i can see the boards of the clubs reading this and saying "its been staring us in the effin face, why don;t we pump loads of cash we don't have and chase an unattainable dream")
do folks not think that this model of champions league footy has been the near death of shels, cork, drogs now bohs and derry to a lesser extent. While clubs like rovers and dundalk over the last 3-4 yrs are only really recovering from years of mismanagement.
There is no quick fix solution to this. LOI has been vastly ignored for roughly about 20 years that it could possibly take 20yrs to recover. I think we need to get real and people and try to progress the league slowly in all clubs. First things first we need to stop giving people ammunition in which to shoot us down with and we need to look at the clubs where it does work. The UCD's, Sligo's, St. Pats and see what they have done right so all the clubs can see about implementing it.
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Originally Posted by backtowalsall
Well, Sligo don't just exist to develop players to sell on, or blood young players for the national side. They also exist as a football club in their own right, and as such will do what they need to, hopefully within the rules, to win trophies. On yesterday afternoon's evidence, they're not doing too badly!
I just picked an example at random. It could as easily have been any club as its a league wide phenomenon. I went for Sligo as they are a small town club with a few players on the books who have obviously come from other parts of the world to play there. The likes of Ndo and Boco certainly aren't in Sligo for the love of the club, but the same could be said of any of the former English/Scottish league players plying their trade up and down the country (ok, I'm sure there's one who met a nice Irish girl, moved here, signed for the local side and fell in love with the place, but I'm speaking in generalities here)Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
They won, and they won well. But surely that is a luxury when your fans are in an 80 year old stadium with the wind howling through it. Not because of the fans who are there at every home game, who will give it 100%, but because of the thousands of people who went to Dublin on Sunday who will never show their face at the Showgrounds, or any other League of Ireland ground (except the shiny modern Tallaght Stadium). Its really easy to slag them off for following cross channel clubs, but they are the very people local football has to attract through the turnstiles.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peader1987
Sunday demonstrated the potential for big crowds to watch football in this country, if it is done right. I'm not saying 30,000 people will show up every week, or even any more often than once a year, but if somewhere between half and a third of that crowd were at most grounds most weeks, every club in the league would be able to put far superior players on the pitch, and you end up in a virtuous circle. Even a quarter of the people at Lansdowne on Sunday would fill the biggest League of Ireland stadiums to bursting points
Which is why I'm saying that until we are in that situation, the priority should be on raising revenue to put decent facilities in place. One of the best ways for football clubs to raise money is developing young players and selling the best of them on, but that means giving them a chance in the first team at the right time, and not signing someone else who will do a better job in the short term.
Surely it would have been better to pick an example based on evidence? I find this concept of making an argument without any facts to be bizarre.Quote:
Originally Posted by backtowalsall
I know. They're in Sligo because the club feels it can make a profit above what it pays them. You have to pay players, so why not pay for the best you can afford?Quote:
The likes of Ndo and Boco certainly aren't in Sligo for the love of the club, but the same could be said of any of the former English/Scottish league players plying their trade up and down the country
So basically if an LoI team was a Championship team, it'd be as good as a Championship team? Come on...Quote:
Originally Posted by geysir
If the top LoI teams were good enough to be in the Championship, why are the players happy here on a tenth of what they could be earning? Only logical answer - they're not good enough to play in the Championship. Corollary - the LoI is nowhere near Championship level.
Aye, have no axe to grind.
The LoI is on about a par with the Conference premier (Div.5) in England or bottom-half Div.1/top-half Div.2 in Scotland.
With a few players, say 5-6, who are capable of playing in the Eng.Championship/SPL bottom-half at their current levels. Though obviously could go on to greater things?
Would be good to see a stronger domestic league but we have a limited playing base, not least down to the alternatives of GAA (& Rugby!), so unless you change those major cultural forces, domestic soccer will always be a very poor third.
Thus am happy for our best youngsters to be developed, if necessary, by bigger clubs in foreign leagues. Though it's not obligatory!
Complete and utter rubbish. Out of interest, how many Scottish Division two games do you watch, and how do you think Crawley Town would fair against Juventus? Or Fleetwood Town against Dynamo Kiev or Hertha Berlin?Quote:
Originally Posted by ArdeeBhoy
As for soccer "always being a distant third"....that's only been for the last 10 years of success in rugby, yet you think this will continue forever now?
I said a number of teams could compete at mid-championship level, not that the LOI is near championship level. But given a level playing field, a number of clubs could compete at mid championship level. The bottom half of the championship is a pretty basic standard, no great shakes.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I wrote this in response to someone saying that a few LOI clubs could compete amongst the lower championship teams.
And I spoke of the top LoI teams in my reply, not of the LoI in general. I think it's something people like to believe yet is way off the mark, particularly with (to refer in to Jicked's post as well) the full-time era almost gone.
And the level playing field thing is irrelevant - it's like saying the city of Cork could support a Div 1 team. It probably could, but what does that show? It's irrelevant to the question of how the LoI compares.
And you also wrote "the LoI is nowhere near Championship level"Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
The level playing field is relevant to my opinion, when somebody says a number of LOI club could compete at lower championship level. I don't think they could - even that basic standard is much higher than those LOI clubs could survive amongst. A couple of the reasons why it is higher, is that championship players benefit from full time and better facilities.Quote:
And the level playing field thing is irrelevant - it's like saying the city of Cork could support a Div 1 team. It probably could, but what does that show? It's irrelevant to the question of how the LoI compares.
Well then you're not anywhere near comparing like with like.
I was not trying to compare like with like. I am stating that there is not a like for like comparison, between the current standard of a few LOI clubs and the lower half of the championship.
More than you. ;) Those conference teams wouldn't do much worse than the EL teams in 'one-off' games.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jicked
And rugby has been bigger than domestic soccer for the last 20 years or so. So what? Notice you swerved the GAA point....
Yes but their facilities are a lot worse because Championship sides are basically much bigger and better clubs, with a lot more fans, much better players they can afford to pay much higher wages, sponsorship, tv interest etc........its the whole package you have to look at. You could say any clubs in any third world league in the world would be a lot better if they had these advantages, but they don't because the standard of the league and the level of support for it doesnt allow for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by geysir
In any case you could give any of the current LOI squads all those facilities and training and they are still not going to have the quality to match championship teams or those players would alrady be playing in the championship were they good enough.
Roy says a lot of things. Maybe if he got these 'class acts' playing somewhat better than guff I'd take what he says more seriously.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrock
hogwash
I hate to say it but Bohs and Shamrock Rovers with their current squads could easily compete at an english champioship level.
with the exception of the bottom 3 the remainder of the loi could imo compete at an SPL level or at a league 1 level
having seen a lot of games in the bristol area over the past 18 mths the standard of loi is not that much lower than league 1. The lack of crowds, facilities any long term vision from the loi clubs is the only major difference
English league clubs play 46 games a year plus cups. I don't think Rovers or Bohs could manage that without bigger squads.
they would not need that much more bigger squads. about 4 or 5 extra.
Also both teams had sizeable squads.
I am going on an observation from watching Bristol Rovers and City (very average sides) and their opponents.
BTW those rovers are the only rovers I like
How exactly could a club like Bohs charging say €15 and getting maybe an attendence of a couple of thousand compete against a club like Bristol City who get a gate around 15,000 and charge twice the amount? Plus tv income sposnsorship etcQuote:
Originally Posted by jinxy lilywhite
The standard of football is subjective but the sums don't add up. If the players were good enough to play at that standard why not go where the money is? Do you think there is any other motivation for them to be playing in the LOI other than that they are not good enough for league football in England?
For those arguing that mathematics to prove that the Championship is in a different stratosphere of class to the LoI (some posters still even calling it the "eircom League" shows how many games they must watch)....do you think the Championship is in the five or six best leagues in Europe? Attendance wise, and financially, it must be pretty close right? The same people would probably argue that Celtic
And ArdeeBhoy, I'd love for you to explain how strong the AIL was in 1990?
EDIT: A very quick google shows that in 2009 the Championship attracted more fans than Serie A over the course of the season.
Well they play plenty more games in the championship thats why - average attendance combined with admission price is the best guide really, for instance the Bundesliga is easily the most watched league because the admission charge is relatively low.I expect the championship is one of the top dozen leagues (EPL , La Liga, SerieA, France, Russia, Holland, Belgium, Ukraine, Portugal, Turkey, Greece probably better) What is for sure though is that a league with an average attendence of a thousand or two, charging around €10 a ticket is not going to have the resources to put out quality teams unless they have a very generous Sugardaddy owner and who would bother splashing their millions on a cruddy LOI club?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jicked
I think The Championship is the 4th most watched league in the world. The LOI has no chance of competing commercially and it's a relatively proven fact in football that quality is very closely correlated to wages. It's an open labour market but a closed product market - i.e., there is one big pool of labour in the EU and little in the way of intervention (salary caps etc.), but several discreet leagues for them to go to work in. By and large, the best labour will go to where it gets best rewarded. There'll obviously be exceptions but it's a fairly reliable rule of thumb.
I don't see how it's possible to accurately compare the two leagues (or any two leagues) in terms of where the top LOI teams would fall in the English tiers. It's just speculation on who would beat who if the two teams ever met regularly and competitively.
Also, I don't see what real relevance it has to ideas to reform the LOI in some way.
Garrett Kelleher?Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrock
Any chance of some sort of translation??Quote:
Originally Posted by Jicked
PS.LOfI/EL, whatever! And we're comparing different sports now.
If it was the LofI in its heyday, we'd hardly be having this debate, FFS....