Originally Posted by
EalingGreen
How to build a pyramid?
Even the Ancient Egyptians new 3,000 years ago that you start at the bottom and build up.
In ROI's case that means starting with Junior clubs and rationalising the setup by introducing local leagues with broadly comparable standards.
Then when you've got that sorted, you add a regionalised, Intermediate set-up at the next level up (mitigates the travel problem).
With each step upwards, you progressively increase the requirements to get the appropriate Licence - stadium, finances, facilities, qualified staff etc.
Eventually you get to the stage whereby the step-up to a 3rd tier, and from there to the FD, and then PD, is not so steep and unrealistic as to be completely prohibitive.
Of course such a process could never be achieved overnight, but that just means there is time to address the major issues such as Prize money, and of course, the seasonal imbalance.
All of which takes long term vision, commitment and resourcing from all the different stakeholders who control the game. Which means starting sooner rather than later.
Of course you may consider that this is unachievable (though I really do wonder how comparable countries like Iceland, Finland, Albania, Wales and NI have managed it).
Either way, the FAI's current proposal to start with a third tier (the subject of this thread, remember), must surely be doomed to failure - it's that building from the top down thing again.
On which point, if you agree that that cannot work, but also don't believe that my suggestion could be made to work, then instead of having a pop at me - again - then why not answer the questions I posed to you in my last post, namely:
"Do you have your own solution to all this?
Or maybe you don't feel the need for a solution, since you don't consider this to be a problem in the first place?"
