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Well...............
1. My first idea is to stop this 4 match round robbin nonsense. Copy the SPL. Teams play each other too much. I think we should be looking at a League where teams play each other twice.
How can we ensure that in the future when asked kids will say they support Bohemians, Finn Harps, Shamrock Rovers, Pat's rather than Liverpool, Celtic or Manchester United.
20 team league? The quality isn't good enough I'm afraid.Quote:
Originally Posted by irishultra
Well I think an All Ireland League would be the best thing to happen to football in this country if I'm honest. We could finally have a proper pyramid system in place.
Thats just my opinion. I know many don't want it.
This topic has been discussed time and time again. Besides, the new league format hasn't even had a full season yet!
Linkage to some threads?
I have a dream...
one where Sligo Rovers win the league every year
This topic (10,14,16,20,all-ireland,21.5 league formats) has been done in at least 5 threads totalling hundreds of pages... look back yourself!
I have a dream, moreso than a vision, or supporting Limerick AGAINST Manchester United in years to come. A pipe-dream and nothing more, perhaps, but why support a team if you don't at least dream for greater things?
When it comes down to it, we have less than 10% of the population of England. With the North we'd have just about 10%. Anything more than 10 teams seems silly (to me) and, as it happens, more teams negatively effects our UEFA co-efficient (the amount of teams in your league influences the leagues standing).
My dream is of an All Ireland league. 10 or 12 teams, with 12 to 16 in the First Division.
My dream includes, at the very least, teams from Dublin, Derry, Galway, Limerick, Cork, Waterford... the larger population centers. I have nothing against the teams I didn't mentioned but I think from a media point of view the cities need to be hit (and luckily for us teams for each of these areas exist).
My dream would be that a strong support would develop around all LOI teams. This includes the First Division and (as of now non-existant) Second Division teams. They quality would not be there, but the support would be. Ideally the GAA-like parochial pride would pay some part in gaining support for the local minnows.
In the end, however, the buck stops with the clubs. When I walk the streets of Limerick now I see not one sign that Limerick FC or the LOI exists. This must be rectified.
At the very least, a giant billboard with a picture of a Limerick FC player (John Tierney, for arguments sake) with, in huge writing, 'Witness John and the boys taking on...' with a date and time. Or a picture of Paul Cummins, with, 'Be there to welcome Paul Cummins back, as the Super Blues take on...'
Lifestyle Sports' 'Every team needs a 12th man' advertisements would feature club captain of the LOCAL LOI TEAM, not a picture of Steve Gerrard or whoever. That kind of stuff.
The clubs need to identify with their locale. People need to know the boys personally, while at the same time, they need to basically be celebrities. Everyone in Cork knows the regular Cork starting 11. The street of Cork would be flooded with Cork FC Jerseys, not Premier League ones.
With Terryland Park as the template, EACH LOI side needs one up to that standard. It's basically flawless for the standard we need. Everyone from the Second Division to the Premier needs one that can be called as good as Terryland. There are better stadiums, but there's nothing whatsoever wanting in it.
Finally I see the LOI/AIL being rated among the top 12 in Europe. That would be the highest achievment.
I do agree with a lot that you have to say about advertising the league. We should be looking towards our own football heroes rather than across the Irish Sea but I dont agree that an All Ireland League is the way forward. How can you expect clubs that cant manage their finances now to be able to manage more money coming into their coffers and thats if there is more money to come in.Quote:
Originally Posted by ped_ped
Also just a question I'd like to ask about the AIL idea. How can the FAI/IFA stop it if the top clubs want it? May point being that the FA couldnt stop the Premiership in 91/92 so how is this any different?
I know people will say that they will withdraw European spots but both associations would be unlikely to put up below standard clubs to compete in Europe. Why didnt they call their bluff?
Or here is a mad idea why not hire P1 to advertise the league as it is?
Four score and seven years ago, a great Cork man, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Treaty. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Southern Irish football clubs who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But eighty seven years later, the Southern Irish football club still is not free. Eighty seven years later, the life of the Southern Irish football club is still sadly crippled by the manacles of English football adulation and the chains of Sky Sports. Eighty seven years later, the Southern Irish football club lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. Eighty seven years later, the Southern Irish football club is still languished in the corners of sporting society and finds itself an exile in its own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's media to cash a check. When the architects of the FA and UEFA wrote the magnificent words of the rules of the game of football and the promise of the European Cup, they were signing a promissory note to which every football club was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, Irish men as well as English and Continental types, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of the Champions League group stages." It is obvious today that the FAI and UEFA have defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her clubs of periphary are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, the FAI and UEFA have given the Southern Irish football clubs a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this sport. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind Ireland of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of big money TV football. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of eccentricity to the sunlit path of sporting justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of footballing indolence to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of Platini's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Southern Irish football clubs' legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of progress and group stages. St. Pats 3-3 (agg) Krylia Sovetov: Pats go through on away goals, is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Southern Irish football club needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if Euopean competition returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in Merrion Square until the Southern Irish football club is granted its money earning potential. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our organisation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Southern Irish Footballing community must not lead us to a distrust of all footballingpeople, for many of our footballing brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their success is inextricably bound to our success.
We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of the League of Ireland, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Southern Irish football club is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of barstoolers. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities, without sneers about "following a real club". We cannot be satisfied as long as the Southern Irish Football club's basic mobility is from the preliminary stages to the first round proper. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "Barclay's Premiership live here." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Southern Irish football club in Waterford cannot get two thousand on the gate and a Southern Irish football club in Dublin believes they have nothing they need to improve upon. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "Classy continental outfits roll over like waters, and the second tier English clubs visiting for friendlies are p!ssed all over like a mighty stream."¹
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from Jackman Park. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for European glory left you battered by the storms of Albanians and staggered by the winds of cheating b@st@rds. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to the Flansiro, go back to Terryland, go back to Lisseywollen, go back to the former O2 Park, go back to Kingspan Century Park, go back to the Brandywell of our northern city, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the European dream.
I have a dream that one day this League will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all fooball clubs are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Cork, the followers of former Cork clubs and the followers of Cork hurling will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the County of Kilkenny, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of football and success.
I have a dream that my own beloved Blues will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by being on Sky Sports but by the content of their trophy cabinet.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Drumcondra, with its vicious English football fans, with its godfather having his lips dripping with the words of "Man U" and "de Dubs" -- one day right there in Drumcondra scangers and Howyas will be able to join hands with trainee teachers and perenniel Fine Gael voters cheering for an Irish club.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the group stages shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the First Division with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to the Carlisle together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be watching a team play Milan one day.
And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
You're not very good, you're not very good
You're not very, you're not very
You're not very good.
And if the FAI is to be a great improvement, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of Station Road.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of Santry Stadium.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Bowl of Belfield.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Finn Park of Ballybofey.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slappers of Talifornia.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from the Youths of Wexford.
Let freedom ring from Oriel of Dundalk.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Cobh.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every Rovers and every United, from every County and every City, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, FAI and IFA, green and blue, Protestants, Catholics and Dissenter, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old football spiritual:
You don't know what you're doing! You don't know what you're doing!
With only very slight amendation
[QUOTE=irishultra;1220707]Well...............
1. My first idea is to stop this 4 match round robbin nonsense. Copy the SPL. Teams play each other too much. I think we should be looking at a League where teams play each other twice.
QUOTE]
So instead of playing each other 4 times we should look at the SPL... where the top teams play each other 4 times and the rest 3 times. That'll fix it.
Is there a requisite IQ for using the Search facility?Quote:
Originally Posted by irishultra
5, I think.
I remember when Galway were in the first division people were banging on about how galway needs to be in the premier etc but tbh its such a load of tripe.Quote:
Originally Posted by ped_ped
Dont get me wrong, I love the galway away trip, it beats visiting the pale every other week but I honestly fail to see how Galway offer more to the league than the likes of Dundalk.
Yes its a far bigger population centre but its attendances that count and all the information we have to this date would suggest that the likes of Dundalk have superior attendances.
Is it that time of the week already for one of these threads to start?
Back to winter football would be part of my vision.People said it was too cold to go to games when we had winter footie but it was freakin freezing a few weeks ago in Terryland so its all the same.
I think we should reduce the teams to 7 a side and we'd see more goals. Maybe have some hot women refs.
call Sepp Blatter on 1800-foxy-soccerQuote:
Originally Posted by Longfordian
It's cold all the time in Galway :pQuote:
Originally Posted by eamo1
I'm very much against returning to winter football. People don't realise it, but getting over four thousand for a match with Rovers just wouldn't happen in mid-December, even if it was a "Boxing Day" (St Stephen's Day, etc...) special it wouldn't.
You only have to look at the IFA Premiership and see that we would only go back to the amateur-like league, and getting thrashed in European competition.
For me it's a definite no-no.
Why would the top four clubs from a 10 team league do better in Europe than the top four clubs from a 16 team league?Quote:
Originally Posted by ped_ped
In Ireland it wouldn't matter who the other six are, it would still be the same four getting into Europe and I don't see how playing Mervue United and Wexford Youths would make the likes of Bohs any stronger than they already are.Quote:
Originally Posted by holidaysong
Really? I think the LoI fares quite well in shifting the European qualifiers around. Even this year, Rovers look set to qualify for the first time since 2004 (?), while Cork aren't in for the first time in a few years. This decade, you've had clubs like UCD, Bray, Dundalk and Longford qualify. I think we do reasonably well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Umberside
I'd like to see games played on Saturday afternoons at 3.00
I personally just feel the gap has widened despite a reduction in the number of teams. I can't see anyone realistically challenging the top four this year and don't see where the challenger is going to come from in the years ahead.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Well the chances are Bohs, Cork and Derry will all be a fair bit weaker next year so I reckon other teams will have a chance at Europe next year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Umberside
If Cork finally take some action over their silly wage structure or even better sell then we should be competing again next season. Bohs could go the Shelbourne way or the Drogheda way, and it's too early to comment on Derry though I'd have to say it doesn't look too bad for them.Quote:
Originally Posted by GalwayRed
I'd imagine though it'll be the same top four again next season should the FAI take no action on any of us.
If Cork take action then that will surely led to having a weaker squad though. If Derry are sensible then theyll be operating on a smaller budget which will inevitably lead to a weaker squad. Same situation for Bohs. If this happens then other clubs should have a chance of getting europe. Theyre all big ifs though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Umberside
You'd have said the same thing when Shels were qualifying every year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Umberside
It's much worse now, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
What's much worse?
Seriously, the league is going to look a lot different in two years' time.
I'd expect most players wil acept wage cuts as there isn't much alternaitve employment out there so squads shouldn't be too much weaker, I thought Cork were barred from europe for 3 years for going into examinership last season.Quote:
Originally Posted by GalwayRed
No, we'd be in Europe this year only for those fellas at Sligo, who got a draw at the Cross in a game that would sent us into Europe if we had won. We drew, and lost the following week to Bohs.Quote:
Originally Posted by dublinred
Forgot about Sligo being in Europe for the first time in over 10 years too. There's definitely no top-four clique. Sure look where Pat's and Bohs were in 2006 to show how the league changes.
It has to be started from young fans with a view to the future. We have to accept that we are not going to get in EPL hardened older soccer fans. its just not going to happen. Publisize the league with the kids and make stars out of the players just as the English commercial machine has done here. That way we have a ten year plan or so!
A lot of that has been done at City and we would have (a complete estimate) about 70% of our matchday attendance made up of people under 30.Quote:
Originally Posted by pixiehead
Top work Bluebeard! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Bluebeard
But bloody hell lad, you have a worrying amount of time on your hands lately! :p
Last time I mooted this idea I was offered police protection, but I dont think that this country can support any commercially or competitively successful football structure on its own because of the size of its population and the fact that there are too few conurbations with sufficiently large catchment areas. The successful paradigm already exists in the shape of Rugby's Celtic League. The SPL has its own problems, the Irish League is in a worse state than the EL and the best that Cardiff and Swansea can hope for in England is yo-yo status between the top two (or occasionally three) divisions. Of course there are huge challenges, and the delicate issue of mergers and new club structures would need to be grasped, but unless we think outside the box club football in the Celtic nations can only go in one direction. There is a huge potential support for "serious" club football in Ireland, but if you want kids in this country to transfer their allegiance fom the likes of Man Utd, Celtic and Liverpool, you have got to offer them an attractive, quality alternative taking part in a competition that has some status, and playing in stadia that are only one step up from school playing fields. As I have said before, football is the last economic sector where it is is necessary for Irish people to emigrate in order to succeed. We are producing and exporting more players to Uk clubs than ever before and at present all too few of them realise their potential at either club or international level. If Irish clubs generated enough revenue to attract and keep more of our best players in Ireland, it would inevitably assist our international team as well, but this really does require very radical thinking. Transnational league and cup structures will inevitably happen, its a question of whether we want to be a part of it or remain one of Europe's most impoverished footballing backwaters.
Or alternatively, we could try to keep a consistant league format for six months before there are eight new suggestions of a new format.Quote:
Originally Posted by third policeman
1. Flights and transport in general would be awkward.
2. The SPL is infinitely more popular than the LOI. From the point of view of attendances it would be suicide for the SPL.
3. Assuming Celtic and Rangers remained within this system, as opposed to leaving for the EPL at the first chance, what's going to stop the Irish public supporting Celtic - who will be probably challenging for honours every year?
I feel that this system would benefit barstooler Celtic fans, who only have to travel to Dalymount, Tallaght, Richmond Park, The Oriel... to see 'Ireland's Team' in action.
4. What about UEFA? Do Celtic or Rangers always get the Champions League spot? Is this not throwing away Bohs and Ryls European spots?