Drogheda not able to pay their players

[Mr A]

How many Drogheda players have contracts for next year?

[bishbash]

its disgraceful for a country of so many football fans that the entire league is on the brink of extinction. i am a big celtic follower but i'm a fairly regular visitor to loi games. based in clonmel its usually either cork or waterford basically whoever is at home.take a club like waterford for example in a county with a very strong junior league and just a general big soccer following in my opinion should be gettin 10-15000 each home game, Cork 20000 easy, limerick 10000 and so on. I mean this could be a really great product. people give out about the standard but its catch 22 better support means better finances means better standards all round. By all means support your big english teams and the likes of celtic but throw €15-€20 the way of your local club every other week and a bit of vocal support. thats how we progress all round thats how a loi club will break into the uefa cup group stages thats how the irish senior team will progress further. I mean with a bit of support we really could have an outstanding product on a par but perhaps even better than the spl in scotland I mean why not? its up to the public out there!!

[skipper_12]

Once again another club that has bought the title through paying UNREALISTIC wages to their players falls on its own sword!! This has to stop or the future is dark, very dark. I would hazard a guess on the wages in Drogheda and in order to make them go bust considering they had league/setanta cup/european money the wages must be HUGE! And before anyone comes on saying ah no its because of this and that dont waste your energy. Clubs are paying CRAZY money to players. Previously I was shocked at Michael Keanes wages and was told about this "Cap" that all clubs must adhere too. If this is the case HOW can something like this happen? The league and clubs need to wise up and fast.

[Flexy]

its disgraceful for a country of so many football fans that the entire league is on the brink of extinction. i am a big celtic follower but i'm a fairly regular visitor to loi games. based in clonmel its usually either cork or waterford basically whoever is at home.take a club like waterford for example in a county with a very strong junior league and just a general big soccer following in my opinion should be gettin 10-15000 each home game, Cork 20000 easy, limerick 10000 and so on. I mean this could be a really great product. people give out about the standard but its catch 22 better support means better finances means better standards all round. By all means support your big english teams and the likes of celtic but throw €15-€20 the way of your local club every other week and a bit of vocal support. thats how we progress all round thats how a loi club will break into the uefa cup group stages thats how the irish senior team will progress further. I mean with a bit of support we really could have an outstanding product on a par but perhaps even better than the spl in scotland I mean why not? its up to the public out there!!

Wish it was that easy, id rather throw £20 every fortnite to Derry than £32 to Liverpool etc. The amount of bar stoolers in Ireland beggars belief. 90% of Liverpool fans in Ireland wouldnt even know the name of Liverpools training ground or their 2nd choice goalie, thats how pathetic they are

[BohsPartisan]

Wish it was that easy, id rather throw £20 every fortnite to Derry than £32 to Liverpool etc. The amount of bar stoolers in Ireland beggars belief. 90% of Liverpool fans in Ireland wouldnt even know the name of Liverpools training ground or their 2nd choice goalie, thats how pathetic they are

To be honest, €15 to €20 is way too much for whats on offer. Clubs have to be realistic. We're trying to attract people not deter them. €5 to €10 pricing with proper marketing and realistic playing budgets would be much better...certainly better than the extinction of the league.

[Red&White Rover]

The real question is...

Can Sligo Rovers make Europe at this rate?

[bishbash]

as i said support the english teams all you want i'm not gonna dictate to people who to support but what i will say is that if your a football fan support football. i mean a dvd in extra vision is €6 so even a €10 for a loi is not that steep. and as i said there must be 10000 good football fans in the county of waterford! dont even travel to the away games just come out every other week for the home games! but to be honest to me it looks like the league is f@#ked!

[LeixlipRed]

The hilarious thing about all this is that Shels are on a relatively firm financial setting right now. Bohs to go kaboom next

[BohsPartisan]

The hilarious thing about all this is that Shels are on a relatively firm financial setting right now. Bohs to go kaboom next

Yeah but you're playing at a community sports complex next year.

[Bald Student]

Will Higgins be the new Pineapple Stu?

[michaelguineys]

Hate to see this happening to yet another League of Ireland club

[dcfcsteve]

A couple of observations on the unravelling of Eircom League club's finances :

1) There is nothing inherently wrong with the concept of full-time football.
- Paying players wages that you can afford is still full-time football.
- Paying players wages you can't afford - or that are 100% ncontingent upon the fortunes of other people (e.g. property developers) or other schemes (e.g. land re-zoning, court cases) - over which you have limited or zero control, is what is wrong.
- There is no reason why we can't have full-time clubs paying wages that they CAN afford (except, that is, for my next point).

2) It all began with Ollie Byrne (RIP) and thr property boom
- The reason why a series of clubs have been paying wages they couldn't afford for the last 4-5 years can be traced back to Shelbourne earlier this decade.
- They were the first club to 'raise the bar' of Irish football - in other words to throw money at players, secure the best ones, and buy the league.
- In the process, they did indeed lift the level of football in Ireland, by luring back players from England etc. But it was a house of carsd, and led to their (and Ollie's) demise.
- The last time this money was thrown at players to buy success in Ireland was in the late 1980's at Derry City : the difference being that City could afford to pay way more than anyone else at that time.
- For the 10-15 years following, Irish football didn't go silly on wages (and suffered in Europe etc as a result...).
- That changed when the property boom led Ollie Byrne to twig that his club were sitting on a pile of property cash; which then led him to forward-spend large chunks of it to buy success by paying wages beyong the reach of other clubs.
- Where Shels led, other clubs followed. The genie was out of the bottle - the wages version of an 'arms race' had infected Irish football, and given the limited revenues within the game, it was always going to end in teras for most if not all clubs.

3) There's a reason why Drogheda were consistently unsuccessful for 42 years.
- That reason is because they are a club in a relatively small town that has no strong footballing tradition/culture.
- Hence :whilst pretty much every club in the league from a larger urban area and/or a town with a soccer tradition experienced success in the years since Drogs joined in 1963 (Athlone, Waterford, Sligo, Galway, Dundalk, Limerick, Cork, Derry) success eluded them fior 42 years. In a fairly fluid league like ours, there is usually a reason when silverware eludes you for a whopping 42 years.

Just a few observations. I await the outrageous slings and arrows from Drogs and Shels fans.....

[ciaraa]

3) There's a reason why Drogheda were consistently unsuccessful for 42 years.
- That reason is because they are a club in a relatively small town that has no strong footballing tradition/culture.
- Hence :whilst pretty much every club in the league from a larger urban area and/or a town with a soccer tradition experienced success in the years since Drogs joined in 1963 (Athlone, Waterford, Sligo, Galway, Dundalk, Limerick, Cork, Derry) success eluded them fior 42 years. In a fairly fluid league like ours, there is usually a reason when silverware eludes you for a whopping 42 years.

Just a few observations. I await the outrageous slings and arrows from Drogs and Shels fans.....

you might want to do a bit of research there - drogs won the league cup in 1983 and then won the first of our 1st division titles in 1989

[Student Mullet]

The league cup doesn't count.

[don ramo]

To be honest, €15 to €20 is way too much for whats on offer. Clubs have to be realistic. We're trying to attract people not deter them. €5 to €10 pricing with proper marketing and realistic playing budgets would be much better...certainly better than the extinction of the league.

dont think so here, the average industraial wage is about 30000+ a year which means 1 hours work, would pay the cost of entry into grounds at E15, perfect as far as i can see, and anyway why does a club have to buy fans in such a footballing mad country, weather the GAA wanna admit or not football is the highest particapant sport in the whole country, so i say WTF, whats wrong with people, i know people who have lost there jobs 3-4 months ago, and still travel to see man u and the pool play, how do you fight this mindset,

[ciaraa]

The league cup doesn't count.

how come?

[SkStu]

how come?

it doesnt - its like the half time raffle at a game in
dalyer. Fun and a small wedge of cash for the winner but purely filler for the main show...

on a more serious note, best of luck to Drogs in the future (despite all the garbage this week towards Bohs). Anyone who thinks this is good in any wa for the league is a small minded moron.

[ciaraa]

it doesnt - its like the half time raffle at a game in
dalyer. Fun and a small wedge of cash for the winner but purely filler for the main show...

well if the main show is having to sit through a bohs game then I'll take the half time raffle any day of the week.

[stann]

take a club like waterford for example in a county with a very strong junior league and just a general big soccer following in my opinion should be gettin 10-15000 each home game

and anyway why does a club have to buy fans in such a footballing mad country, weather the GAA wanna admit or not football is the highest particapant sport in the whole country

This is something I personally can't get my head around.
Whatever about the barstoolers and event junkies that are pretty much a lost cause, the number of footballers in the country is a large multiple of the eL fanbase. WHY?
Just giving it a quick think, out of all the friends, aquaintances and past team mates who play football at 5- and 7-a-side, NightOwls and Junior League level, no more than about 5% of them now go, or have ever gone, to Blues matches.
And most of them are, without any sense of irony, totally disparaging of a level of football that, however poor in terms of TV fare, is still way higher than any they'll ever play at.
That's what you're up against. To hear a mediocre 4b player say "I wouldn't go in to watch that sh*t" is one of life's hidden joys.

[SeanDrog]

Half expecting this all season, the lack of success on the field by Doolin and his sides meant serious cash shortfalls for the budget. The plan (agree or disagree) revolved around the stadium and once this was halted by outside forces the plan came crumbling down. The irectors always said that they would cover costs until the stadium was built - so no one can claim shock at the news.

You won't find any kicking and screaming from me on this point. We overspent, depending on a dream of a stadium and we failed.

IMO we should now fold rather than revert and regress, we tried it all and we ultimately failed but at least we have some great memories. Couldnt face partime football back in the doldrums and potentially playing sides who are tenants of a college rugby side - I can go to leinster senior league and watch Boyne Rovers or Drogheda Town if that is the level of our expectations.

For me it is better to have tried and fail than to have never tried at all - (obviously my take on a well know phrase)- some will understand this and others (and we know who they are) will find this a crazy statement.

C'est la vie mon amie.

Good news for the league overall though

Can't bring myself to add any comment to this stomach churning statement.