Eircom League - Prime Time Special

[BohDiddley]

But that's just it, what proposals. It's been debated to death but all they put forward was a wish list and some wishful thinking. There was nothing of substance.

There was nothing of substance other than a dispassionate recording of the fact that Irish football (it seems RTE are forced to call it soccer) is dying on its feet. Dream up all the conspiracy theories you want about who that story suits, but it is the stark reality.

Some people just don't believe it until they see it on TV. Some people will simply stay in denial.

As for AIL, John Delaney, Fran Gavin and the other naysayers either know something we don't or are very brave men to have scuppered the only proposal on the table. They had better have something good planned for the league.

[blackholesun]

Jokeshop ... platinums proposals were full of crap, some of their "projections" were pure crazy, thinking that averages gates were going to jump 50% back in winter football just because they were going to market the league their way.

The league has been unsubstainably driven by egos, greed & selfishness for the last ten years plus. The sooner the rug is finally pulled from the last clubs clinging to this mindset i.e. Pats, Bohs and Drogs the better it will be for the league and we can get on with a league run within its means.

bhs

[blackholesun]

>They had better have something good planned for the league.

Yes they do, its the salary cap protocol, the CPOs, MNS etc ...

I think the fundamentals of the league are slowly being put right by the FAI while every deluded club and fan blaims the FAI for their predicement.

bhs

[Saint_Charlie]

Answer to Q2: 8-10 professional clubs self sustaining with regular qualification to the Champions League and Uefa Cup group stages. Media including Sky Sports and Setanta Sports, and a huge media coverage every day of the year just as British footie gets today. Fact!

I'm not sure if this is irony or not but if your being honest how can you think that? It will be the exact same as now only with Northern Irish teams in it.

[finnpark]

>They had better have something good planned for the league.

Yes they do, its the salary cap protocol, the CPOs, MNS etc ...

I think the fundamentals of the league are slowly being put right by the FAI while every deluded club and fan blaims the FAI for their predicement.

bhs

You obviously have a pro FAI agenda there but its purely flawed. The media are making a joke out of the FAI and they have no control of it. Who got Staunton sacked? The media is the controlling power and regardless what the FAI do the league is doomed to failure because the FAI cannot control the media.

The FAI's selfishness and unwillingness to discuss it at their AGM sums their attitude. It wouldn't surprise me if Harps' and Bohs' new stadiums fall through now too.

[finnpark]

I'm not sure if this is irony or not but if your being honest how can you think that? It will be the exact same as now only with Northern Irish teams in it.

P1 had a finance plan in place including a package with Sky. Fintan Drury is also Chairman of Paddy Power and is on AIB's board. He is a good friend of Brian Cowen, including writing some speeches for him. He used to work for RTE and the Irish Independent and does a lot of work with all the media on both sides of the border. This is the kind of person you need running the league to transform its fortunes overnight.

[Mr_Parker]

He used to work for RTE and the Irish Independent

I didn't realise that. Things become a lot clearer now.

[Saint_Charlie]

P1 had a finance plan in place including a package with Sky. Fintan Drury is also Chairman of Paddy Power and is on AIB's board. He is a good friend of Brian Cowen, including writing some speeches for him. He used to work for RTE and the Irish Independent and does a lot of work with all the media on both sides of the border. This is the kind of person you need running the league to transform its fortunes overnight.

Thats a bit naive isn't it.

Why would sky have any interest (or setanta for that matter) in showing an All Ireland league when they already have the behemoth that is the Premier League?

[finnpark]

Thats a bit naive isn't it.

Why would sky have any interest (or setanta for that matter) in showing an All Ireland league when they already have the behemoth that is the Premier League?

They both show many leagues from around Europe.

He is also good friends with Denis O'Brien who was the person who asked Delaney to sack Staunton and employ Trap.

The FAI are powerless!! Thats the problem!!

[blackholesun]

You obviously have a pro FAI agenda there but its purely flawed.

No, I just call it as I see it now, look at the Futsal being started, look at the work they are doing in some of the inner city flat areas to get minisize futsal pitches built, look at all the development officers being appointed ...

The media are making a joke out of the FAI and they have no control of it. Who got Staunton sacked? The media is the controlling power and regardless what the FAI do the league is doomed to failure because the FAI cannot control the media.

True, but Ill add that I think it disgusting the way the media (football media in particular) try to drive the news, rather than report it.

The FAI's selfishness and unwillingness to discuss it at their AGM sums their attitude.

Platinum and their proposal were a jokeshop, would AIB or Ryanair be discussing some loons loking to take over at their AGM? dont think so! Platinum were in it for the money, not for the love of the game, bunch of chancers.

It wouldn't surprise me if Harps' and Bohs' new stadiums fall through now too.

I wasnt aware of difficulties with the Harps project? But if the builder who was going to take Finn Park is now getting twitchy that wouldnt surprise me, but how can you blame that on the FAI? As for the Bohs project, thats another jokeshop proposal by loons!

bhs

[Magicme]

The depressing thing is, it'll focus on the current financial problems, contrast present poor attendances with the mythical millions in Glenmalure, Kilcohan and Flower Lodge, mention the thousand who sail (or fly) every Saturday to Anfield/ Emirates etc. and leave you wondering why even the few of us bother.

What it won't do is talk to a Drogs fan about how it felt in Kiev to be minutes away from unimaginable glory, to a Pat's fan about beating the Elfs, to a Bohs fan about how watching one of the best teams ever to grace this country every week puts a spring in your step through the week, and sends you home delirious on a friday night as we win - again, and again, and again.....

And how those feelings are - must be -a hundred times more intense that of a 'Pool or United fan after even a champions league win, because the 'us' you talk about really is 'us' - an entity you share with neighbours and friends, with the kids on the street and the oul' lads - and an 'us' that encompasses the players and manager, and the club secretary, in part at least, because none of them - not even Joe Gamble before he took his cut - is earning an unimaginable multiple of your own salary.

It's a feeling of community and a depth of passion that the media here has no problem celebrating when its attached to the GAA - and which is sometimes contrasted with the cynicism and professionalism of football, as if the premiership is football tout court. The fact that it exists right here, in Phibsboro', in Inchicore in Cork, Derry and Sligo, but attached to the same great game that RTE celebrate twice a week when it happens in 'real' places like Madrid or Liverpool, and without the small minded bigotry and thuggery of the graceless travesty that we parade as our national game, is ignored; instead, the undeniable mismanagement of the game here is rehearsed again, as if to show that we are not really worthy of having proper football teams and we'd be better off just settling down in front of the telly and watching our betters.

Unreal. How did you take the jumbled thoughts out of my head and make such glorious and almost poetic sense of them.

My son and I have just spent the last hour and half standing in the hallway (him sitting on the stairs en route to bed) discussing the exact points above.

There is so much more I want to say but I cant. Am so angry tonight.

[pete]

I have no problem with the media calling it as it is but I naively expected better from RTEs flagship current affairs show. The Platinum One report was quoted as fact & was a very one sided report. Of the two City lads interviewed they got the caption wrong & were apparently heavily selective in the quote from the other.

If Prime Time were to do the LOI they should have researched properly & given over a full programme with in studio discussion.

Looked like a time filler that RTE put together yesterday.

There are some positives in the league. They could have at least given those an airing.

BTW Fran Gavin is hopeless on TV. Would be better off getting Noel Mooney out for those interviews.

[A face]

You obviously have a pro FAI agenda there but its purely flawed. The media are making a joke out of the FAI and they have no control of it. Who got Staunton sacked? The media is the controlling power and regardless what the FAI do the league is doomed to failure because the FAI cannot control the media.

The FAI's selfishness and unwillingness to discuss it at their AGM sums their attitude. It wouldn't surprise me if Harps' and Bohs' new stadiums fall through now too.

P1 had a finance plan in place including a package with Sky. Fintan Drury is also Chairman of Paddy Power and is on AIB's board. He is a good friend of Brian Cowen, including writing some speeches for him. He used to work for RTE and the Irish Independent and does a lot of work with all the media on both sides of the border. This is the kind of person you need running the league to transform its fortunes overnight.

They both show many leagues from around Europe.

He is also good friends with Denis O'Brien who was the person who asked Delaney to sack Staunton and employ Trap.

The FAI are powerless!! Thats the problem!!

No, I just call it as I see it now, look at the Futsal being started, look at the work they are doing in some of the inner city flat areas to get minisize futsal pitches built, look at all the development officers being appointed ...



True, but Ill add that I think it disgusting the way the media (football media in particular) try to drive the news, rather than report it.



Platinum and their proposal were a jokeshop, would AIB or Ryanair be discussing some loons loking to take over at their AGM? dont think so! Platinum were in it for the money, not for the love of the game, bunch of chancers.



I wasnt aware of difficulties with the Harps project? But if the builder who was going to take Finn Park is now getting twitchy that wouldnt surprise me, but how can you blame that on the FAI? As for the Bohs project, thats another jokeshop proposal by loons!

bhs

BlackHoleSun .... thanks be to god man. I was lifting off my seat reading his stuff and would have gone off on one .... but i wont.

Finnpark .... you are so far up Drurys ass its just beyond not being real. Are you his lover or what?

The FAI are powerless!! Thats the problem!!

Are you on the same planet at all when you came out with that one?

Man, i give up ..... for tonight anyway.

[A face]

And i knew it wouldn't be well researched, it was put together in a week tops and no where near the 'inside track to the league' that it made itself out to be.

Prime Time is a disaster of a programme and i cant trust another thing they cover. If they got it this wrong on this then why should we trust them to amazingly get it right on another topic.

[brianw82]

As expected, losts on the proposed AIL, with no reasoning given as to WHY or HOW this will be Irish football's white knight. Remember, more than half the people watching that last night would have had no clue about domestic football, and they were probably asking the same question: 'How will an AIL solve these problems?'
Also, as mentioned by someone else, the fundamental lack of support for the leagues on both sides of the border was not mentioned at all.
Fran Gavin is hopeless on tv. You could put Fr. Purcell from Fr. Ted on and he'd make a better showing.

[gspain]

It smacked of written, directed and produced by P1.

.

Spot on.

[gspain]

I think the FAI need to take Drury on at this stage. It is a joke. He is allowed to continue his negative assault on th eleague unchecked.

Who licences him as an agent?

[Salmon Coloured]

Apologies but I missed this programme last night. Can anyone just put down in bullet point form what exactly was discussed & the angle given on it, more to the point what wasnt discussed? I saw your posts above but just want a simple breakdown as your posts discuss what you feel about what you saw. Thanks.

[Mr A]

Essentially, football will die unless there's an AIL, and it's the FAI's fault for not backing P1.

[Drogman.]

Platinum were in it for the money, not for the love of the game, bunch of chancers.

So what if they were in it for the money? I wouldn't expect a business to take on a new venture unless it was only for the money. For them to make that money they would need to make the product very good, that's what being in business is all about. If you can't understand that then you know nothing about business at all!