The League

[gufc2000]

There would be uproar if the likes of Bohs and Rovers were to merge, Or Dundalk/ Drogheda. Merging clubs is definitely a non-runner for me

[don ramo]

ok lads, there are 28 LOI clubs, premier, first and A. (yes the A league is considered LOI football)

premier currently has 10 teams, first has 12, and the A is split into 2 groups with 3 non A teams playing there, A league is alSo regionalised to keep costs down,

you can have a 16 team premier division, limit each club to say 5 or 6 professional players, the rest can be part time (lets face it lads no team in the is country can ralistically sustain paying a whole squad of professional players),

there maybe 16 teams in the league, but all 16 wont be competing to win the league, look at scotland, spain, italy, and england, every year there are only 2-4 clubs that can actually win the league, not all 16-20 clubs start the season thinking they can win the league,

then you have the other 12 clubs remaining, so get rid of the first dvision altogether, and you basically extend the A league, instead of 3 non A team have 6, add in the 16 premier A teams, now you can make up the northern and southern leagues with 14 teams in each,

New 16 team premier league

Bohemians
Derry City
Galway Utd
Cork City
Shamrock Rvrs
St. Pats
Sligo Rovers
Dundalk
Bray
Drogheda Utd
UCD
Shelbourne
Sporting Fingal
Waterford
Athlone
Limerick

New northern A divsion

Tullamore
Salthill
Castlebar
Finn Harps
Longford
Monaghan

Drogheda Utd A
Derry City A
Dundalk A
UCD A
Shelbourne A
Galway Utd A
Sligo Rovers A
Athlone A


New southern A division

FC Carlow
Cobh Ramblers
Tralee
Mervue
Wexford Youths
Kildare County

St. Pats A
Bohemians A
Cork City A
Shamrock Rvrs A
Sp. Fingal A
Waterford A
Limerick A
Bray A

*this is based on the league standings as they are today*

if you want you can play each other twice in the A divisions, and then have the top 3 clubs from the north and south breakaway and play in a mini league of 6 to decide who get promted (you can carry over league points if you like), have the overall top team go up and second place could either play-off aginst 3rd top or second bottom,

obvioulsy A teams cant be promted, so out of the 12 non A clubs, 6 could have 26 games in the year, and the other 6 who join the mini league could have 36 (play each other twice in the mini league)

[gufc2000]

Swap Mervue with Longford Town. Mervue have an awful lot of travelling to do

[holidaysong]

I think our country is too small to be having three tiers in the league. Although I don't agree with don ramo on limiting the number of professionals on each team, I do think that we should have just one nationwide division at the top with two regionalised divisions directly below this.

His proposal seems the most sensible one to me. A 16 or 18 team top flight would go some way to actually being a national league rather than the Dublin & District league it currently resembles. Nobody cares about the First Division and it's almost impossible for clubs playing in it to sell their club to potential fans in the local community so I don't really see the point in keeping it as a nationwide division - allow the best clubs in the First Division into the Premier and put the rest into the regionalised A Championship.

[osarusan]

Who wouldn't want to support Shelbohs, St Shamrock's Athletic, or Northern Amalgamation FC?

[don ramo]

I think our country is too small to be having three tiers in the league. Although I don't agree with don ramo on limiting the number of professionals on each team, I do think that we should have just one nationwide division at the top with two regionalised divisions directly below this.

His proposal seems the most sensible one to me. A 16 or 18 team top flight would go some way to actually being a national league rather than the Dublin & District league it currently resembles. Nobody cares about the First Division and it's almost impossible for clubs playing in it to sell their club to potential fans in the local community so I don't really see the point in keeping it as a nationwide division - allow the best clubs in the First Division into the Premier and put the rest into the regionalised A Championship.

well maybe you could do a reward thing to have squad of professionals, maybe the top 5 teams each year, the top 4 teams i suppose would require a squad of full-timers for european reasons, then the team that finnish 5th could also have it, to try and make a push for europe the following year,

that part would be the hardest to do, realsitically theres no way to enforce it, i think the amount of pros you have should be based on success, if this was the way, i would say its more sustainable,

[don ramo]

Swap Mervue with Longford Town. Mervue have an awful lot of travelling to do

well it could be split either way, were in the A south this year and have sporting fingal A, yet there further north than salthill, it wouldnt be split in a line across the country, you could reshape it according to who get relegated, like if cork city got relegated but no southern team were promoted, you could move mervue of kildare to the northern division, always have 6 non A teams in each league

[passerrby]

lads we will not have 22 clubs in the league at the end of this season between the credit crunch (two words i fcuking hate) and club mismanagement we will lose at best three teams and a maybe more. and if that happens then darwins theory will sort it out.

[gufc2000]

I'd be in favour of a 14 team National League, but it would be too awkward as regards fixtures, as if you play the teams twice its only 26 games and if you play them 3 times its 39 which is too many

[dcfcsteve]

In fairness the original topic on this thread was nothing to do with what is being talked about now.

So try and actually read what was originally asked before you go talking sh1te.

Woo-hoo ! Look at you with the major sense of humour failure...!

A thread vaguelt titled "The League" is about as much use as one entitled "Football". It wouldn't hurt for people to allude a bit more to what their thread is actually about in the title.

I could just picture you looking hurt when you stabbed yourself with the wrong end of the stick when reading my note.....

[don ramo]

lads we will not have 22 clubs in the league at the end of this season between the credit crunch (two words i fcuking hate) and club mismanagement we will lose at best three teams and a maybe more. and if that happens then darwins theory will sort it out.

use recession, no piont useing 2 words when you can use one, save the cost of ware on the keyboard also,

[passerrby]

use recession, no piont useing 2 words when you can use one, save the cost of ware on the keyboard also,

.... off



only joking don words are recession proof

[sonofstan]

Who wouldn't want to support Shelbohs,

Sometimes, when I half close my eyes, and look at a Bohs team playing in our yellow and blue away strip, with Nutsy in the dugout and Jayo, Crowe, Heary and Ndo on the pitch......

[hedderman]

Sometimes, when I half close my eyes, and look at a Bohs team playing in our yellow and blue away strip, with Nutsy in the dugout and Jayo, Crowe, Heary and Ndo on the pitch......

....and later on you look at the club's accounts...

[sonofstan]

....and later on you look at the club's accounts...

Talk about leaving a tap in....

[Hairy Bowsie]

...and then you look at the bare trophy cabinet and realise your most definately a gypo....

[peadar1987]

Swerving wildly off topic but...

How about a compromise of say, a 14 team league, everybody plays each other twice, so 26 games each, then have more cup games to fill the gaps in the calendar, maybe introducing a cross-border cup with an initial group stage.

I don't have any problem with a 10 team league as a general concept, but the smaller the league, the greater proportion of it is filled by Dublin clubs, 7 Dublin teams in a 10 team Premier will strangle football outside Dublin. 7 Dublin teams in a 14 team Premier isn't quite so bad.

I think below this, the leagues can be split into regions, first North and South, then North, South, East and West, building up a proper, integrated league structure, all under the control of the FAI.

If licensing is strictly enforced, the professional thing shouldn't be an issue, clubs will have as many professionals as they can afford under the 65% rule.

So it would look something like this:

Division 1
Division 2 North......Division 2 South
D3 North.....D3 South......D3 North Leinster.......D3 South Leinster......D3 West
D4 North.....D4 South......D4 North Leinster.......D4 South Leinster......D4 West

And so on.

Division 1 with some full-time squads, some part-time, division 2 with part-timers and amateurs, below that, strictly amateurs only. The approximately 40 teams of the top 2 divisions should be picked by the FAI to ensure as much of the country as possible is covered, and after the reorganisation, there should be no relegation to the regional leagues for say 5 years, to allow the new clubs to develop, afterwards it could be decided by a playoff system.

I think a centrally organised league is very important to the long-term development of football in this country.

[dcfcsteve]

What's the obsession that people have on this forum with endless structural change in the league....?

I don't see people perched on their bar stools in pubs up and down Ireland complaining that Irish football just doesn't do it for them because the league set-up isn't to their liking !

Fecking around with the structure is just a waste of energy and takes everyone's eyes of the real issues that are holding our league back. Lke poor facilities, incompetent club administration, absent marketing etc.

How's about making what we have work a bit better first, before worrying about what colour bow to rap the league up in...

[RoversHead]

lads we will not have 22 clubs in the league at the end of this season between the credit crunch (two words i fcuking hate) and club mismanagement we will lose at best three teams and a maybe more. and if that happens then darwins theory will sort it out.

Football being football Bohs will make the league stages in Europe and keep us all in Noddy land for a few more years

[peadar1987]

What's the obsession that people have on this forum with endless structural change in the league....?

I don't see people perched on their bar stools in pubs up and down Ireland complaining that Irish football just doesn't do it for them because the league set-up isn't to their liking !

Fecking around with the structure is just a waste of energy and takes everyone's eyes of the real issues that are holding our league back. Lke poor facilities, incompetent club administration, absent marketing etc.

How's about making what we have work a bit better first, before worrying about what colour bow to rap the league up in...

The only problem I have with the current league structure is the likelihood that the top division will be over 50% Dublin teams. The barstoolers don't complain about the league structure in itself, but it's a fact the attendances in the first division are much lower than in the premier division. I can see a barstooler deciding not to go and watch Limerick, Finn Harps or Waterford because they're not in the top division of the league. If the premier league is dominated by Dublin teams this will harm football outside the capital.

Obviously the other things are of crucial importance, but you can't underestimate the negative effect the Dublin stranglehold could have on the league as a whole.

I'd like to see a huge investment in marketing the league in the buildup to the season, centrally organised by the FAI. Ads on constantly on RTÉ, posters up in towns, have the clubs visiting local schools and clubs. Get the money from anywhere, if they'd asked for it five years ago the government probably would have given them a grant.

That, and properly enforcing licensing obviously, would be two huge steps in the right direction