Exactly.Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Of course it would have been great if the IFA had envisaged the scenario of a club announcing in advance its intention not to compete the following season, without this following the normal explanation (e.g. insolvency, points deduction, League punishment, or utter inability to compete at the higher level etc).
But none of these applied to Bangor. Worse still, there were three additional factors complicating the IFA's decision:
1. The Play-Off complication (as PS alludes to);
2. No-one could predict where Bangor might finish. In February, they were doing OK, so might have finished outside the bottom two. On the other hand, with morale and commitment likely to suffer after the announcement, they might have finished bottom/2nd bottom;
3. Further, the IFA could not have predicted in February whether either/both of the the top two Championship places would have been filled by clubs able/willing to take their place in the Premiership. In fact, Coagh, Glebe, Loughgall and Mallards were all fighting it out for the top places, whilst DC and Ports were "playing catch-up".
Therefore, the IFA settled upon a solution which saw the top Championship club promoted automatically and the 2nd club go into a Play-Off for another Promotion place - exactly the same as was outlined from the very beginning.
As for DC's gripe that it all worked out against them, unless one is of the Princess Diana/JFK/Fake Moon Landing School of Utterly Implausible Conspiracy Theories, there is no way that the IFA could have made their determination in February in such a way as to catch out DC, and no other club, in May.
In the end, DC's case for being in the IFA Prem rests on their assertion that on purely footballing terms, they deserve to be in the top 12 teams in NI. Yet look at their actual record:
1. They were no great shakes when they were in the top Division;
2. Despite spending big money on players' wages i(n Championship terms), they couldn't finish top of a Division which only had one other "big" club worthy of the name;
3. If they had even drawn their final game of the Season (at home to Portadown), then they would have gained automatic promotion;
4. When they did have to play the worst team in the Premiership (Swifts) over two legs, they couldn't beat them, either.
So there you have it, the IFA has once again discriminated against poor wee Donegal Celtic and their thousands of fans, simply because they're West Belfast Nationalists, in favour of that well-known Loyalist club from the East, Dungannon Swifts...
I figured you'd seize on the chance to show your faltering argument as proven!
If a team pulls out in England, it's not relevant where they're deemed to finish as they simply go down, and the team in the last relegation spot is reprieved. However, with a promotion/relegation play-off, there's a case to be made for anticipating the problem and having a solution in place.
It's not necessary to predict everything exactly in order to have a precaution in place.
I'm not claiming that the Bangor scenario could not never have been envisaged, rather, what I'm saying is this:
1. It was so unusual that the IFA might have been forgiven (imo) for not having made provision for it, especially with all the other developments going on at Windsor Avenue. After all, the two "precedents" quoted, the world-famous Team Bath and Gresley Rovers(!), both occurred AFTER Bangor made their announcement;
2. The IFA's eventual determination was not perfect, but as I outlined in my previous post, whatever they had decided was liable to be "unacceptable" to some club or other;
3. Above all, if some club were eventually to feel aggrieved at the way it turned out, there is no way on earth the IFA could have predicted in February that come May, that club would have been Donegal Celtic.
Therefore those people who are hinting at "Discrimination against poor old DC etc", are in this instance talking out of their backside (imo).
As I said though, they weren't being asked to predict that; they were just asked to cover all possibilities.
A third precedent was also quoted, incidentally (Canvey Island), which occurred before the Bangor case. So your point on that - however spurious it was to start with - is invalid.
Either leagues should have specific rules to cover every eventuality in which teams leave them, or they are allowed to claim unforeseeable circumstances and thus to change the rule book. If the former, the IFA/ IL are obviously incompetent, and have presumably ignored advice from other leagues, UEFA etc. But given the consensus on the WC 2010 play-offs thread- that FIFA will decide in October (ie, half way through the competition) whether they should be seeded, and how- I think we can cut some slack?
As above, I'm opposed to teams in relegation places getting a play-off second chance, on principle. And probably in practice, given the rancour they cause...
Canvey Island was not the "third precedent" - the other two were ex post facto.
Nor are they comparable to Bangor FC, since Canvey pulled out of the Conference at the end of the season, rather than announcing their intention to pull out mid-season, as Bangor did.
Keep Googling...
Last edited by EalingGreen; 14/05/2009 at 12:30 PM.
I don't think there's many eventualities in which teams can leave a league. Either they pull out before the start of the season, during the season or at the end of the season. Why they pull out is irrelevant.
(That said, in terms of cutting them some slack, the FAI rulebook says that clubs can't pull out mid-season. When Dublin City did just that, they had to make up a rule as to what happened in that scenario. So they're not alone in screwing up!)
Again, there's no difference. They played all their matches, didn't finish in the relegation zone but opted for relegation. Same situation. The same rule would have covered both scenarios, and when the decision was formally announced by the club isn't relevant. The play-off scenario just didn't arise because there is no promotion/relegation play off in England.
Also, you dismissed the Team Bath and Gresty Rovers examples spefically because they occured after the Bangor example. Canvey Island opted for relegation before Bangor, so it's a relevant example.
Last edited by pineapple stu; 14/05/2009 at 12:35 PM.
The difference is that when the Conference had to determine what to do as a result of Canvey Island pulling out, they knew exactly how their decision would affect all the other clubs. In which case, they made a single determination.
Whereas, when Bangor announced mid-season that they would be withdrawing, the IFA could not wait to decide until the end of the season and all the results were known.
Which is why their eventual determination had to contain three alternatives, each consequent on a different set of results.
As I said before, what the IFA eventually decided was hardly ideal, but imo there was no ideal decision which was likely to please everyone.
Which brings us back to the starting point, which is that (with hindsight) the IFA should have had a rule which said that if a team pulls out mid-season, but finishes all their games, they automatically place last. End of problems. The various possibilities of whom this affects are irrelevant, as indeed is the timing of the decision (and your attempt to use this to distance it from the Canvey Island case). Similarly, if a team pulls out mid-season and leaves matches unplayed, then either all remaining games are awarded 3-0, or all results to date are scratched.
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