its HEALTHY to have rubbish teams in a league. its fun going to matches and seeing a few screamers, it makes the more harder games special. 10 team is rubbish. dilutes the games so much.
16 teams would have to be optimum for an AIL..
Norway(pop.4.8m): 16 teams
Denmark(pop.5.5m):12 teams
Scotland (pop.5.1m) 12 teams
Therfore, AIL(pop.6.3m) 16 teams...That sound about right?
its HEALTHY to have rubbish teams in a league. its fun going to matches and seeing a few screamers, it makes the more harder games special. 10 team is rubbish. dilutes the games so much.
We're not arrogant, we're just better.
go back to the old days when we hada 16 team league.
it waas brilliant.
the present 1st division is only a load of shyte and should be done away with.
my 16 teams for an all new premier league would be
bohs
rovers
cork
limerick
waterford
galway
dundalk
derry
athlone
shels
pats
sligo
wexford
drogheda
harps
longford
and turf the rest of them out.
54,321 sold - wws will never die - ***
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I think having a 16 team division would be sensible, at least for the time being. Referring to Dodge's comment, I think a 16 team league should be given more than just one season to develop, granted messing around with the league structure every season doesn't do anything to help matters. Teams playing eachother twice a season would be of greater benefit to the teams outside of the capital. I know its good for gates when Bohs play Rovers every other month. But having Cork go to Derry twice a season and vice versa costs a lot of money in travel costs. With falling attendances I'm sure the travel costs more than what a club will take at the gate for such a fixture anyway! I can see where peader1987's point when Longford at battling for 15th place without relegation and some sort of regional pyrmaid system being set up to allow ambitious clubs outside of the LOI to start competing in the league in the future
I have a league meta-structure in mind which might help: how about any change to the structure of the league be followed by a period of not less than a decade where the very suggestion of another structural change result in a prompt lynching. A little stability goes a long way.
You can't spell failure without FAI
But damn it all, how will we decide which format not to tinker with? They should all be tried so we can work out the one true Format.
A 16 team top flight with all below it amateur. 2 feeder leagues on a regional basis (16 in each) and then link up to provincial feeders. Any team who wishes to go up into the top league must meet rigorous ground and financial standards, which are lowered the further down one goes. They do it in smaller countries with smaller playing and fan bases.
I'd prefer a bigger league, would be nice to play more teams each season...
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