The SFAI are the governing body for grassroots football in Ireland, not the FAI. Its success or the lack of is all down to them.
SKSTU your argument that the Real-Rovers fixture would have effected your attendence figures is a non-starter. Yes if you were playing a big name team maybe it might actually it would, but playing some average team that has qualified is not going to affect your figures. If SRFC are playing a CL game i will go no matter who Bohs are playing and vica versa, unless you are telling me Bohs supporters would go see Rovers-Real over thier own CL game.
What their motivations were well i don't know, but it stinks and looks really really bad on Bohs no matter what way you try dress it up. Unless Sadlier is lying through his teeth.
i specifically mentioned floating and neutral punters in my post above TH. A group of people that can and do make a big difference to the gate at all European games.
I dont think it looks bad at all. Firstly, the club didnt object and secondly, we were looking at a way to increase our own coffers or to nullify the danger of our coffers being badly affected. Shock! Horror!
Either way, its a good thing Sadlier wasnt around when Ollie was at his prime. He would have been even more of a quivering, self righteous mess.
I like high energy football. A little bit rock and roll. Many finishes instead of waiting for the perfect one.
The sports pages were dominated that week by the coverage of footballs equivalent of an exhibition match between the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals. Tales of Ronaldo playing hurling , some hooped player working in a crisp factory or such like , hooverd up all the coverage. The Champions League game got pushed into the background and that certainly affected the crowd and the potential sponsorship. Bohs had every right to object to the permission, my only problem is that it should have been done officially with a glove slap across Delaneys face.
As for malice, yep that would have been the sweetener, alas it was not to be.
did it affect the attendance, or publicity Bohs received though? Has anyone got the attendance figures of the two seasons they've been in the CL and see any serious difference?
Perhaps the smarter, more progressive, way of looking at the huge publicity our crisp factory players got would have been to use the fact every mainstream media outlet, for the first time since Shels v Depor were talking about the LoI in a hugely impressive and respectful light. You could have seized on the footballing buzz that was genuinely in the air by doing a big advertising push as opposed to emailing the usual pre-match press release to the Indo.
Shamrock Rovers aren't going to drag this league forward. bohemians certainly won't. If collectivly we all had a few more good news days like Rovers Real, Shels Depor, the Cork Derry title decider a few years back, and maybe Limerick Barca then we might start getting places. It was a big opportunity missed for the league in general that Bohs decided to get our game called off out of jealousy, instead of trying to maximise the potential it brought to Bohs that week if they put in the hard graft.
I wonder what Bohs fans would be saying if this was the other way around, Im sure they would defend Rovers just like they are defending themselves
Here on a technicality.
I'm sure there is some merit to the argument that Rovers-Real may have negatively affected the attendance at Bohs' European match, but it could equally have spurred a bit more interest in the domestic game and convinced some of those floating fans to take in a second game. More importantly, even if it was proven to have a negative effect on attendance, that's no justification for breaking a formal contract.
If what Sadlier says is true, it can only really be seen as an attempt by Bohs to get one over on their rivals. A horrendously misguided one, as it happens.
Personally, I think the reason Sadlier left the LOI was because his head was too big to get in the gates of Richmond Park. He strikes me as being self indulgent and arrogant and I find it very hard to listen to him.
54,321 sold - wws will never die - ***
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LOI section on balls.ie - http://balls.ie/league-of-ireland/
First time reading through this thread. Did not Bohs fans criticise the FAI for stopping the Limerick Barca friendly, possibly on the grounds that it'd take away from the LoI v Man U? And yet they think it's perfectly fair to try and stop another Barca friendly because it'd take away from one of their games? Ridiculous insular attitude which really sums up the league at times, I think.
When did Bohs try and stop a Barcelona game?
Stopping a friendly because its clashing with another
meaningless money making friendly is a tad different to overshadowing coverage of a Champions League competitive game.
Sorry, Madrid game. Point still stands. The clash with your game is irrelevant; just something you have to deal with.
(And I think the Salzburg crowd was 5000-odd? So it didn't seem to affect the crowd on the day; very good crowd for a relatively low-level opposition)
4,500 I think. Not sure if that included Richard Saslier.
nice fella is richie but the facts are he left because he was a hopeless club administrator end of. He let Jeff Kenna tear the club apart and did nothing to stop the rot on the bohs thing nothing surprises me in the LOI anymore its small minds that has the league in the sorry state it is currently in.
It didn't clash - they were on different nights. And what do you make of my point above that it offered Bohs an opportunity, for once you had LoI all over the news for once in a positive light and Bohs decided not to bother try to take advantage of it. Also, how exactly did it affect Bohs' preparations - did you have a succesfull advertising campaign last year that didn't work this time because of Real Madrid being in the country a few days before hand? Was Bohs' gate negatively effected? I can't remember what attendance you had the previous year but surely it was around 4,500 and not too many thousands over that?
Don't blame him, he like many others became disillusioned with the way things are done here. Fair play to him.
this debate might actually be relevant if we actually did complain. We didnt.
Where were the accusations of small mindedness/pettiness/jealousy/sour grapes when Rovers wrote their (what was found to be totally baseless) letter to the FAI at the end of last season? Oh no, wait, that was fair game.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
I like high energy football. A little bit rock and roll. Many finishes instead of waiting for the perfect one.
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