Quotewheres the league going to go with no investment? somewhere down the line people are going to have to invest in it to bring it forward?! its common sense.
its never going to happen, but if it did, i dont think it would be a negative thing. im talking hypothetically here unless you havnt noticed by now...Originally Posted by dcfcsteve
It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
Muhammad Ali
wheres the league going to go with no investment? somewhere down the line people are going to have to invest in it to bring it forward?! its common sense.
It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
Muhammad Ali
When people talk of 'investment' in football, what they ususally mean is someone chucking money at a club to buy its way to success. That isn't sustainable.
The league needs to become financially self-sustainable. I can't see how "people" investing in it will achieve that. At best it will only help a very small number of lucky clubs, and just make the product completely unbalanced and uncompetitive. At worst it will see the league lose clubs and grounds as these individuals pull their funding or things go wrong. As when individuals 'invest' money it usually comes with some sort of strings attached.
However - it is clear that the league and its clubs do need funds to get the basics right before they can become sustainable. Off-pitch things like stadia, training facilities, non-matchday revenue generation etc all need funding. The most feasible route I can see for this funding to come from is government - local and national. Maybe not right now given the state of the country's finances, but the FAI need to secure a decent one-off investment package for the league to enable ALL clubs to get themselves into a more sustainable position. Not just a few lucky ones.
After that it should, in my opinion, be down to the clubs themselves to sort their own future. Some will thrive due to large fanbase, good management, on-pitch success etc. Others will falter through a combination of the opposite. That's sport. But hoping for a series of individuals to turn up on club's doorsteps with a big bag of money is not the answer to the investment required.
DCFCSteve, Tom I don't believe was in it for a long or even medium term return. Something still smells with Cork. Ollie, I dealt with personally, and while he loved Shels, he wasn't in it for altruism. Property developers, they're in it for what they can get, it's not altruism, nor is what any of them did even coming near investment.
Investment works when there is a clear business plan, there is a clearing out of the dross and parasites who dragged the club into the state it was on, and then there are put in place 2-3 professional management people with dedicated admin staff who can run the club professionally. In over 30 years of LOI experience and 20 dealing with clubs in the league (including 1 long gone from the ranks - St. James Gate), the closest to being professionally run are Shamrock Rovers. Without properly run clubs there can't be a professionally run league, without a professionally run Association there can't be either of the previous two! Unfortunately we're not going to get that any time soon.
Anybody who decided to invest money in LOI football and expected to make a profit on it is an idiot of the highest order. We're a league watched by almost nobody, reported on by amost nobody, and a fair amount of the population actively wished we didn't even exist. Some market that is for an investor.
Even if Red Bull, in a moment of total f**king insanity, decided to check LOI football out, they would take one look at the state of the league and walk away laughing, before probably firing the person who suggested looking into it.
There is no quick fix for any LOI club, just building decent facilities and trying to move the club towards being sustainable through sensible budgeting and sensible advertising and interaction in the local community. and move ourselves (slowly and painfully) to a position where we can offer something to a potential investor.
your making a lot of sense, but the way of the celtic tiger property developer is gone. that senseless, irresponsible anglo irish bank way of financial dealing is not the kind of "investment" i am talking about. certainly not "big bags of money" with no accountability. I am talking about "people" "companies" "sponsors" who want to "invest" in a club and do it professionaly. the old irish way of doing things isnt going to cut it anymore if we want this league to be taken seriously.
some sort of initial investment is needed to kickstart the process. fans are not going to just appear in league of ireland grounds until they are profesionally run clubs with good stadia and decent players. they are not interested unless irish clubs are competing with the best in the world. How is this going to happen?
It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
Muhammad Ali
There is no club in Ireland where you can invest in them, not a single one runs an investment fund or is floated. It's not just in Ireland, lots of small countries face the same problem where clubs there have traditionally had a right backer who covered expenses, or simply handed a budget over at the start of the season with no strings attached. When Shamrock Rovers have a lease on their ground then maybe they can offer something in the way of a fund.
the development of grounds like tallaght throughout the league is essential.
It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
Muhammad Ali
Agreed blue harp, which then brings one point to the table, should all clubs become community rooted/based and lease/rent from a council. There are pros and cons to this, however clubs could use some of the administrative depth and oversight that could be gained from the council while also putting in a committment to a locality. I know there are clubs already doing this however if it were a standard practice (as in Germany for example) then probably our league and football in general would progress.
Each club faces a relatively unique set of circumstances - there is no 'one size fits all' solution.
So suggesting that clubs who own their own ground would in any way benefit from renting one from the council is just daft. For some (Rovers) it is the best thing to do. For others (City) it has proven to be as much of a pain as it has a blessing). And for those who own their own ground - why ? And are you suggesting they should sell their ground ?
Also - why connect the notion of community roots with the ownership of a ground ? The two things are not naturally inter-linked. And you're lauding the "administrative depth and oversight" from councils ?!? Are you serious....?
There's too much bandwidth wasted on here with bonkers ideas of how to 'fix' our league. Thank feck the stuff comes free......!
well your a real bundle of laughs steve anyway!!
It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
Muhammad Ali
I don't think Rovers would've picked the renting model - it was the only option at the time. Surely renting the ground restricts your ability to raise funds, unless you have exclusive use and control (which after Shels, is unlikely to be given)?
If you attack me with stupidity, I'll be forced to defend myself with sarcasm.
Owning their own ground would obviously have been the ideal option. But it was never on offer.
So after 20 years of being homeless the council route was the best choice Rovers could have.
You need to re-read the post a little more carefully, while I missed out a ? it was a question as to could clubs benefit from closer links with the local council. Being Derry its slightly different in terms of community relations, however, same for most country clubs (from a Dublin standpoint), in the capital you have most clubs moving from place to place (Shels, Shamrock Rovers) and down in the Junior ranks it's the same, so building a community bond is never going to happen as easily in a non-captive market. Being closely associated with a local council - is there a benefit?Each club faces a relatively unique set of circumstances - there is no 'one size fits all' solution.
So suggesting that clubs who own their own ground would in any way benefit from renting one from the council is just daft. For some (Rovers) it is the best thing to do. For others (City) it has proven to be as much of a pain as it has a blessing). And for those who own their own ground - why ? And are you suggesting they should sell their ground ?
Also - why connect the notion of community roots with the ownership of a ground ? The two things are not naturally inter-linked. And you're lauding the "administrative depth and oversight" from councils ?!? Are you serious....?
There's too much bandwidth wasted on here with bonkers ideas of how to 'fix' our league. Thank feck the stuff comes free......!
From the professional support point of view (in view of a council) you'd have access to a network for such benefits as grant aid, audits, planning etc (I mention the German model as I've seen how it works and some localities have far less professional or capable staff than some I know in Ireland).
There can never be a blanket solution, though not all clubs are blessed with large support, second chances, ability to walk away from debt or even favoured status with banks, so they have to look a little further afield to get moving. And sure, if we can't at least discuss it there'd be nothing for bored journo's to scab off forums.
The answer's still the same though - no matter how 'carefully' I read your post....
Some clubs it would help, some it wouldn't. It all depends on individual circumstances.
Re the funding example you give - sometimes Local authorities are in the best position to be looking for grant funding. Other times, they're in the worst. For example - some funders will only give money to community organisations, not councils. And they wouldn't give money to a community group to spend on a council facility.
Irish councils don't have a tradition of supporting senior/professional sportsclubs with stadia the way some other countries do (even England). Rovers and Fingal are still pretty unique in Ireland. City's experience of the council is so positive that we've been trying to take the ground off their hands via a long lease. I think the only other couincil-owned senior ground in the north is Ballymena's (though there could be others. e.g. Distillery ?).
Last edited by dcfcsteve; 04/09/2010 at 9:39 PM.
Great minds think a like Maseanjo ! I was over there posting whilst you were typing this.
Though I think pointing and laughing at people for not having a sense of humour may not exactly equate to an apology. Though I can't be certain....
Woe betide the next person on Foot.ie who makes a joke about homelessness, junkies and certain clubs on here. They'll be subjected to a social diatribe...!
Do you realise what kind of sh!t you could buy on the streets of Dublin with money like that....?!?
Good point about co-operation between club and council not always being productive, even with Shamrock Rovers they're not getting the links they should do to increase funding, though in fairness their relationship with the SDCC isn't the greatest and alot of the difficulty comes from the council side. I still wonder if Irish clubs can improve this relationship, they have a decent sized lobby and can do something with it. Again I would point to a top down, bottom up restructuring - when the clowns who run football in Ireland are looked at carefully then you wonder how they could ever get such a position with such a lack of ability and class.
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