Magners League of Football?

[BonnieShels]

For those of you who like it, good on you for supporting your local team, I only wish I had one to support here in Canada. I'm stuck watching the EPL on weekend mornings.

I have no idea where you are in Canada so I can't point you to a particular place to check out local soccer where you are but if you were to take a minute to peruse canadasoccer.com I'm sure you may find what you are looking for.

Currently there are 3 large professional teams in Canada Toronto FC (MLS), Vancouver Whitecaps (MLS from 2011) and Montreal Impact (USSF D2 Pro, MLS from 2012). They all compete (independently in the Canadian Championship for the Voyageurs Cup, the winner of which gains Canada's place in the Concacaf Champions League.
I'm sure either of these teams could suffice unless now you're in Alberta and you have some deep seated "dur taking uurr oil" problems with Ontario, BC and Quebec.
Below this elite level there exists a National Championship where lower level teams compete on a provincial and then national basis. There must be one local team you can pick and support as your own and considering the level of the league maybe get involved with on some other level.

Supporting the EPL from Canada is not an excuse.

[Colbert Report]

I have no idea where you are in Canada so I can't point you to a particular place to check out local soccer where you are but if you were to take a minute to peruse canadasoccer.com I'm sure you may find what you are looking for.

Currently there are 3 large professional teams in Canada Toronto FC (MLS), Vancouver Whitecaps (MLS from 2011) and Montreal Impact (USSF D2 Pro, MLS from 2012). They all compete (independently in the Canadian Championship for the Voyageurs Cup, the winner of which gains Canada's place in the Concacaf Champions League.
I'm sure either of these teams could suffice unless now you're in Alberta and you have some deep seated "dur taking uurr oil" problems with Ontario, BC and Quebec.
Below this elite level there exists a National Championship where lower level teams compete on a provincial and then national basis. There must be one local team you can pick and support as your own and considering the level of the league maybe get involved with on some other level.

Supporting the EPL from Canada is not an excuse.

Yes, I live in Alberta, but no, I don't have any inferiority complex about Quebec, unlike most of the people here. I play for the best team in Alberta, we have won the national amateur championships here in Canada several times. The level of football here is terrible - even here, at the "top" level, we only train three times a week and even that's only during the very short summer season. Right now, most of the guys are knocking back hot dogs and drinking beer. The nearest "pro" team, if you can call it that, the Vancouver Whitecaps, are 1300km from where I live and their matches are on far too late in the evenings for me to watch them on television. Of course, their matches are not usually televised anyway. The MLS is the only "local" pro league in Canada or the United States but seeing as how I'm 4000km from places like New York and 2000km from Los Angeles, how can you blame me for supporting a league that is half the world away but a much much higher quality product?

[Colbert Report]

No team? Doubt that. If not, why not get off your a ss and start one?

And play against who? Myself? I live in a city of over one million people. The only city near me is 300km away. The next nearest city is 1300km away. Do you not have any grasp of North American geography? Pitiful. "Soccer", as they call it here, has proven itself time and time again not to be a viable commercial product in Canada and the United States. The MLS semi-finals were on this past weekend and I tried to watch them. Before you start knocking me for watching the EPL, I'd like to see you stick out four hours of that rubbish.

[BonnieShels]

Yes, I live in Alberta, but no, I don't have any inferiority complex about Quebec, unlike most of the people here. I play for the best team in Alberta, we have won the national amateur championships here in Canada several times. The level of football here is terrible - even here, at the "top" level, we only train three times a week and even that's only during the very short summer season. Right now, most of the guys are knocking back hot dogs and drinking beer. The nearest "pro" team, if you can call it that, the Vancouver Whitecaps, are 1300km from where I live and their matches are on far too late in the evenings for me to watch them on television. Of course, their matches are not usually televised anyway. The MLS is the only "local" pro league in Canada or the United States but seeing as how I'm 4000km from places like New York and 2000km from Los Angeles, how can you blame me for supporting a league that is half the world away but a much much higher quality product?

You've never, as far as I am aware ever mentioned any of that before. That changes the complexion of the argument. Watching any football is allowed but to be a flag waver for the EPL on a consistent basis especially on this site is bizarre and rather insulting to a lot of us who do indeed get off our asses and go to LOI games.
Also the detemining factor of "quality" is incredibly subjective.

[BonnieShels]

And play against who? Myself? I live in a city of over one million people. The only city near me is 300km away. The next nearest city is 1300km away. Do you not have any grasp of North American geography? Pitiful. "Soccer", as they call it here, has proven itself time and time again not to be a viable commercial product in Canada and the United States. The MLS semi-finals were on this past weekend and I tried to watch them. Before you start knocking me for watching the EPL, I'd like to see you stick out four hours of that rubbish.

Toronto and Seattle actually made a profit in 2009. When you say EPL though are you talking Top4? I'm sure a lot of what was on in the MLS this weekend easily beat Man****ty v ManYoo last Wednesday night. Only Sky and Barstoolers think that the EPL is the best league in the world.

[Colbert Report]

Toronto and Seattle actually made a profit in 2009. When you say EPL though are you talking Top4? I'm sure a lot of what was on in the MLS this weekend easily beat Man****ty v ManYoo last Wednesday night. Only Sky and Barstoolers think that the EPL is the best league in the world.

Toronto only made a profit because of the sweet deal they have on their stadium. Let's see if Seattle make a profit after their third or fourth year in the league.

Yes, the Man Utd/Man City match was terrible last Wednesday, I did watch it when I got home from work. However, I had a great time watching Sunderland beat Chelsea yesterday and was severly depressed when my once mighty Liverpool team were soundly beaten on Saturday.

Good on you for getting off your behind and getting out to watch the LOI, there's nothing wrong with that and I certainly did not mean to insult anyone on here with what I posted. In fairness, I did readily admit in my first post to being highly ignorant of the LOI and its apparent merits.

Quality is not as subjective a thing as you imply - I can definitely tell the difference between the MLS and the EPL. When I'm watching MLS, it's like they are playing with a different ball or something the way it just bounces wildly off player's feet. I was watching Beckham last night and even though I hate the guy and everything he stands or I had to admit that it really was men against boys, even though his team lost 3-0. Every time he got the ball he was picking out strikers who were in five to ten yards of space up the pitch. It must be very frustrating for him to play in such a Mickey Mouse league.

From everything I've read, and I could be wrong, the MLS is light years ahead of the LOI in terms of quality, organisation, and generating revenue. The LOI has a LONG way to go to re-capture the imagination of the Irish public. I grew up in Kildare and we were all massive football fans - I was born in 1983 so you can imagine the atmosphere regarding football at school when I was a child.

I can never, not even once, remember ANYONE mentioning ANYTHING about the LOI when I was a child. It was all Manchester United this and Aston Villa that. That's going to take decades to get over. Right now the LOI is simply not up to scratch and I fear that things are moving in the wrong direction.

[BonnieShels]

Quality is not as subjective a thing as you imply - I can definitely tell the difference between the MLS and the EPL. When I'm watching MLS, it's like they are playing with a different ball or something the way it just bounces wildly off player's feet.

Quality is subjective when you equate that with how much enjoyment you get out of something. I'll never say that the EPL is not of a general better quality that LOI but the enjoyment I get out of going to Tolka no matter how miserable the performance is exponentially more enjoyable than anything I ever experienced as a younger Man U fan.
Though nothing equates with watching Ireland.
Instead of watching Sunderland/Chelsea yesterday you could have gone onto rte.ie and checked out some of the quality football that Sligo played. Exceptional in a lot of cases and superior to the MSL.

I was watching Beckham last night and even though I hate the guy and everything he stands or I had to admit that it really was men against boys, even though his team lost 3-0. Every time he got the ball he was picking out strikers who were in five to ten yards of space up the pitch. It must be very frustrating for him to play in such a Mickey Mouse league.

The money and the lifestyle helps I'm sure.

From everything I've read, and I could be wrong, the MLS is light years ahead of the LOI in terms of quality, organisation, and generating revenue. The LOI has a LONG way to go to re-capture the imagination of the Irish public.

Until you watch both you can't really comment on a direct quality aspect of it.

The LOI has got a long way to go to capture the imagination alright. Let's hope yesterday was the start of it going on the right direction.

[Charlie Darwin]

I don't want to start anything on here and I'll openly admit that I'm very ignorant when it comes to the LOI but I will say that it seems to me that the league doesn't contribute a whole lot to either the national team or the grassroots organisation of the sport in this country.

Before you all pop in going on about Kevin Doyle and Seamus Coleman, ask yourself, do you really think they wouldn't have gotten on with a League 2 club over in England and gone on to progress from there?

Ask Keith Fahey. It's not easy going to live in another country, particularly when it involves slogging it out for little money in a basement league. The few years Fahey spent at home allowed him to play in Europe, catching the eye of a few clubs along the way, and growing enough to be able to give it another shot abroad.

From the independent:

The FAI deserves credit too for reducing prices for today's Cup final and have reaped the reward with sales in excess of 30,000, a throwback to the days when football was an affordable lifeline for people who had time on their hands but little money.

Why did you have to quote a newspaper to say that?

[Colbert Report]

Ask Keith Fahey. It's not easy going to live in another country, particularly when it involves slogging it out for little money in a basement league. The few years Fahey spent at home allowed him to play in Europe, catching the eye of a few clubs along the way, and growing enough to be able to give it another shot abroad.


Why did you have to quote a newspaper to say that?

The same Keith Fahey that's only played two complete matches for Birmingham all season and only scored one goal? The same Keith Fahey that looked miles off the pace in the Slovakia match? I dont know why you are all so keen on him. Kevin Doyle is world class and hands down Ireland's best player in my opinion, and Seamus Coleman certainly looks like the next big star, but Fahey is just plain terrible everytime I've seen him play.

[Colbert Report]

Why did you have to quote a newspaper to say that?

Just stating fact, if I hadn't you would all be calling for a link and accusing me of hating the LOI and making up lies. I think it's great that thirty odd thousand people showed up for the FAI cup final yesterday, that's very surprising and restores my faith that maybe, just maybe, the sport might have a future in my country at the professional level. Just out of interest, anyone know how much the tickets actually were? Are we talking thirty or forty euro or are we talking five euro? If we're talking the former then that's a very, very big thing.

[Charlie Darwin]

The same Keith Fahey that's only played two complete matches for Birmingham all season and only scored one goal? The same Keith Fahey that looked miles off the pace in the Slovakia match? I dont know why you are all so keen on him. Kevin Doyle is world class and hands down Ireland's best player in my opinion, and Seamus Coleman certainly looks like the next big star, but Fahey is just plain terrible everytime I've seen him play.

The same Keith Fahey who demonstrates my point about the Airtricity League preparing players to step up to a higher level. His performances this season are irrelevant to the basic fact that he is currently contracted at a high level.

Just stating fact, if I hadn't you would all be calling for a link and accusing me of hating the LOI and making up lies. I think it's great that thirty odd thousand people showed up for the FAI cup final yesterday, that's very surprising and restores my faith that maybe, just maybe, the sport might have a future in my country at the professional level. Just out of interest, anyone know how much the tickets actually were? Are we talking thirty or forty euro or are we talking five euro? If we're talking the former then that's a very, very big thing.

What? I was at the game. It's not a secret that it cost a tenner in. Premium seats were 30 and there seemed to be a few of them taken up.

[peadar1987]

Just stating fact, if I hadn't you would all be calling for a link and accusing me of hating the LOI and making up lies. I think it's great that thirty odd thousand people showed up for the FAI cup final yesterday, that's very surprising and restores my faith that maybe, just maybe, the sport might have a future in my country at the professional level. Just out of interest, anyone know how much the tickets actually were? Are we talking thirty or forty euro or are we talking five euro? If we're talking the former then that's a very, very big thing.

A tenner for adults, fiver for children.

And on the standard of the LOI, I've watched my English team, Stoke ( ) play in the top three divisions of English football. The standard in the LOI is similar to the lower end of the Championship, top end of League 1. In England, teams at this level, from fairly modest towns, like Ipswich, Plymouth, Southampton and Norwich, can still attract 15-20,000 attendances.

[osarusan]

The standard in the LOI is similar to the lower end of the Championship, top end of League 1.

The LOI doesn't have one standard though. Salthill are as much a part of the LOI as Rovers or Bohs are, and where on the English league ladder would they be competitive?

I think that crowds of 15-20,000 are nothing more than pipe dreams for the LOI, and for any of the other leagues dreamed up (AIL, clubs in SPL etc) except if a Dublin club was to play in the EPL, which is something that I pray, to all the gods I don't believe in, will never ever happen.

[Metrostars]

And play against who? Myself? I live in a city of over one million people. The only city near me is 300km away. The next nearest city is 1300km away. Do you not have any grasp of North American geography? Pitiful. "Soccer", as they call it here, has proven itself time and time again not to be a viable commercial product in Canada and the United States. The MLS semi-finals were on this past weekend and I tried to watch them. Before you start knocking me for watching the EPL, I'd like to see you stick out four hours of that rubbish.

MLS is growing steadily in the US and with Montreal and Vancouver coming in soon is taking a good foothold in the major markets in Canada. Is it profitable? No not yet. New stadiums being built in a number of cities over the last couple of years shows that it is growing. Also, more money and proper coaching is being put into MLS youth academies A good sign is that the first MLS youth academy player is likely to get his first cap with the US on Wednesday(Juan Agudelo).

Of course the play is not at EPL/LaLiga/Serie A/Bundesliga standard. Not many leagues 16 years old are. As I used to tell my barstool friends when I used to go up to Terryland on a cold winters day to watch Galway United, "it might be shyte but it's our shyte".

[peadar1987]

The LOI doesn't have one standard though. Salthill are as much a part of the LOI as Rovers or Bohs are, and where on the English league ladder would they be competitive?

I think that crowds of 15-20,000 are nothing more than pipe dreams for the LOI, and for any of the other leagues dreamed up (AIL, clubs in SPL etc) except if a Dublin club was to play in the EPL, which is something that I pray, to all the gods I don't believe in, will never ever happen.

Sorry, that should have read "top end of the LOI". I was too busy checking the population of Ipswich to notice that!

I think one-off crowds of 10-15,000 for the bigger games, like a Shams-Bohs match, aren't completely out of the question at some point. And the average attendance can certainly be significantly higher. A club like Cork, for example, would be attracting over 10,000 on a semi-regular basis if they were in Scotland.

[Adrock]

A tenner for adults, fiver for children.

And on the standard of the LOI, I've watched my English team, Stoke ( ) play in the top three divisions of English football. The standard in the LOI is similar to the lower end of the Championship, top end of League 1. In England, teams at this level, from fairly modest towns, like Ipswich, Plymouth, Southampton and Norwich, can still attract 15-20,000 attendances.

I think that is wildly overoptimistic to be honest,; to be of that standard they would have to be paying championship wages.
Even the better clubs would likely struggle in League 2 and the rest more likely a couple of divisions below that. How many LOI players can you seriously see getting in the Ipswich team even with Roy as manager?

[SwanVsDalton]

How many LOI players can you seriously see getting in the Ipswich team even with Roy as manager?

Never mind LOI players, I could play in the current Ipswich team.

[geysir]

I'd say presently, 6 LOI clubs could compete well at mid-championship level, if they had those championship facilities and the finances for a full time set up.

[bennocelt]

And play against who? Myself? I live in a city of over one million people. The only city near me is 300km away. The next nearest city is 1300km away. Do you not have any grasp of North American geography? Pitiful. "Soccer", as they call it here, has proven itself time and time again not to be a viable commercial product in Canada and the United States. The MLS semi-finals were on this past weekend and I tried to watch them. Before you start knocking me for watching the EPL, I'd like to see you stick out four hours of that rubbish.

Well you could play with yourself that might be a good idea
Set up a team, Dublin has about the same population as what u mentioned - no excuses

The LOI is decent enough
I love football so 4 hours of local football would be fine for me, why not - do you not love the game!!!!! or is it better to watch a game from your TV - which even my granny could do - wow what a great fan

[backstothewall]

You'd swear you actually knew what you're talking about. You've already admitted you know next to nothing about the league, yet you're willing to tar Sligo with the same brush as all of the failed overspending clubs from years past.

Your sole piece of evidence appears to be Joseph Ndo, a 34-year-old player past his prime who long ago decided he was willing to play at a lower level because it suited his lifestyle. You seem to believe he is earning mega wages despite the fact the two big clubs in the country have passed on him and he's joined a smaller club (in monetary terms) and helped them win two trophies.

For the last ime, I am not having a go at Sligo. I am having a go at the culture that exists throughout the league.

I merely cited Ndo as an example (there are others), and the reason I speculate he is on big money is that he is the best player in the league (according to the TV analyst yesterday anyway) that he is an international, and that he has been to 2 world cups. Whatever about him, the point remains that neither him nor any other hasbeen international will have any resale value, and will take a place in a side that could have been taken by a local lad who might be the next Coleman/Fahey/Doyle. On top of that the difference in wages, and any sell on fee, could be put towards better facilites for the punters, the benefits of which are clearly outlined in the article about Chesterfield I posted.

It seems there are a few serious chips on shoulders over in north Connacht.