Eircom/Irish leagues.

[Zedi]

Doe's anyone think like me that the Eircom & Irish leagues should get together in some form or another. Maybe like a league and cup winners competition. Surely it would benefit both leagues who are slowly getting nowhere,them more than us. Television coverage would help, have it during the off season when Sky are only gaggin' for football to show. Just a thought,please comment without any of that sectarian shyte.

[pete]

Summer or should I say non-winter football will make the above a lot more difficult. Eventhough the irish league is a far worse financial state (hard to belive eh?) than the eL there doesn't appaear to be much enthuasism on an official level up north.

Apparently supporters up north are more interested in a cross border/all ireland cup than you'd think.

[dalo]

sounds like more trouble than it's worth. would you travel to watch city play linfield or cliftonville? i know I wouldn't- these are dangerous places no matter which side of the political divade you are from.

[Éanna]

I think it's a great idea- I've been in favour of this for a few years, particularly with the political improvements that have been going on. Only concern is security. Even if there isn't much trouble- lets face it, there will be some- the bills for stewarding etc will rocket for some fixtures, so we'd need to be sure of increased crowds first. northern clubs are, indeed, much more interested than some people think.

[Jaime]

Its a short term solution to a long-term problem.
The unification of the two leagues should only come about as a result of a wider political cooling of relations, and this is a long way off. I wouldn't be particularly afraid of going up to play Linfield, vast amounts of money would be spent to ensure that there was no trouble. The only thing that could possibly outweigh that is the hope for increased crowds, and I don't see that happening in the long run. There is no carrot for us in having the Irish league teams on ourdoorstep, and until we can all get used to the idea of the international teams merging (this is a FIFA-ruled obligation on the merging of two leagues) its only a distant possibility that the FAI should not waste their time even discussing...