10 team or 12 team league

[sullanefc]

Eh? That makes no sense! Playing away when your rivals are playing at home on the last day happens in every league.

Maybe I didn't explain myself properly, but what is fair about playing your 17th away game (on the final day of the season) when the team who you are challenging for the title have only played 16 away games, and are playing their 17th home game. The 11 team league isn't ideal but I think it would be better than 12.

Having your season finished when your rivals are playing on the last day and know wxactly what they have to do to win the league (or whatever the case) happens nowhere, and hasn't happened since those kind of games started being rigged ('82 West Germany v. Austria springs to mind). I'm not suggesting that that kind of thing would happen here, but can you imagine the reaction from Cork fans if Bohs lost 4-0 at home to Shels (as they did a couple of years ago) when Shels needed to win by four goals to win the league? It just leaves things open to abuse. Odd number of teams is no good at all.

There is always an uneven number of teams in the qualifying stages of Euro Cups and world cups and it works.

[sullanefc]

consider this:

16 team premier.30 games a year

10 team 1st division.
use the 1st div ,not as a graveyard, but as a breeding ground for ambitious smaller clubs who wish to compete at a higher level. (that includes sh!t teams already in the EL like monaghan btw)

allow ambitious junior clubs access to 1st div. ie allow the likes of kerry league, mullingar utd, birr town, rockmount, newbridge town etc to apply for the 4 vacant spots in the 1st div. to make up 10 teams.

so the premier would look like:

Rovers
cork
derry
longford
harps
bray
ucd
drogheda
waterford
sligo
galway
dundalk
athlone
pats
shels
gypos


bottom of premier automatically down. 2nd bottom (and possibly 3rd bottom [to make it interesting]) play off v 2nd in 1st div for promotion to premier

the 1st div
cobh
monaghan
limerick
kilkenny
kildare
dublin franchise city
kerry league (eg)
mullingar utd (eg)
rockmount (eg)
birr town (eg)

1st div teams play each other 4 times.
champions of leinter senior, munster senior and connacht/ulster senior leagues can gain promotion to 1st div via playoffs v each other and bottom team in 1st div.,subject to requirements (ground etc.). This will facilitate ambitious smaller clubs who want to play at a higher level

if not enough clubs can be found to take a position in the new 1st div. then allow premier clubs put out reserve sides in the 1st.this happens a lot in spain for example.these reserve teams,like in spain, would be barred from playing in the premier if their 1st team already plays in it (which would make promotion easier for the "proper" 1st div teams,meaning it is less likely to result in the graveyard effect than now)

Some very good ideas in there

[pineapple stu]

There is always an uneven number of teams in the qualifying stages of Euro Cups and world cups and it works.

I think that's silly as well, so at least I'm consistent! There's also an uneven number of teams in the international qualifiers, but you'll note that it's always the worst team who doesn't play on the last day.

Bottom line though - there's a reason no half-way decent league in the world has an odd number of teams in it...

allow ambitious junior clubs access to 1st div. ie allow the likes of kerry league, mullingar utd, birr town, rockmount, newbridge town

Problem with that is that there are no ambitious junior clubs. They were hardly beating a path to get into theleague when St Francis left? Cobh have very small crowds because of the Cork City influence - Rockmount would likely suffer similarily. Newbridge are, to all extents and purposes, Kildare County so wouldn't enter. Surely Mullingar and Birr are too small to ever add anything to the Premier? I know those are just samples you've picked, but I think the bottom line is that teams don't want to enter the eL. Which means we're stuck with the 22 teams. Maybe travelling costs is a problem, in which case a First Division North and South could be looked into, but otherwise, you're looking at how best to arrange 22 teams into two divisions...