Not allowing a situation where a club has to go 11 weeks without a home league game would be a start. Especially when they force a postponement of a home game in the middle of those 11 weeks. It would be hilariously daft if it wasn't so serious.
Manager: Fergal, have you your boots with ya?
Fergal: Ya, I have them here.
Manager: Ah good stuff, well give them to this man so, he forgot his!
You seem to be confusing the League of Ireland with an organisation that has some power. Any power, in fact.Originally Posted by outspoken
The FA didn't want the Premier League to go off and do its own thing in the early 1990s, but had no choice. They couldn't stop them, as the Premier League didn't need them, and a football association without its top clubs is a spent organisation. So they were forced to go along with it.
The LOI breaking away from the FAI is a daft idea. There is no queue of sponsors and broadcasters just waiting to throw money at the organisation as soon as they free themselves from the confines of the FAI. None.
Sadly that's all too true. Talk of getting a good TV deal for example is pie in the sky. The only drawing power in the game here is the national team. Until the demand for. The product is there then it's very difficult to move from where we are now. As to what the FAI could do, stop screwing the league and its clubs with affiliation fees would be a start. If they did that alone, even without touching prize money, it would be something. A proper plan to progress the league wouldn't go amiss either.
Out for a spell, got neglected, lay on the bench unselected.
Clubs with their own houses in order might be in the best position to negotiate deals like that.
Cork, Derry, Dundalk, Shamrock Rovers and Waterford would seem to be in a decent position to negotiate any deal in terms of the product they have to offer.
https://foot.ie/forums/117-Kerry-FC
A Championship: 4 years - 8 first teams - 0 financially ruined. First Division '14: 7 first teams.
Opportunity lost for new clubs/regions to join the LoI family.
I think the audience for LOI football on TV is tiny, no matter who is in charge and making deals.
Last edited by osarusan; 22/07/2018 at 9:07 AM.
Hmmmmm recent history would show ALL of those clubs have had near fatal financial difficulties. If that's all you got........
Haha ! How could he have forgotten "The Big Club" (c) ?
ANOTHER good exampleHaha ! How could he have forgotten "The Big Club" (c) ?
First things first what are the issues gripes and grumbles of this season.
Address those first. Monday fixtures -out . Moving games for TV -out. Fining clubs left right and centre-out. Cancelling fixtures for Euro games -out. All of these things hurt revenue and to fix them costs absolutely nothing.
Then you can start improving the brand.
The bus idea is good in theory but if there was a few bob like that around it would be best served with providing every single club with cameras a gantry and a proper website and YouTube channel with links to proper club stores. Revenue streams open up .It's all streamlined and professional. Attracts sponsors.
You then approach a sports brand like umbro adidas joma hummel Nike whatever.
Put the contract for the whole league to tender . Separate from National Team. You then make a lot more from replica sales .
It takes a Co operative outlook to make this work . Bus Eirreann for travel . Subsided through contra deals. You are driving costs down and increasing revenues.
Then you can look at the structure and competition side of things to maybe strike a better standalone TV Deal.
The current one hurts teams financially.
To me that's your starting point. Look at what's wrong now and fix it .
Agree RE all of that. the problem is trying to get LOI clubs to work together is like trying to corral the wind. Every clubs sole interest is itself and the first time something is offered to them individually they will abandon ship. Players, suppliers and the FAI all know this, there is no collective approach to problems and anyone trying to generate a collective approach would need a LOT of patience and perseverance (and the odd decade of the rosary)
Not as hard as you would think if there was the will from the top.Agree RE all of that. the problem is trying to get LOI clubs to work together is like trying to corral the wind. Every clubs sole interest is itself and the first time something is offered to them individually they will abandon ship. Players, suppliers and the FAI all know this, there is no collective approach to problems and anyone trying to generate a collective approach would need a LOT of patience and perseverance (and the odd decade of the rosary
We have the PCA . This should be a priority of their remit.
We also have the participation agreement. You could insert some of these as stipulations of the agreement. The only one that I could see an issue with is the kits . But that becomes a re-branding situation. The Airtricity league in association with Adidas . The MLS do this and it works. It's just another form of sponsorship but the beauty of it is that even Athlone Town could benefit in some way.
The central kit deal works brilliantly in the US but only for a few reasons.
- In the US every club was starting from scratch so had no previous deals no no club was taking a step down in money and they had more pulling power as a unit than as individuals, this also meant that while in theory an LA club would be better to sponsor than say a Colorado there was no way of knowing for sure so there wasn't a case of Adidas buying it to get the big teams and getting stuck with the smaller ones they were getting 20(?) equal teams worth equal money initially the structure of the MLS with the draft and wage cap and no relegation means that this wont change much either.
- The ownership model means that the clubs own the league which makes everything a lot easier to do.
- The market in the US for sportswear is huge so Adidas were willing to invest and the potential for huge exposure was there from the beginning due to the money being thrown around so Adidas were getting a lot out of it,
In Ireland you'd have the situation where
- The market isn't huge.
- The potential exposure is unlikely unless a club becomes a Rosenborg/Celtic.
- The clubs don't control the league.
- Not all clubs are starting off or ever will be equal.
- This means that a deal is likely to be very small and you'll be taking more money from the big clubs than you're getting the small clubs.
- I don think it would be legally possible to sell something a club owns (its kit sponsorship rights) against it's will
So unless the structure of the league, ownership of the league and exposure of the league all change and the big clubs decide to be charitable and take a hit then it's a non runner
Last edited by RathfarnhamHoop; 24/07/2018 at 6:22 PM.
Rathfarnhamhoop,I think the points you make re the MLS deal are slightly wrong in that it's only a recent deal signed with Addidas and not starting from scratch as it were.But I see the difficulty in it
Getting clubs to work together is the hard bit but again that's going to have to change radically before the FAI can do anything. The Ollie Byrne( no disrespect) mentality needs to change and fast. It is enabling the FAI to do **** all.The bigger more successful clubs need to look after the weaker teams WHERE POSSIBLE off the pitch if the league is to have a chance.
Say for example Rovers or Dundalk were secretly courting a large new sponsor and just as the last meeting was to take place Bray and Limerick players down tools over money. Sponsor pulls out . Who suffers . The wealthier club. We are only as strong perception wise as our weakest outfit.
Back to the kit issue . It may or may not be a runner but say Umbro or NB(to keep you happy) agreed via tender to cater for all the teams . The market becomes much larger to the company.
The range of merchandise becomes a lot cheaper to the clubs. Costs drop revenues rise. The biggest clubs will sell more and make more.
Loosing the uniqueness and identity is the only problem I can see with it.
However this co operative approach can and should be looked at with other areas of the football business.
Matchday programmes
Away Travel
Website and media
Perimeter signage .
It's worth exploring certainly the idea of a club website for each club linked to individual YouTube channels done on a professional basis just tailored to individual clubs.
It's done at most lower league clubs in UK with a section that you subscribe to for highlights and interviews.
Revenue streams open up
The title of the thread is what can the FAI do for the league . I'm just trying to stick to that
(Taking this from "What's right with the league?". Fits in here in terms of fixing the league.
If clubs have a sustainable budget in the First Division, isn't it down to clubs to operate within the same budget on promotion to the Premier Division.
I've heard comments that the FAI fudge on the league licensing criteria. Is this an obvious failure to be fixed? More stringent criteria on the granting of a Premier Division licence and clubs being more on board with that?
Yes, I know. Have they not turned a corner? They seem to have learned the lessons from the past.
https://foot.ie/forums/117-Kerry-FC
A Championship: 4 years - 8 first teams - 0 financially ruined. First Division '14: 7 first teams.
Opportunity lost for new clubs/regions to join the LoI family.
I got my dates confused, they became a sponsor in year 1 but only got the league kit deal in 2004(year8) but the other points still stand.
You're talking as if the bigger clubs can afford to give up money, they simply can't. Use Rovers numbers for a base, Rovers shirt sponsor is worth 200k a year and kit sponsors are normally slightly more but well use 200k as a ballpark figure, That would mean a 4million euro kit deal for the league for Rovers to not lose out and I did a rough scaling figure blocking the teams into groups of 4 and scaling the sponsorship using 200k as the top one and got a deal of around 2 million for the league, that Would lose Rovers 100k a year or 5% of their budget for the whole club for the year, thats a lot of money to find somewhere so I cant see any of your big clubs ever going for it, they simply cant afford it, and without them it'd be worthless.
The other stuff you mentioned like websites, youtube channels, etc would work but as much as I'd like the kit thing to work from a business view for most of the premier division and the sponsors themselves it wouldn't make sense financially, with the current league format anyway.
I got my dates confused, they became a sponsor in year 1 but only got the league kit deal in 2004(year8) but the other points still stand.
You're talking as if the bigger clubs can afford to give up money, they simply can't. Use Rovers numbers for a base, Rovers shirt sponsor is worth 200k a year and kit sponsors are normally slightly more but well use 200k as a ballpark figure, That would mean a 4million euro kit deal for the league for Rovers to not lose out and I did a rough scaling figure blocking the teams into groups of 4 and scaling the sponsorship using 200k as the top one and got a deal of around 2 million for the league, that Would lose Rovers 100k a year or 5% of their budget for the whole club for the year, thats a lot of money to find somewhere so I cant see any of your big clubs ever going for it, they simply cant afford it, and without them it'd be worthless.
The other stuff you mentioned like websites, youtube channels, etc would work but as much as I'd like the kit thing to work from a business view for most of the premier division and the sponsors themselves it wouldn't make sense financially, with the current league format anyway.
Unfortunately agree with the above. the 'big' clubs will only sign up if it is actually bettering what they currently have (no surprise really) and that will never happen in a collective deal as the redistribution effect - benifiting the 'smaller' clubs will be to the detriment of the 'bigger' clubs. so the most attractive clubs (from a promotional point of view) will get less than they currently do ? how realistic is that ?
Fully agree on the joint utilization of websites and any promotional oppurtunities possible but as long as clubs compete against each other off the park as much as on it little will change. a participation agreement similar to US would simply never get passed here for the same reasons.
What could/should the FAI do for the league?
The FAI along with similar associations of lower ranked leagues need to lobby UEFA to address the Champions League - Europa League balance in favour of lower leagues.
It was a boost for the league here when Dundalk made the Europa League group stage.
With the Champions League put more out of reach of lower leagues, UEFA should put a stop to Champions League 3rd placed teams entering the Europa League Round of 32.
The Europa League subsequently should be expanded to 64 teams in 16 groups of 4, hopefully becoming a vibrant competition in time for clubs from leagues outside the chosen few being accommodated in the Champions League.
https://foot.ie/forums/117-Kerry-FC
A Championship: 4 years - 8 first teams - 0 financially ruined. First Division '14: 7 first teams.
Opportunity lost for new clubs/regions to join the LoI family.
Easier said than done. Small clubs from smaller leagues have almost zero bargaining power with Uefa.
The big clubs from the big leagues hold all the cards. They want ALL the pie for themselves. And in recent years they're getting more and more of it - see the new rules this year allowing the top 4 sides from PL, Italy, Spain and Germany into the CL group stages automatically.
Uefa is scared ****less that the big clubs could decide at any minute to break away and set up their own competition so they're doing everything they can to placate them.
Again, this is the reality. given the whining from Mourinho and other managers over the number of games players play it is more likely the Champions League will be scaled back in terms of numbers that expanded, and the likelihood of smaller leagues getting more representation is extremely unlikely. to be fair UEFA has increased the money available for the Europa league but this was solely to 'buy off' the smaller League and to decrease their representation in the Champions League.
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