B Teams

[EatYerGreens]

It's really hard to see what you mean by this -

- other than the suggestion that it would be a bad thing for Athlone/Wexford to be relegated and replaced by a Dublin/Cork side because there's "No guarantee that they'd make it up again any time soon". Hence my point that you're happy to keep two awful teams in the league purely on geographical grounds. Nothing made up.

You'll probably find that 99.9% of the people on here would consider it a bad thing if two provincial clubs were replaced in the LOI by yet another 2 Dublin clubs. But that doesn't mean they think provincial clubs should be immune from relegation

Utterly pointless trying to debate against these sort of tactics. Just pointless.

[pineapple stu]

I don't agree. For starters, there aren't 1000 people on here. And anyway, while I too would like to see a better regional spread of teams, I can see that there are many teams who would strengthen the league compared to Wexford and Athlone in their current format, and I can see that it's really hard for Athlone and Wexford to attract new fans while losing 8-0 or 11-0 as often as they do.

Anyway, for the fifth time, can you outline your pyramid structure from top to bottom? For Nigel, even if you're too ignorant to do it for me.

Or are you going to ignore everything again and mutter about my debating "tactics" while refusing point-blank to engage in debate yourself?

[Neish]

“Was removed quickly”

Not surprised. It is Derry. Whilst if Mussolini or Idi Amin promised enough free stuff Donegal people would vote for them.

yet again a posting of yours is so full of senseless drivel, I have no idea what you're getting at

[Real ale Madrid]

I may just have been beaten on lengthy posts by EYG

He's been eating his greens!

[Nesta99]

He's been eating his greens!

Well how can ye have any pudding if ye don't eat the meat!

[Charlie Darwin]

leaving it just to Darwinism won't work

Feel free to present evidence which shows that it isn't likely a Darwinian pyramid will just shrink the reach and geographical spread of LOI football if you have it. Thanks.

What the hell did I do to you?

[EalingGreen]

If it's of any help, I haven't really got a clue what you're trying to propose either..

I'm with Stu, too.

EYG's reasoning really doesn't stand up.

Like his "pyramid".

[GUFCghost]

The crux of this is licensing. If im not wrong, every LOI or at-least PD team should have a 1,500 seat stadium. Obviously that's not being enforced, but if it was, it would note a serious gap between senior and intermediate football. A gated pyramid could very easily work in which relegation/promotion is dependant on the up coming club having the proper facilities. This would eliminate your Salthil/Mervue scenarios.

We have don't have the culture needed for a pyramid. Junior and Intermediate clubs don't strive for promotion. Many LOI clubs were founded with the idea that they'd represent the largest number of people possible (e.g Galway United & Cork City) and Irish sports fans in general are used to supporting provinces & counties which are essentially franchises.

Why don't intermediate clubs strive for promotion? Is it because the LOI is a money pit, or because, as I said earlier in this post, Irish sport just doesn't have a pyramid culture?

[pineapple stu]

Why don't intermediate clubs strive for promotion? Is it because the LOI is a money pit, or because, as I said earlier in this post, Irish sport just doesn't have a pyramid culture?

Probably a bit of both.

The lower leagues are entrenched in being their own little ponds at this stage. For most clubs it means a lot to be LSL champions or FAI Intermediate champions. Certainly disproportionately so compared to, for example, winning the Conference in England. That's been allowed develop, I'd imagine, by decades of LSL tradition, and LoI isolation. And that's the case even though most of the LSL teams are actually relatively new. I'm charting UCD's LSL history at the moment (we left in 1970) and practically none of the teams from the 69/70 season are still there (at the top level anyway).

But why would you risk everything to jump up to the First Division anyway? How many clubs have been lost because of it? And that's before you look at the Tralee case, which of course also indicates that once you jump up, you're stuck - there is easy no safety net of a return to LSL.

The whole thing is daft.

[Charlie Darwin]

I'd imagine most intermediate teams would be happy to go up to the league as long as they were guaranteed they wouldn't suffer a penalty for leaving the league like St Francis or whoever else have. Proper promotion and relegation would remove that penalty, and would allow more forward-thinking clubs the time and space to make long-term plans without having to take the risk or leaving their intermediate league altogether.

[sbgawa]

From what i hear St Kevins will be coming in next year joining St Francis, Cabinteely and St Josephs in the first division

2022 could have
St Josephs , St Francis, Cabinteely, Shels , UCD, Shamrock Rovers B in the first division

Shamrock Rovers , Bohemians, St Pats in the Premier Division,

9 Dublin teams , so much for regionalisation

[EalingGreen]

From what i hear St Kevins will be coming in next year joining St Francis, Cabinteely and St Josephs in the first division

2022 could have
St Josephs , St Francis, Cabinteely, Shels , UCD, Shamrock Rovers B in the first division

Shamrock Rovers , Bohemians, St Pats in the Premier Division,

9 Dublin teams , so much for regionalisation

The population of Argentina is 45m, with the population of Buenos Aires (city) being just under 3m and that of the overall Buenos Aires (province) being 13 million.

Yet despite there being 20-odd cities outside of BA Province with a population of 150k+, as of 2019, the 24 team Primera Division had 6 teams from BA City and another 9 from BA Province:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_in_Argentina

All that said, that is probably where the similarities between the two leagues start and finish.

[nigel-harps1954]

I couldn't really give a crap where a team comes from as long as they're financially capable and not just in it to boost their underage academy profiles.

[sbgawa]

I agree with you Nigel and thats where we are headed with st francis, st josephs, st kevins and Cabo.
I suppose the fai probably are glad of anyone at this point but it just fills spots and provides oposition.
No real hope of developing a fan base.

[holidaysong]

I assume St. Kevin's and St. Joseph's would be a reaction to the new u18 age barrier to players going to the UK in order to allow their best 16 and 17 year olds to play league football?

It would seem like too much of a coincidence otherwise.

[sbgawa]

St Josephs are in division 1 already, they took over Bray when they were in their North Korea stage.
St Josephs were previously nominally Brays under 13 , 15 , 17 set up and when it looked like Bray might fold they took over as they would have lost access to the under age National set up.
Local politics was important as if Joeys didnt have access to the under age National leagues their best players would move to Cabinteely (whos base in Kilbogget park is less than a mile from Joeys in Sallynoggin
The only reason they stepped in to stop Bray folding was to maintain their access to the National underage set up.
Ironically the brexit situation now makes that even better of a move

St Kevins (rumour only to be clear) are looking at ditching Bohs and going on their own into first division as they are doing all the work at underage anyway, the brexit rule just makes it more obvious a path so they can keep all the transfer fees at 18..
Just cant see St Kevins carrying on pretending to be Bohemians underage setup when you have several other junior clubs doing their own thing. They played the first year of the under 13 season on their own before all the loi clubs told the FAI to throw them out as they didnt have a senior LOI team, then they nominated Bohs as their "partner" and play under that banner. To give you an idea of their comitment they play home games in a bohs kit and a kevins crest and away matchs in their own kit.
St Francis are a decent set up but will only ever be a junior club at heart

[nigel-harps1954]

From what i hear St Kevins will be coming in next year joining St Francis, Cabinteely and St Josephs in the first division

2022 could have
St Josephs , St Francis, Cabinteely, Shels , UCD, Shamrock Rovers B in the first division

Shamrock Rovers , Bohemians, St Pats in the Premier Division,

9 Dublin teams , so much for regionalisation

I would guess that all of this is untrue now.

St Francis announced today that they have been turned down by the FAI.

ClUB STATEMENT

St. Francis Football Club has this morning been informed by the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) that the club will not be invited to enter the licensing process to participate in the League of Ireland First Division for the 2021 season.

St Francis Football Club has over the last number of years made significant strides to provide an environment to develop our members socially, physically and mentally. We will continue to carry out our development plan to deliver the best facilities and supports for our members in the country. As part of that plan, we have recently completed the building of our state of the art 180sqm fitness gym to cater for motor skills programmes, strength and conditioning programmes and nutrition programmes for our members. This is following the completion of our top quality FIFA approved 3G playing surface in 2019.

St Francis FC is an ambitious club with more development programmes and facility upgrades planned for 2021 and beyond. We will be adding to our Community, Schoolboy and League of Ireland pathways with an Education pathway for members in the coming weeks and months and we look forward to updating you on our progress. While ambitious the club will continue to build and grow in a manner that is both financially prudent and sustainable for the long term benefit of our members.

We would like to place on record our thanks to the FAI in their engagement throughout the application process and we will continue to engage with the FAI to help St Francis FC return to the League of Ireland fold.

St Francis FC Committee.

[nigel-harps1954]

I can never really be sure this is a genuine account...but, there ya go.

Seemingly playing as Dublin County FC out of Morton Stadium.

[sbgawa]

Positive sign alright that the FAI are not just taking all-comers
St Francis obviously arent giving up from their statement, would be interesting to see on what basis they were turned down by the FAI as their facilities are better than Cabos.

[Longfordian]

Sorry missed post above