The simple solution is to have a pyramid system, but you cannot get promoted beyond a third tier unless you have facilities and club structures in order to some set specific standard.
For what it's worth, there are suggestions out there that the third tier might actually happen next year. Local rumours here that the Ulster Senior League is folding in the next week and one or two of the teams are applying to the new third tier.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
@EatYerGreens
Think of it like this. You want to speak to someone, but his office is on the fourth floor, the lifts are out-of-order and the stairs are blocked. Meaning that the only way of getting up there is via a rope ladder slung from a window on the fourth. Unfortunately the rope ladder doesn't quite reach all the way down to the pavement, it stops a few feet short, meaning you have to give it your best leap, hope to grab on the end and haul yourself up. And even if you can grab hold, you still need the energy to haul yourself up four levels and climb in the window. The risk of falling back and splatting on the pavement at any stage is so great that the vast majority won't even try, never mind succeed.
Now imagine someone starts building steps outside, which will reach up to the window. It won't be quick or easy, not everyone will have the stamina to climb the steps, some won't even try. And even for those who do, many won't quite make it that far, or will lack the extra energy to climb in through the window when they do. Worse still, once inside, you might not be allowed to stay for long and so will have to leave again. But at least the climb back down again won't destroy you.
I assume you see where I'm going with this - the LOI has the rope ladder, whereas the IL is building the steps (pyramid).
As for the financial difference between the two, then while the LOI office is on the fourth floor, the IL is still on the third, I get that. But it also means the steps to the third floor are fewer and shallower, making the climb more manageable. Now in another decade or so, the IL may well see a handful of f-t clubs with big money dominate more than ever i.e. the IL office will now move to the fourth floor. Which of course makes the climb up from the pavement and in through the window that much longer, while it will also be harder to remain inside if/when you finally make it.
But it still won't be impossible, for in the meantime the league will have added extra steps, narrow and steep though they may be.
So start building steps now, oh and from the ground up, not from the fourth floor down!
Exactly.Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954
Some sort of licensing system...
Indeed.
But not just from the third tier.
Assume your pyramid is organised as follows. 1. You organise the Junior clubs in Local, roughly equal/competitive leagues. 2. The best of these, both on and off the pitch, qualify for promotion to Intermediate level, whose clubs are organised Regionally, again in roughly equal/competitive leagues. 3. Finally, the best of the Intermediate clubs may gain promotion to Senior level, whether this latter comprises two or three divisions etc.
Obviously this will take years to implement - the IFA/IL started in 2011/12 (I think) and it's by no means finished yet, nor will it ever be, seeing as how things change all the time*. But during that time, you require all aspiring clubs at all levels to make improvements off the pitch, to keep pace with whatever progress they're making on it, by a combination of carrot (funding) and stick (sanctions, promotions denied etc).
* - The most recent version of the IFA's upgraded facilities requirements came in 2019, though these were then scuppered by Covid, meaning implementation is behind schedule. Anyhow, for anyone nerdy enough to scroll through it, it's surprisingly detailed: https://www.irishfa.com/media/41546/...a-nov-2019.pdf
Curiously, the NI equivalent in the North West, one of 4 x Intermediate leagues in the fourth tier, is also struggling badly, down to seven teams, when it really should have ten or even twelve:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northe...mediate_League
Any word on which teams Nigel? Presumably Cockhill and Bonagee, given how well they've progressed in cups recently?
The only difference in this admittedly tortured analogy being that in the LOI the fourth floor is on fire. So it doesn't matter whether there are steps or a leap required to get onto the ladder, it would still be suicide to go up it.
I don't get why you can't see and accept this fundamental difference. The financial barrier to entry and survival is just so much higher in the LOI than it is in the IL. Please accept this, because it is demonstrably true. Which helps explain why a lot of potential clubs just aren't interested. Why the hell would they be when it could kill or seriously injure them financially?
Again - Loughall would get nowhere in the LOI, yet are now in the IL's top tier. From a village of just a couple of hundred people in an area which already has a number of other senior IL clubs. This is Exhibit A for how different the 2 leagues are, which youseem unwilling to acknowledge or accept.
Doesn't the North West have its own rather healthy league that is completely separate from the IFA?
EDIT : This is it here = Derry and District League - Wikipedia
The only clubs interested in the League of Ireland are LoI clubs obviously and the additional clubs who have joined the youth leagues. If any progressive Intermediate clubs have LoI ambitions, the youth leagues are the natural starting point. Some people are engaging in fantasy pyramid discussion.
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.
You... you spent literally years here singing loudly about fantasy pyramids (I believe UL made an appearance in some of your longlists), I appreciate you've moved onto the youth leagues as your new silver bullet but it's a bit jarring still to see you bemoaning pyramids nowadays. ?
How does your criteria feel about clubs like Ballymun or St.Francis (or even Irish Sea) who have either expressed an interest or directly applied for a license without entering the youth leagues?
It would be nice to see more clubs at any level of LOI I'll add but given the amount of clubs who have come and gone from the youth leagues over the years (Lifford anyone?) I wouldn't say it is close to likely that all (or any) of the existing crop without senior teams seriously aspire to having one.
Exactly. Costs around €150,000 a year for only the travel & food to run a nationwide League of Ireland first div team. Don't underestimate how big this is a barrier to entry. Loughgall wouldn't be anywhere near this with those crowds and would get into debt pretty quick.
Meanwhile clubs with potential are destroyed by dropping into amateur leagues. Ards? Distillery? Portadown? Replaced by Warrenpoint, Loughgall. No fans and zero potential to grow. It's a bit of a disaster. The amount of damage done has been multiplied.
At least when LOI teams collapsed in the past, they only dropped one division and made it back very quickly. Cork City, Derry City, Shels, Rovers... they didn't disappear into an amateur league through the pyramid. We can't afford to destroy clubs like they do elsewhere. Support them and they come back faster.
Last edited by Buller; 18/05/2023 at 8:34 AM.
Maybe don't collapse so? Do we really want a league system which almost encourages financial malpractice? Look at Waterford - sure we'll go bust, wipe out debts, and start again in the same division. **** the creditors. Is that fair?
As slk has said, if the likes of Portadown can't get their act together to dump no-fan clubs like Loughgall or Warrenpoint out of the IL Premier, that says a hell of a lot about how badly Portadown are run. (The idea that they're "destroyed by dropping into the amateur leagues" needs a large "citation needed" tag)
Why are we so keen to favour badly-run clubs just because they have more of a history than others?
Scrapping the A Championship was a disappointing decision. It was what it was.
The youth leagues have been a great development and long overdue. If Ballymun, St Francis or Irish Sea are interested in joining, why have they not joined the youth leagues as a clear expression of interest?
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.
When you're not bankrolled by a University and rely on attendances for primary income, it might be disastrous if you drop to an intermediate or amateur division like in NI, no matter how well run!
Who's bankrolled by a university?
UCD have been relegated to the First Division - which is a big drop - more than once and have been fine. We came from the LSL and the LoI B before that.
Letterkenny Rovers have been mentioned.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
This might be your funniest post on here.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
Out of interest, how would that work for them?
The USL is disbanding because - there's no teams really? Or cost?
It seems to me going into an LoI third tier (surely there won't be enough interest to regionalise it?) would be a lot more expensive. Is it just that the Donegal league is the only other option for them, and they've a bit more ambition than that?
There's no secret they've always had an eye on the league. They took part in the old under-21 league back in the mid 2000's as well.
They are well known to be paying their players, have a bit of local business backing, and would probably be best placed to be able to afford to step up.
The problem is, they have a team in the Donegal League already, as well as the USL, and they would absolutely see themselves as too big to drop back that far with their first team, so the next natural step would be this new LOI division.
They have very little in the way of support though and would have to do a lot to get crowds into Leckview Park, which is a very basic ground with a single 200 seater stand, and basic standing room around the pitch, tiny dressing room/clubhouse building, and little else going for them other than a very good location in Letterkenny.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
Are they any good?
I know we beat them fairly handy in the FAI Cup a couple of years ago, but always hard to tell with those games because of the difference in seasons.
What do you mean by "on fire"? Were that the case, then everyone inside (PD) would perish. If you mean that the "big" PD clubs are in a different financial league from the rest, then fair enough, but even there, there are significant financial disparities within the PD between clubs like UCD, Harps or Drogs, compared with Shams, Cork, Derry etc
Or how do you explain eg Scotland, where the Two Ugly Sisters suck the life out of the rest, yet a country of 5.5m can still somehow sustain a 42 team/4 division league pyramid, with Highland and Lowland feeder leagues beneath. Cove Rangers anyone?
You talk about "the LOI", as though it was one division. But teams coming up from a third tier wouldn't have to go straight into the PD (obv). The best/most sustainable should be able to find their level in the FD, until they grew, in time, to hope to go up another level.
Loughgall are an outlier - I doubt they'll last a season or two (max), just like their only previous short stay in the Prem, in the early noughties.
Which is hardly much different eg from Cobh (2008), Athlone (2014) or Wexford (2016) having their own solitary season in the sun.
In any case, I'm not saying that you should eg create a third tier next year or the year after and expect the top club or two to go straight into the FD the year after that - if anything, that is the opposite of what I'm suggesting.
Which is to build from the bottom up, rationalise your Junior clubs/leagues locally, then build up the best of those into a regionalised, Intermediate set-up, with ever more stringent requirements (financial, facilities, infrastructure etc) along the way, if participants are to achieve the appropriate License. So that eventually (10 years?) the best of the Intermediate clubs in a 3rd tier should be able to have a crack at the 2nd tier.
Or do you you have some alternative plan to expand the domestic professional game in ROI?
Or are you saying that a country like ROI can only ever be capable of sustaining a maximum of 17 or 18 Senior professional clubs, with some of those on a p-t basis?
And even then at the cost of occasional member clubs going bust every few years, only to re-emerge in a new wrapper, as though nothing had ever happened?
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