How much would a set of hardened Europa League mercenaries, let's say 3 or 4 to calm the squad, give a sense of composure during european matches and counter the inferiority complex of LOI players cost?
I imagine quite a lot. The other option is to stop loosing players to league 1 teams, which would also cost quiet a lot. There's no way around the fact that a proper league needs a pretty insane amount of cash.
oh boy I'm not good at football forums
The fact that two clubs are owned or partly owned by billionaires means they at least should have the resources to compete.
Last edited by D24Saint; 17/07/2022 at 11:41 AM.
That's for Pat's, just to clarify.Originally Posted by D24Saint
Sligo have -
Raków Czestochowa (POL) / Astana (KAZ)
İstanbul Başakşehir (TUR) / Maccabi Netanya (ISR)
Valmiera (LVA) / Shkëndija (MKD)
Sparta Praha (CZE) / Viking (NOR)
That'd almost make you want to lose to Motherwell to be honest.
Scottish football is mad. Motherwell's average attendance last season was 5,174 - higher than all our clubs, but not massively higher than some tbh. And they have a big stadium that they never fill (capacity almost 14,000), so unlike some LOI clubs their average isn't supressed by sell-out games. Yet the gap in standards we're likely to see between Motherwell and Sligo is a lot hgher than the gap in crowds would suggest. Motherwel is an unglamorous shiit-hole former steel town on the edge of Glasgow in an area where everyone supports Rangers over local football. Yet somehow they can aurvive consistently in Scotland's top tier on crowds of 5,000. How the hell do they do it ?
Last edited by EatYerGreens; 17/07/2022 at 12:03 PM.
Apologies I should have stated that.
£2.5m in prize money for finishing fourth would go a long way towards that.
Ticket prices at £25 for an adult are twice the typical LoI ticket price of €15, so if their crowds are twice the LoI's, gate receipts would be four times ours.
Those are two big factors to start off with
BrilliantI can see the local tourist board putting that on their website. That description sounds familiar to my old haunt of Hartlepool in England. Just swap Rangers for Newcastle United.
True. Fourth place was unusual for Motherwell - though even finishing lower-mid-table in Scotland gets you £1m-£1.5m. Once the FAI sort their finances out, and hopefully IRL reach a major tournament again, they need to be put under serious pressure to increase prize money in the LOI.
True again - though they lose 20% of it all through VAT, which our clubs don't face. But then obviously gain 15% on the exchange rate. God knows why people are prepared to pay £25 to watch the likes of Motherwell play Ross County, Livingston or St Mirren. And then balanced against all of that is the significantly higher costs to field a competitive team in Scotland. So Motherwell may have much higher income - but they're also having to spend a much higher amount to finish 4th and get into Europe in the first place. So it probably all balances out broadly in the end (?)
Well it balances out with a better team, better facilities and a better setup of course.
The FAI finances are key for sure. I think FAI income grew from 10m to 40m under Delaney (give or take). That's mostly because football grew in popularity in that time and has little enough to do with Delaney. But the LoI has seen feck all of that. Total prize money was 600k last year, which is less than it was in the 00s.
Take 5m of the FAI's increased income and add it to LoI prize money and you'd see a difference - not just in increased club budgets, but it'd also generate extra money in better European results and higher transfer fees, and feed better into the national team (all of which we saw during the 00s).
LoI representation in the national team has dropped off a lot lately - you've still got Coleman/McClean/Stevens from the peak years, and Bazunu of course, but other than that there's Ogbene (still surprising that it's the same guy who played for Limerick), and then Manning, McGrath, Curtis, Scales, Horgan and Talbot, all of whom are very much on the periphery of things and probably only Manning and McGrath can be considered real squad options at the moment.
I really think we sell ourselves short in the LOI when it comes to ticket prices. I cringe when I hear people complain about potential price rises. If we want a football industry in this country then we need to pay for it.
€20 for tickets is not outrageous and maybe €25 for premium tickets.
But what I mean is it balances out in the 'how they hell do they afford it with only 5,000 supporters' bit ? Higher income - yes. But a lot higher costs too. Surprising that such an unglamorous team in an area with massively bigger clubs on their doorsteps can stay at the top table consistently against the odds. They haven't won anything in over 30yrs either.
I'd disagree. Those sorts of prices make sense if you take the British game as your cue. But not if you look elsewhere in Europe. German football in particular is very reasonably priced, despite being the richest country in Europe and one of its best leagues. The absence of greedy international owners there plays no small part in that fact.
We won't build a football industry in Ireland by shaking down the small existing number of fans for more money. Only by expanding that fanbase, and the FAI putting more prize money into the game, will it grow. And increaisng prices would make it harder to achieve supporter growth.
I think the future for the LOI is actually in being the antithesis of the English/British game. Community-owned and rooted clubs charging reasonable prices for tickets and shirts, vs the bloated global greed machines of English football. We'll never be like them no matter how hard we try, so better off taking a completely different direction in order to fashion our own strong identity.
Ah, fair enough.
I mean, £2.5m before a ball is kicked is a lot. Solidarity payments are presumably much higher (edit - £250k annually if you don't reach Europe it seems.) A good Cup run would add more too (imagine splitting an Ibrox gate). Their record transfer fee is £3m for David Turnbull to Celtic in 2020. It's all different level stuff.
And Scottish football I'd say has a deep tradition, which equates to mindlessly attending games at £25 a pop when you know Celtic or Rangers are going to win everything anyway. I'd say that counts for a lot too. I agree it sounds a lot to pay every second week to watch a fairly nondescript team
Last edited by pineapple stu; 17/07/2022 at 2:58 PM.
Yeah, that's fair enough. But I'm not sure that price is the biggest factor on attendances though. I remember years ago when TNB let everyone into TX for free in a game against Drogs and only about 2500 went.
I completely take the point about not gouging the same loyal fans over and over alright though. However, I think I would reward the season tickets holders with discounts though.
My season ticket this year works out at an average of €13.20 per game, or 16 games for the price of about 14. So if I miss more than two games, it's worse value.
Anyway, I degress.
We will be waiting along time for the FAI to up the prize money, and with the levels of inflation at the moment, clubs ate going to have to raise revenue somehow.
I think the tickets are too cheap in general. When you look a the prices people are paying for shows and concerts these days. We put up the main stand to twenty this season. The European game is €25. The thing that holds clubs back when it comes to price increases is the rubbish facilities. If you could have decent food , toilets & bar you could sell it as a proper night out. I know interest in the greyhounds have waned in recent years but they got good crowds for years due to their facilities. The people going largely had no knowledge or great passion for the sport.
I think we have to consider the facilities were are paying in to when setting prices. You could probably justify price increases for Tallaght, Turners Cross and maybe The Showgrounds and Brandywell. Couple of others too. But Oriel, United Park, Tolka et al you are limited in how you can price games or introduce premium tickets. Its not a given that clubs must price things relatively similar but there could be plenty of people that would balk at paying €10-15 more at one club compared to another and I dont think the reasoning of 'it is a better facility to watch games in Tallaght' would be just accepted. Whether we have some sort of acceptance of poor facilities or that LoI fans are pretty low maintenance I dont know, but I enjoy match night at most grounds United Park being one but dont know if Id be that happy if there was a significant increase in costs. With Oriel, for example, what you may gain at the turnstiles you could lose in bar takings.
We'd have to be more imaginative in how ticket price increases would be presented and justified.
Last edited by Nesta99; 17/07/2022 at 6:22 PM.
They we charging €25 one time for seats in the small stand in United Park.
Plus they are guaranteed 4 full houses every season with old firm visits, plus same as most UK clubs unlike Irish football (at times), a run of home form poor results won't really effect their next crowd.
But............Motherwell is certainly not Edinburgh and its 'challenging' to tourists, been once, its a tough old town, decent stadium though, good facilities at Fir Park.
#DundalkFC - First Irish club to win an away game in Europe (1963), only Irish club to win a game / points in Europa League Group Stage (2016).
I remember, and there was a lot of negative publicity about it. LMFM had a field day with Drog reps, supporters, SVP on their current affairs show. They were the only seats available, most people were ok with terrace tickets, but it was really pushing the limits on what even the regulars in that seated area were ok with.
I'm not even sure they sell out against the Old Firm clubs either? They only give away fans one of the 4 stands at Fir Park, and I've definitely seen those fixtures on TV with empty seats in the home end.
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