I read it initially for free. Must have been paywalled later.Originally Posted by nr637
Basically says there are 40 leagues who won't accept the change, so the FAI might capitulate to them.
The most galling thing for me reading that was the line about the FAI making an incredible offer to the SFAI to postpone the change to a calendar season for THREE YEARS and the SFAI still rejected it as they don't want any change at all.
The only option left seems to be the suspension of funding, insurance, accreditation etc. to force the SFAI to get in line. Which would obviously be a terrible and pretty nuclear option that I don't see happening, especially considering the SFAI have 30 votes on the FAI's General Assembly (and therefore have a big say in the election of the FAI's President).
If Cooke et al walk back on this change, do we think they should resign as they publicly pushed it so much?
There is just a political reality here that the FAI Executive cannot force the leagues to make the change. There isnt the political capital for the nuclear options here and the external political actors have shown a willingness to back the leagues on this one.
Like what do you do here ?
Isnt it a bit coincidental that other parts of the national game are asserting themselves at a time that the senior game is experiencing growth and a real sense of confidence and identity - back in the box then! Maybe there is a way forward with county tyled teams simply as it can include more of these egos in the senior game, give them a vested interest. The capacity for division and infighting in this country never fails to amaze me, how on earth did we manage to cobble together any kind of country???
Agreed, it's just a non-runner politically. But since Cooke and a few others are up for election at the end of the year they could have tried to play hard ball, knowing they would be gone by Dec.
This feels like they're going out with a whimper instead of going down fighting.
By giving people a common enemy - in our case, it was the Brits!Then it was anyone who we perceived to side with the Brits... And now, it's anyone who doesn't agree with the status quo!!
A cop out/pragmatic approach for rural clubs anyway may be to allow them to run both Winter & Summer seasons.
With the aligned summer season being recognised as the priority (longer) and what we're trying to funnel higher levels of the game into.
The Winter season would be shorter, but allow kids from Gaa centred backgrounds to still get involved in the game, and develop their abilities and interests in it and potentially move towards the elite level and summer season should their ability allow.
This is based off my belief that a lot of leagues are worried about what would happen to playing numbers if the seasons completely clashed with each over and playing both was impossible.
Ultimately I think this is the right thread because i think the solution here is to push leagues into the gaps and kind of make summer football inevitable.
like the third tier is going to do a fair bit of lifting if it get going properly pulling more regional powerhouse clubs into summer football and filling out the gaps between it and the country or regional leagues with a structure that puts summer football in place creates a more organic pressure to gravitate towards summer football than merely imposed from above.
I'm a touch more charitable, I think the people here are mostly resistant because its the conventional wisdom that it will be hard for them to sustain going up against the other summer sports. I think that they are wrong but equally theyll say they run a league and I don't.
The FAI has to be taken as the organisation that it is not the one we wish it to be and the political reality was that even though the vote was won, it was not won by enough to prevent this happening
I also have a sneaking suspicion that there are too many weak clubs in Ireland and that in a more Darwinian world there would be mergers and clubs folding but equally thats a really hard thing to ask the people running those clubs to accept
Last edited by Roones26; 30/07/2025 at 11:56 AM.
You are right but if such thinking was widely supported we would have Louth United v North Dublin v South Dublin, Greater Dublin v Munster etc. Passively though non-senior clubs should probably be just allowed to....evolve even if it means extinction. As an extesion of that maybe we should just plough on with plans for the senior game, confidently, and as is mentioned the minnowists may just have to fall in to line. It takes the FAI to uphold a democratic decision though. I do think funding is key, you need affiliation to get grants so set certain criteria for affiliation. In the past the issue was needing to integrate underage for UEFA/FIFA regulations but we have national leagues now if threatened by thi group.
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