Tonights Match

[Poor Student]

Maybe Limerick or Dundalk as well? To be fair, I can't see how the team topping the first division will be denied a place, and possibly the same for second placed team.

Read the above. This season's stuff only makes up a fraction. You're suggesting subjectivity on the most objective part of the ranking process. Wherever a club finishes they'll be allocated so much ranking points and that's that. If they are deemed crap off the field and have a bad record over the last few seasons then this season can't help you.

[monkey magic]

Mainly because they're hardly setting the first division alight - they're off-pitch structures are excellent though as far as I'm aware.

I can't include everyone - but I would suspect that at present the ones I did mention are all ahead of Galway in the pecking order.

with a 4th a 6th and a 5th place over the last few years, as well as 2 FAI Cups and a league cup - I'd consider longford to be fairly certain of their spot. What is it that makes you doubtful?

mainly our "potential" fanbase or lack of it. from what i can gather potential is gonna count for a hell of a lot more than previous exploits, and as someone said previous results count for little

[nshoop]

Read the above. This season's stuff only makes up a fraction. You're suggesting subjectivity on the most objective part of the ranking process. Wherever a club finishes they'll be allocated so much ranking points and that's that. If they are deemed crap off the field and have a bad record over the last few seasons then this season can't help you.

I have to agree.I can't see limerick getting a place,even if they are runners up!

[Red&White]

Fair enough, it's inevitable some clubs are going to feel hard done by.

[pineapple stu]

Whatever about the fairness and objectiveness of the off field criteria, there's a rigid enough ranking system in place.

There's not really. There's been no outlining of the off-field marks other than to say that they're out of 100, etc. Hypothetically, there's no reason why the FAI can't given 100 marks to teams they want in the Premier and 0 to teams they don't want. The on-field stuff is only worth 360 marks (as you're guaranteed 140 marks), so the off-field could be a good bit more than 50% too. They can pick and choose as they want and come up with some figures to back up their decisions.

[Poor Student]

Stu I just mean there was a reasonably structured approach to it. Obviously within the off the field criteria there's a huge vagueness. I don't agree with it, but it is happening.

[pineapple stu]

There's a structured approach to the on-field stuff. There's no structured approach, to all intents and purposes, to the off-field stuff. We know where marks are going, but we don't know how to get those marks.