You can't say that Pete. If Shels had been playing Deportivo in the First round proper of the UEFA Cup, after being on a good run, I doubt they would've got much less of a crowd. Likewsie, ahd they drawn a nobody team form Eastern Europe instead of Deportivo, they would probably have struggled to fill Tolka, let alone get 22k out.Originally Posted by pete
It's the calibre of the opposition that is the primary motivation to the Irish sporting public, not the competition. Asa secondary point - the size of available stadia is also a big crowd-limiter for Euro gamesoutside of Dublin. If Shels played Man United or Roma in the Inter-Toto Cup, let alone the UEFA Cup, they'd get more than 22,000 at it. If Cork played them, they'd be stuck with the Turners Cross capacity.
Irish people want to watch big-name glamour football teams on their doorstep. Hence, they turn out in their thousands to watch second string sides in meaningless friendlies. The context in which they see those teams is therefore secondary to actually seeing them at all. Throw in a competitive element in the form of a European tournament, and in particular an Irish opposition on a good roll, and they would flock to see any big team regardless of the tournament. 22,000 is not the high water mark for a European crowd in Ireland.
Yes I agree there is an element of that - see out fairly poor tv figures for CL this year compared with Uefa Cup games last year. However our 1st qualifying attendance was bigger this year in time when our crowds were down.
Almost no big teams in the Inter-Toto so chances of big crowd slim.
TV money & prize money significantly bigger in CL. If Derry City had drawn PSG in any round of the Cl would have made a lot more tv money. I don't ye made much from uefa tv?
On the whole should teams that don't win their league be in it;
The European Cup is the number one club competition in the world and should have the best teams in it.
Then change the name. If they want to call it the Champions League then they should have just champions in it.
The proper name is the European Cup. They only use Champions League for marketing AFAIK.
I thought it was officially changed to the European Champions League. Even UEFA's website refers to it as such.
Proper name is UEFA Champions League
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I think the cup (as in the metal thing) is still called the European Cup.
We're not arrogant, we're just better.
They have just kept the same trophy but the name of the competition has changed.I think the cup (as in the metal thing
Ronan Seery used the same policy to rename his club.
Liverpool have only won the UEFA Champions League once, but were allowed to keep the trophy won last time, because behind all the PR and marketing, the competition is still the European Cup, which the club has won 5 times.
The same applies in domestic football, at least to Rovers. When we played Pats and Bohs in the glamour cup games this year, all the sleepers made sure they went to it. Yet they wouldn't go to our bread-and-butter games against Kildare, Kilkenny, Monaghan, etc. They were left for the hard-core fans instead.
Last edited by mypost; 30/11/2006 at 11:44 PM.
OK, I'll grant you the word BIG, but glamour? Yer rippin the tights clean off it FFS.
Apparantly, your club have a glamour-walkover game on Sunday....against Pats of course!
I thought this was a silly thread but recent events show that the UEFA Cup IS more important!
Otherwise Fenlon would have made sure Derry got into the Champions League next season
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His name is Pat Fenlon, not Niccolo Macchiavelli
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