Ok just a simple question Is Professional Football in Ireland sustainable?
How many clubs could the league support being full time.
No, not at the moment it isn't. Clubs should be working towards building up a fanbase that would make it sustainable but the interest in the Irish public for a full time league just isn't there, and won't be there for at the very least 10 years, if ever at all to be honest.
I believe if the top teams could get about 7500-10000 fans per game, I think then teams can turn professional. The income on a €15 ticket would be €112,500-€150,000 per home game, that makes it €1,800,000-€2,400,000 gate receipts for a season. That is really achievable considering the fan potential in the country.
I'd agree with this, but teams are so far away from this at the moment, it's not funny. It would be a very small league.Originally Posted by TheBoss
At current attendance levels, no.
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Simple maths:
If England can just about sustain 96 (or 92, whatever) teams, with 56 million people
then our population could sustain 7 clubs
or almost 10 in an all-Ireland set-up
Sobering thought isn't it?
How many teams could get an average 7500 at games. Cant see Drogheda or even Dundalk for that matter getting that amount. I could only see maybe cork Derry and Rovers getting anything close to that in the future. The other clubs may hit that figure for the odd game but not sustain it for a season.
Drogheda may have the right idea of linking leisure facilities in with their stadium to generate more revenue. If all clubs did this this may allow them to have a professional team with lower attendances.
As an equation it's sound, in reality Ireland can't sustain 10 professional clubs because it is only a minority of the Irish footballing public that support Irish football, or have you not been to a game since the early 80s?
No offence but the line about if teams could get 7,500 to 10,000 a game it would work. It would of course but it will never happen, the great Irish sporting public have no interest in the league.
Maybe new facilities will increase crowds but seems a long shot.
IMO the first division is not sustainable & within the new 3-5 years I can see it abandoned. Might possibly see another few clubs move back to junior status & have top 16 league with maybe half the teams as full time pro.
Currently the clubs are paying the top players too much (probably more than a lot of them would get in Scotland or England) to have any chance of balancing the books.
Agree Pete with all comments above, First Division is a joke can't see it lasting much longer. I think facilities are decent in most grounds and really don't think this stops people anymore from going to games.
I think only Cork and Derry at present could afford a full time set up with out a tycoon pumping his money into them.
Last edited by Rovers Maniac; 30/06/2008 at 4:11 PM.
I'm agreeing with that, my point was that, even if we got attendances up to the levels equivalent to the English attendance-per-capita, then that could still only sustain 7 professional teams - not nearly enough for a viable league
That's why we have to look at other ways of sustainable incomes for teams here - having big business people behind clubs can be a great way to develop infrastructure, but they will do well to see any monetary returns.
The Drogs model (if it happens) seems a good idea for the long run.
Official FAI policy seems to be trying to build around the Bord na gCon model (minus the legal bills & fraud) & I can see them being more inclinded to invest the money that is there on a smaller number of clubs. For no more E100m you could get 12 * 10k stadiums - in reality would be less as some clubs already have their own money by selling existing land. In the last 10 years the state has invested a lot more than E100m with Bord na gCon.
Population of England is about 49m - 56m is an old figure for the UK (now about 60m)
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I know at the moment that the possibility of that happening are almost non-existent with fans in Ireland more concerned about supporting Man Utd and Liverpool. That is the problem, if there was some way to encourage those fans to support local League of Ireland teams that would be amazing but thats the problem that needs to be addressed somehow.
If we didnt have a 'tycoon' pumping money into us right now we'd be gone back part-time
An all island 14 team league is possible to sustain full time but you would need a good regional dispersion of teams. A ten team league with 5 Dub teams (potentially 6) which is what is going to happen soon will be a disaster. But hey, they are doing it on the pitch so you cant begrudge them.
Any potential league needs a couple of strong regional teams (we're going downhill, scumdalk seem to want to stay in the 1st, Athlone - well I dont know whats going on there, Galway are in freefall, Limerick could come good but probably wont be until the year 2030, Harps have potential but are stuck in yo yo mode (like we were), the Blaahs looked like they were going to be a force a few years ago but now are back in their old habits, theres potential in Wexford but probably not for a while yet, Longford seem to have collapsed or are they simply restructuring? If Cobh can build on what they are trying to achieve they could come good, would love to see a strong Monaghan as fellow north easters but sincerely doubt it, Kildare, well they're only new so they still are finding their feet.. (maybe??) Sligo seems healthy enough and Bray will always be floating around punching above their weight)
So whats the solution? Well I dont know, but its quite possible in a couple of years the Premier could be:
Bohs, Shels, Shams, Pats, UCD, SF, Derry, Cork, Drogs, Bray
Which is 6 teams from a 15 KM radius (or 8 from a 60KM radius) then you have Cork and Derry who are polar opposites of the country!!!
All these teams playing each other 4 times a year!? Boring.
A professional league in this instance would never survive.
Mind you, part time football has been around for 80 odd years... what was so bad about it? If facilities improve so people can watch a game in comfort + safety then I'll be happy enough.
it dosent look like it - the crowds are not there. plus the facilities are to poor at the minute. when you have got less than 1000 people turning up for a premier league game then it cant work long term.
You really need to define exactly what you mean or expect from a full time league. It's definitely possible if you want a full time league that doesn't attract the current level of players. You just have to look at the Conference and lower in England, clubs are full time, attract crowds not dissimilar to here but the only highlight they might have in a season is a good FA Cup run.
I remember a conversation a couple of years back that I had with one of the former directors of Pats who said that an average home gate of 3,000 would be enough to see the club break even with their full-time setup (this was around the time that a couple of thousand people signed a petition saying they wanted Pats to stay in Richmond but less than half of them were turning up to matches).
I have never been fully convinced that the league benefits overall from so many players being full time. Sure it helps develop some of the younger players more and improves fitness, but to a large extent we just end up paying the same players who'd be in the league anyway far more money than we can really afford. I believe that a club can be professional without being completely full time. Last year Harps trained almost as much as they do now and it worked well- fitness and sharpness were very good despite the players having other work. Derry City and St Pats have used similar setups in the past also. In the interim at least I think that sort of 'halfway house' model would be a good answer for many of the clubs, but at the moment the obsession with going full-time means we're seeing quite a few clubs land themselves in serious financial difficulty.
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