AIPL plans revealed

[Rovers Maniac]

Source?

What do you want to do start naming close associates or contacts or even some of my friends on an internet forum? Sure i may as tell you who i am or put my mobile on here.

By the way i think is a very good chance that we will see soccer played Thomond because i can't see you develpoing Jackman to a high enough standard that will be able to deal with the projected crowds the new league will bring.

[jebus]

What do you want to do start naming close associates or contacts or even some of my friends on an internet forum? Sure i may as tell you who i am or put my mobile on here.

There is a rule saying you have to back up your claims on this forum you know. It's to stop people saying things like, 'I heard from a source that Sligo was merging with Monaghan and forming Monigo FC, a team that plays on the Blasket Islands'

By the way i think is a very good chance that we will see soccer played Thomond because i can't see you develpoing Jackman to a high enough standard that will be able to deal with the projected crowds the new league will bring.

I know this, we've talked about it on the Limerick forum

[Rovers Maniac]

There is a rule saying you have to back up your claims on this forum you know. It's to stop people saying things like, 'I heard from a source that Sligo was merging with Monaghan and forming Monigo FC, a team that plays on the Blasket Islands'



I know this, we've talked about it on the Limerick forum

To be honest jeebus i don't want to give away my contacts mate i would hope that you would understand this. You can make fun of my factual information by PM but please don't post rubbish like above as you are bringing down the not just you and me but the whole of foot down with you. Seriously guys get a grip.

[jebus]

To be honest jeebus i don't want to give away my contacts mate i would hope that you would understand this. You can make fun of my factual information by PM but please don't post rubbish like above as you are bringing down the not just you and me but the whole of foot down with you. Seriously guys get a grip.

Factual information? All hail Rovers Maniac, the new, less aggressive, NY Hoop

[Lux Interior]

the problem with the national league is that people in counties without teams have no affintity for it, which is where the GAA works so well playing on the county pride etc etc.

Is this suggestion based on an all-Ireland model? There is no real "county pride" amongst a sizeable Irish League hardcore and I would extend that to the wider populace, particularly in 'Unionist' areas where the feel for county is not as strong as that within the GAA fraternity.

However, it raises an interesting discussion. 'Franchise football' may be the only long-term viable 'solution' to the woes of football on this island but I recall the opposition and indifference to a possible 'Belfast United' (whose demograph would have been a pretzel-munching BT9 conglomerate). Therefore, I think we need to rebrand and aim not for the stars but for a cloud of nebulous dust this side of Alpha Centauri, that is: a 12-team all-island league, where each team can pull in a regular 4-5000 punters.

No franchises, though. There is enough latent support out there to make this workable.

[thedoyler]

Is this suggestion based on an all-Ireland model? There is no real "county pride" amongst a sizeable Irish League hardcore and I would extend that to the wider populace, particularly in 'Unionist' areas where the feel for county is not as strong as that within the GAA fraternity.

However, it raises an interesting discussion. 'Franchise football' may be the only long-term viable 'solution' to the woes of football on this island but I recall the opposition and indifference to a possible 'Belfast United' (whose demograph would have been a pretzel-munching BT9 conglomerate). Therefore, I think we need to rebrand and aim not for the stars but for a cloud of nebulous dust this side of Alpha Centauri, that is: a 12-team all-island league, where each team can pull in a regular 4-5000 punters.

No franchises, though. There is enough latent support out there to make this workable.

Im just speaking from experience of people from counties such as carlow, kerry etc in college who have a genuine interest in football but feel they have no one to follow...rich to see cork fans heavily in favour of these 'plans' which could potentially drive other clubs out of existence they'd know all about that given their city's history of sustaining clubs, strange they wouldn't be a bit more understanding to the plight of clubs being left out. . I mean from a pure catchement area point of view i remember a study we read in school that there is approx 130k people living within 15 mins drive of bray, plus all this new development down by the sea, gives bray as big a potential fanbase theoretically at least as limerick, galway and derry. For me both leagues should be fully integrated or nothing should happen at all, since the former is unlikely then we'll have to work with what we have and not have a 3rd party trying to fix things. Having heard the story from drury and one of his men in the company it appears the main motivation is money and thats a dangerous way to go about things.

[dcfcsteve]

I mean from a pure catchement area point of view i remember a study we read in school that there is approx 130k people living within 15 mins drive of bray, plus all this new development down by the sea, gives bray as big a potential fanbase theoretically at least as limerick, galway and derry.

No way does Bray have the same potential fanbase as distinct citiies

Most of the 130,000 people within 15mins drive (is that at rush hour...?) of Bray wouldn't even consider themselves as being from or living in the town.

[SMorgan]

No way does Bray have the same potential fanbase as distinct citiies

Most of the 130,000 people within 15mins drive (is that at rush hour...?) of Bray wouldn't even consider themselves as being from or living in the town.

Well its certainly for Jim Roddy and Fintan Drury to consider when they sit down to hand pick the teams that are to go out of existance and those that play in their fantasy league.

[Macy]

Most of the 130,000 people within 15mins drive (is that at rush hour...?) of Bray wouldn't even consider themselves as being from or living in the town.

The may not consider themselves from Bray, but I think you may be underestimating the amount of building that's gone on surrounding Bray, and in the rest of North Wicklow, never mind heading back in towards town. Everyone is only talking about potential, but now the Roddyites want to redefine potential too?

[dublinred]

Well its certainly for Jim Roddy and Fintan Drury to consider when they sit down to hand pick the teams that are to go out of existance and those that play in their fantasy league.

Agree on this one , I would favour an AIL but not this proposal as it is full of cracks and disagree with the cherry picking ,all clubs attract fans from outside their own town and county so stupid to use the towns population as a criteria.

The top leagues in the world, premiership,la liga,serie a , championship and bundersleague all have circa 20 teams in them with promotion and relegation I have yet to see a succesful 10 team league.

[endabob1]

Ireland does not have the population to run a professional 20 team league, it is never going to compete with Serie A, Bundesliega, Premiership etc..
The 10 team league is a starting block which will expand if it is succesful, I would be amazed if it ever went above 12 teams which I agree is not ideal, playing each other 3/4 times in a season is less satisfactory than the "proper" home and away set up but it works relatively well in Croatia, Denmark, Israel & Scotland while Switzerland & Austria have 10 team leagues, without looking their co-efficients up I would guess that all the above leagues are ranked higher the either the Eircom or Irish Leagues.

[Buller]

Agree on this one , I would favour an AIL but not this proposal as it is full of cracks and disagree with the cherry picking ,all clubs attract fans from outside their own town and county so stupid to use the towns population as a criteria.
The top leagues in the world, premiership,la liga,serie a , championship and bundersleague all have circa 20 teams in them with promotion and relegation I have yet to see a succesful 10 team league.

Those countries have populations which can support that amount of teams... Although I do agree, a 12 team league would be much less repetitive.

[GavinZac]

The top leagues in the world, premiership,la liga,serie a , championship and bundersleague all have circa 20 teams in them with promotion and relegation I have yet to see a succesful 10 team league.

Ok, do the maths - whats the population covered for each team in those leagues? we'll take the closest, the Premiership, which is actually not doing fantastic in terms of attendances lately.

Here's each team with its immediate local area population alongside it - most of these will be underestimates as they are only the direct surroundings of the club - so no 'Man U fans from London' or indeed from Blackburn counted. In a few places I've taken figures for the local Borough, which would include conurbations of the town proper - in reality these still underestimate the local population as they would have suburbs beyond. London teams suffer here because I've gone with just the local borough and not the suburbs beyond, and several of the clubs would therefore split a borough from which they don't actually draw most of their fans anyway. Teams whose immediate locality has been split by local rivals within the Premiership indicated by a star, and I've done the divisions myself.

Arsenal (North London) 521,000*
Aston Villa (Birmingham) 1,006,500
Blackburn (Blackburn-Darwen) 141,200
Bolton (Bolton) 262,400
Chelsea (Kensington) 178,000
Everton (Liverpool) 551,545*
Fulham (Ham'th-Fulham) 171,400
Hull (Kingston East Riding) 587,100
Liverpool (Liverpool) 551,545*
Man City (Greater Manchester, with Wigan removed) 1,000,000*
Man Utd (Greater Manchester, with Wigan removed) 1,000,000*
Middlesbrough (M'boro-Redcar) 270,000
Newcastle (Tyneside) 879,996
Portsmouth (Portsmouth) 422,252
Stoke (Potteries) 362,403
Sunderland (City of Sunderland) 280,807
Tottenham (North London) 521,000*
West Ham (New Ham-Hackney) 456,400
West Brom (Sandwell) 287,600
Wigan (Metro Wigan) 305,500

That gives us a total immediate area population of 9,756,648 for the 20 clubs currently in the Premier League - and thats with low-estimate figures and no counting of day trippers from our fair isle! More importantly, that gives us an average urban area of 487,832 per club.

Now lets see a similar comparison for the Eircom League, as it stands. I'm going to be a lot more generous and include things like counties, and divide up Dublin as if 25% of them want to see UCD. I won't include Shelbourne to divide up Dublin further - fair's fair, they're relegated at the moment, its not often Stoke are in the Premiership either but I wouldn't have included Reading in dividing London. I'm not going to be as cruel as to count the top 20 clubs - I'll go with the 12, as I imagine even you don't want to advocate a larger league. Do you?

Bohs (Greater Dublin) 261,442*
Bray (Bray & Environs) 32,000
Cork City (Metropolitan Cork) 274,000
Cobh (Cobh & Environs) 12,887
Derry (Londonderry) 90,663
Drogheda (Drogheda) 28,973
Finn Harps (County Donegal) 146,956
Galway Utd (County Galway) 231,035
Sligo (County Sligo) 60,894
Shamrock Rovers (Greater Dublin) 261,442*
St. Pats (Greater Dublin) 261,442*
UCD (Greater Dublin 261,442*

This gives us a total catchment area population of 1,923,176 for the Premier Div - roughly 20% of that in the EPL. I find that figure very interesting, because roughly 20% of the teams in the EPL - 4 - is the same number of clubs that appear safe in their professional status this year in the Premier (Cork, Bohs, Pats, Drogs - the experiments in Sligo and Galway look well and truly over for the time being). No coincidence, I feel.

Again revealing is the average catchment area of clubs in the LOI Premier, at 160,264. This, being very generous and taking county figures rather than figures for towns - replacing counties with the towns of the clubs gives us an average of 131585. The larger figure, 160,264, is roughly 33% of that low-estimate average figure in England, which of course is no where near accurate given the number of paddies on planes and daytrippers in general. Even fulfilling their entire potential, clubs in Ireland can only ever be 33% as strong as equivilant English clubs - this before the factors we all know only too well which further dampen our support.

As you can see, a rose garden it is not. For football on this island to succeed, it needs each club perform to its potential through marketing, improvement of facilities, improvement of playing staff, and professionalism in general. It needs the boost of the 2nd largest city on the island competing with the first (I'm too weary at this stage to work out the consequences of that - maybe a job for someone in Platinum One, as I'm sure they're out there reading). And it needs to accept that it simply cannot be England. It needs cut its own cloth. The Bundesliga, the Premiership or Serie A might work with 18-20 teams, but they've got 18-20 catchment areas 3 times as large on average as our own. It ridiculous to use those as targets, and a telling comparison that the other professional game on this island (rugby) supports 4 franchise funded teams and one of those a development team with half the funding.

[jinxy lilywhite]

Those stats are as ridiculous as the AIPL. They could of been plucked from anywhere. A 10-12 team league is too small. Should be 16. The island of ireland have a population of 5.5m and according to you "being generous" only 1.9m have direct access to it.
Stats can be used to prove any point. I'd take that with a very big pinch of Salt. Actually more of a scoop

[GavinZac]

Those stats are as ridiculous as the AIPL. They could of been plucked from anywhere.

They're all from the last censuses of England (2001) and Ireland (2006) respectively. England's will have risen in the same way ours has in that time too.

A 10-12 team league is too small. Should be 16. The island of ireland have a population of 5.5m and according to you "being generous" only 1.9m have direct access to it.

To the Eircom League Premier Division at the moment, yes, only 1.9 million of the 4 million in the ROI have access to the top division. In the same way that only half of England's 20 million inhabitants have access to the top division. In those respects, that 50%, the situation is very similar at the moment.

Stats can be used to prove any point. I'd take that with a very big pinch of Salt. Actually more of a scoop

How else do you suggest we compare like with unlike?

[SMorgan]

Ok, do the maths - whats the ..........................


............ might work with 18-20 teams, but they've got 18-20 catchment areas 3 times as large on average as our own. It ridiculous to use those as targets, and a telling comparison that the other professional game on this island (rugby) supports 4 franchise funded teams and one of those a development team with half the funding.

No harm to you Gavin, but what a waste of time that post was.

Why exactly did you give Galway the full county yet Drogheda were given the population of the town. Why not Louth and throw in Meath as well. I'am sure in P1's wee world of make believe all Lilywhites will be queing up to go to Drogheda. Is there some reason why the folks in Athenry will be rushing to Terryland in great numbers. Also what about Northern Ireland and the Armage/Lurgan/Craigavon conabation.

I can't understand why Northern Ireland are not kicking up to a greater extent. It appears the the Board of Glentoran have got all stary eyed at the nice packaging of this nonsense amd appear not to give a damn about the well being of other clubs in the six counties. Altough I do note the informed comments of the Glens fans on this board in relation to the matter.

You can analyse that proposal to death, but at the end of the day, you're left with a 10-club league with no PnR for 3 years. That is laughable and should cause everybody to question if the people coming forward with the proposal know what they're talking about.

I would appeal to the FAI and the IFA to kill this P1 proposal and reiterate that it won't happen as they want it.

[GavinZac]

No harm to you Gavin, but what a waste of time that post was.

Why exactly did you give Galway the full county yet Drogheda were given the population of the town. Why not Louth and throw in Meath as well. I'am sure in P1's wee world of make believe all Lilywhites will be queing up to go to Drogheda. Is there some reason why the folks in Athenry will be rushing to Terryland in great numbers.

I was being very generous - I state this, right there in black and white - but I'm not using these figures as support for how great our own attendances, but rather as a comparison to England to show just how badly off we are just for a start in terms of supporting 12 or 16 clubs. For football to succeed on this island it needs to be professional. The suggestion that we could somehow support 16 or 20 fully professional teams is ludicrous, the figures just don't add up. Even 12 would be extremely unlikely in the short term. In the short term only 10 teams would be anywhere near sustainable, and even then its a gamble. The rewards for winning this gamble - attracting the proper support of potential football supporters in this country - are huge. I want it to happen. No, I'm not particularly pleased about no promotion/relegation, or about several other aspects of the proposals. However, something needs to be done in this country and I don't see anyone else queuing up with ideas other than sitting it out and seeing how it goes.

Also what about Northern Ireland and the Armage/Lurgan/Craigavon conabation.

Its for the ELoI Premier Division

[dublinred]

I think for an AIL to work you need to get as many areas as possible involved this tactic works wonders for the GAA , the AIPL has 4 clubs from the pale, 2 from Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Derry , there is a big bit of the country i-e the middle which has no clubs. Again to be successful you need to control the media the GAA are very good at this note the negative publicity about Eircom on RTE yesterday and not a mention of the young fella who got racist abuse down in Carlow.

[dcfcsteve]

hose countries have populations which can support that amount of teams... .

Really....?

2007 ESTIMATED POPULATIONS

Croatia - 4.49m
Scotland - 5.12m
Denmark - 5.4m
Ireland - 5.8m (island)

[GavinZac]

I think for an AIL to work you need to get as many areas as possible involved this tactic works wonders for the GAA

Only 1 county board in the GAA isn't hemorrhaging money and that's Cork, the only county strongly successful in both codes. Even in Cork, the clubs in the city are falling massively behind the county clubs because of competition with soccer and the sedentary lifestyle of today's kids. The GAA are making a profit via sponsorship and days out in Croke Park, with 3 or 4 counties filling the place 3 or 4 times a year. They also have the slight advantage of not having to pay players, letting the government do it instead, and having no international competition for fans or players.