Kick the league

[Rovers Maniac]

Well, why try to draw something out that jsut isn't working? Sorta like the LoI in that regard...

Seriously though, I love Irish soccer, maybe even as much as you do...but my love is like that for an animal that's lost its hind legs in a car chasing incident. I want it to be alright....but not the way it is. My point is, the business plan of the league overall is unforgivably flawed. Professionalism will destroy it entirely. A revision to amateur status is the only way forward. Going backwards to go forwards is probably the only solution...we're mugs if we think any different. I am not a joke salesman, as yer accusing me, but I think the big boys of the LoI might be. It has to stop. As an aspiration, European football will always be there, Leaguee of Ireland football might not be if things don't drastically reform along realistic lines. Reverse, then move forward...

Some goood valid points keep up the good work.

[dcfcsteve]

Sarcasm? When a speck of land with the same population as Sheffield can down European policy?

You think Shieffield has anywhere near a population of 4.2m people...!?

Holy fcuk - you're madder than I thought.

And Ireland "downing European policy" is no big shakes at all. It's just a refelction of the need for unanymity in such European decisions. If Cyprus gave referenda it could've done the same thing - with a population one-tenth that of Ireland's...

When 70 million worldwide claim Irish ancestry?

Our greatest export throughout history has always been our brightest and most dynamic peoople. That's something to mourn, not celebrate...

When international terrorist organisations use Irish history as a model?

Those crazy Provos were forever hijacking planes and ramming them into tall buildings. Belfast - home of the suicide bomber....

When we have more Internationally acclaimed golfers, singers, jockeys, trainers, authors, criminals, peacemakers, than Sheffield itself?

What - even more than mighty "Shieffield itself" !

What's with the hard on for dull industrial cities in England ? If I said 'Hull', would you rush for the Kleenex....?

When we've won the Eurovision Song Contest four times in the 90s alone?

See comment above re immigration and a requisite sense of shame....

You've got be a WUM. Is that you, Super Gretna...?!?

[dcfcsteve]

We are facing certain facts her...soccer is not, as we may be led to believe by the Independent press, a marginalised sport in this country; we are not charged with trying to encourage interest in a spectacle that is alien. Soccer is ingrained in society. We are trying to direct attention to a particular element of a global game that is already firmly in the Irish public domain. Friends of the LoI are effectively attempting to sell unremarkable sand to the Arabs....they'll just not buy it.

Unfortunately, twists and turns (All-Ireland league, fewer teams, enforced professionalism, ground rejuvination, tv coverage) proposed to inspire increased interest are all doomed to failure. I believe it's impossible to manufacture a regard for soccer (or indeed anything that we, as a modern society, have not already embraced) at local level in this tiny country, a country that is forever punching well above its weight internationally on most matters: sporting, political, cultural, etc.. It's a red herring to suggest that it's just the current state of soccer as it is, or the general public's perception of it that's the issue. It's the public's perception of itself, as a market leader in way of life that's doomed the likes of a the LoI to dead duck status. To ask a high flying society to essentially nurture a pitifully deformed animal is like asking that society to look inward and backward, to slow down to keep up. Looking backward is something we probably haven't done since the mid 80s. There's an ethos in Ireland, (at least there was, pre recession panic) that there's no going backwards. No buying second hand. The league of Ireland is, and therefore will always be backwards, second hand. There's just no buying it. Ireland hasn't shopped at the corner for a long time, not since supermarkets and cheap flights. Now...tell me I'm talking shyte. But tell me it's all going to be ok in Irish soccer land. It's not!

And anyways, any nation that generally regards the game to be called soccer has tied a large weight to it and thrown it overboard....good bye!

Absolute nonesense - surpassed only by your following post.

If us Irish just can't bear to recognise or embrace anything in ouirselves that isn't world class, then why do we support our international teams in, well - anything !?

Not to mention all the other sports and endeavours Ireland participates in. For every Bono and Dara O'Briain, there's ten 'Logue and McCool' and Richie Kavanaghs you know....

[bennocelt]

Not to mention all the other sports and endeavours Ireland participates in. For every Bono and Dara O'Briain, there's ten 'Logue and McCool' and Richie Kavanaghs you know....

Yeah
And then there is Westlife, Boyzone and Louis Walsh. Yeah us Irish are great