IL fans view on AIL

[EalingGreen]

Your proposal is as follows,
1.) Reduced league fixture list for the LOI and IL
2.) Increased participation in a "new" All-Ireland "league" competition
3.) The dropping of the semi-final and final stage of the Setanta Cup.
And you're telling me this is not just a jazzed-up version of the current Setanta Cup?

You keep asserting that my suggestion is just a re-jigged Setanta Cup. I'm afraid that if you cannot or will not acknowledge the substantial differences, then I don't know what more to say.

For this to work EG there would have to be a substantial carrot at the end of it - and I mean something better than being called "All-Ireland" champions. Why would Club A, after winning their domestic league, securing the prize money and securing their place in Europe, bother their arses to take part in a competition that is unlikely to give much monetary gain - in terms of gate receipts, sponsorships and prize money - as evident by the success/failure of the current Setanta Cup?

The major "carrot" would be two-fold.
One, an all-Ireland League should be capable of attracting significantly greater TV money, sponsorship, corporate support than two (struggling) separate Leagues.
Two, more games against bigger/better teams, with the improved facilities they bring etc, can in time lead to bigger crowds and increased revenues for participating clubs.
As for your point about Team A (effectively) "giving up" after the Domestic Stage, that also applies mid-season with IL or LOI clubs who are not likely to win their respective League, or get relegated.
But if it were to be a problem, then there is no reason why both the IL and LOI Prize monies couldn't be pooled and paid out at the end of the All-Island phase, depending on where teams finish in the table.
Along with the relegation battle, that should certainly maintain interest.
And if even then it turned out there were still too many rather meaningless mid-table games, the League could always be reduced to 18, or even 16 teams.
As for the SC, which you seem to take as your "measuring stick", I personally think the format is too flawed for it to have been an instant success, but even despite those flaws (v.limited entry, same clubs every year, midweek games etc), it hasn't been a complete failure, neither has it been given enough time to establish itself properly (imo).

How do the respective club pay their players? If the substantial part of their incomes is generated by their domestic seasons, do they pay their players for a 18 game season and field youth players in the All-Ireland league? Would this be acceptable to players - remember a number of LOI clubs are operating as professional clubs?

Eh? How do you come to the conclusion that "the substantial part of their incomes is generated by their domestic seasons"? If you are alluding to the Prize money, I accept that this could be retained until the end of the full season is completed.
And in any case, League Prize money is only a small part of the average club's income.
Clubs will continue to generate income by traditional means: gate receipts, sponsorship, commercial activities etc. Why shouldn't e.g. Linfield vs Bohs in a top-of-the-table clash attract a decent crowd late in the season as e.g. Linfield vs Cliftonville in the early part of the season?
In fact, in these respects it would be hoped that income could be increased, since clubs would have two "prizes" to aim for (NI or ROI champions, plus AI champions), and would now have a fixture list comprising games against traditional, local opponents, as well as games against new, potentially attractive opponents from the other part of the island.

P.S. One further point re your dismissal of the Setanta Cup. For all its flaws, participating teams still value the Prize money it attracts, since it is actually very lucrative.
How much more TV money could an AIL generate, considering it would run for 9-10 months, involve twice as many clubs playing 16 times as many games, cover the entire island, and hopefully be competitive at both ends of the League, for the duration?

P.P.S. One other point which you fail to address is that whatever the prospects for an AIL (and nowhere have I claimed it would be the immediate "answer to a Maiden's prayer"), what is your alternative? For the IL is pretty moribund , and whilst the LOI's rather bolder attempts at reform etc have led to many decent advances, it seems to have been at the price of crippling several clubs with debts which threaten their very existence.

[osarusan]

More sponsors,more broadcast deals,bigger crowds,more money,improving facilities,improving product.....need i go on

But where is the evidence that this will happen?

Regarding crowds - apart from one game versus Linfield, will crowds rise significantly? Remember that about 60% of the games will be against the same opposition as now.

Improving facilities - why would this automatically happen? I'd imagine that most money would be spent on players to try and win the thing.

Improving product - LOI fans often talk about how far the IL is in general in terms of football quality - the only product improvement would come from the All Ireland League clubs having all the best players in the country, at the expense of any club not in the AIL, which will all be screwed as the non AIL league (or even AIL lower divisions) become even more of a graveyard than domestic football is now.

For the reasons (my opinions) I've outlined above, I wouldn't see any major increase in sponsorship for an AIL.

I know that people see me as pessimistic about an AIL, but I don't see it as being radically different in any way from what we currently have in either IL or LOI.

[Source]

Im sure this suggestion will be knocked back like everything else on this forum.
I like EG’s idea, but instead of having the league split in 2 parts i.e. Glentoran only playing other IL teams in the first part of season and LOI in second part. Change this by having teams play randomly like any other league (LOI one week, IL next). Overall prize money goes to the teams placing in AIL, but European places would be split into LOI/IL and only the results against your follow IL/LOI count.

I know this would mean having 2 leagues running at the same time, but it might help teams if they are mid-table in the AIL they could still be in with a chance of a European place, so would keep their interest going to the end of the season. The other details could be similar to what EG has pointed out i.e. relegation from your placing in the AIL. At least you won’t be travelling far every second week for away matches (particularly the IL teams) and have a few derby matches near the end of the season.

[Umberside]

I cant understand why you wouldnt want it.

More sponsors,more broadcast deals,bigger crowds,more money,improving facilities,improving product.....need i go on

It makes sense to make it happen,whats the point having 2 seperate leagues on an island of our size?
Scotland is around the same population as Ireland if not smaller,so what they have is whats achieveable here.

In fairness if it wasn't for Setanta Sports or Celtic reaching the latter stages of the UEFA Champions League then the SPL would be in very bad condition.

[Big Ears]

Im sure this suggestion will be knocked back like everything else on this forum.
I like EG’s idea, but instead of having the league split in 2 parts i.e. Glentoran only playing other IL teams in the first part of season and LOI in second part. Change this by having teams play randomly like any other league (LOI one week, IL next). Overall prize money goes to the teams placing in AIL, but European places would be split into LOI/IL and only the results against your follow IL/LOI count.

I know this would mean having 2 leagues running at the same time, but it might help teams if they are mid-table in the AIL they could still be in with a chance of a European place, so would keep their interest going to the end of the season. The other details could be similar to what EG has pointed out i.e. relegation from your placing in the AIL. At least you won’t be travelling far every second week for away matches (particularly the IL teams) and have a few derby matches near the end of the season.

It's a proposal I've had before on these forums and like you say no need to split the thing into stages. Just run the two(well three in a sense) competitions concurrently.

eg. have a 16 team AIL starting with 8 teams from NI and 8 from the ROI(yes the ROI league is stronger and although many will feel the number of teams should be weighted on current quality I doubt the IFA would run with that so 8 each). The clubs would play a random schedule like most leagues except results between two Northern Irish sides would count towards the Northern Irish Premier League table(which would just consist of the 8 teams in the AIL and hence no extra matches are required for this league to take place.
The same format would be applied to teams currently in the LOI and there would be a separate Republic of Ireland Premier League(with no additional games needing to take place).

The placings in the Northern Irish table and the placings in the Republic of Ireland table is what would decide European places(well the ones assigned for league places) for each team. The winner of each league will receive the trophy plus any associated prize money for winning their national league.

This sorts the problem of having a National League in order to remain a national side.
It sorts the problem of reduced European places, and it also doesn't force a system where you'll have all(well the majority) of your games close to home for the first half of the season(which would include all derbies), and then far away for the other half. It would also mean you don't have to play half of the teams in the league twice before you play the other half twice(a system which could bore the fans).

Underneath that I would have an AIL Division 1 North and an AIL Division 1 South.
Teams are allocated on geographical position(eg Finn Harps would be in AIL North) and not what association they belong to.
One team would be automatically promoted from each league, the runners-up from each would have a play-off, and the winner would play the side that finishes 14th in the AIL Premier Division.
If there is an imbalance from the quality of teams in the AIL Premier Division this would help fix it. The teams finishing 16th and 15th no matter what association they're from would be relegated.

I'm not sure how many teams would participate in these two division but whatever seems a reasonable number. Under this you would still have Leagues run by the National associations eg. in the ROI the FAI would still run a system similar to the A Championship(except without the reserve sides).
The winner, and possibly the runner-up(depending on how many are in the AIL Div 1) of these A Championship style leagues from both the North and the Republic would be promoted to the AIL Div 1.
If 4 teams were promoted 2 would go in each division, with which sides going in which decided by geographical reasons and not IFA sides in North, FAI sides in Premier, although normally that would be the case of what would happen anyway.

Basically this is just a long winded post of what(with the exception of prize money), where I think both individual(IFA Premier League),(FAI Premier League) and AIL Premier Division would be allocated to teams.

I know some people will say this will kill the teams playing below the AIL Premier Division and they'll be stuck even more in the graveyard than before but I don't think that's the case. I don't think teams playing in the AIL Div 1(South) would be any worse off than in the FAI First Division).

The only problems I see is with a side winning the AIL Premier Division and then being unlucky enough to finish 3rd in their domestic table, where they will end up in the first round of qualifying in the Europa League.

The national Cups would still be in place, although maybe the League Cups would be scrapped in favour of an AIL Cup,possibly under the augmentation of Setanta, otherwise the Setanta Cup would seem a bit ridiculous.
I really believe it could work(well better than the present system anyway), but maybe I'm just a dreamer.

[ifk101]

I can't see any positives from an AIL and certainly not from a LOI perspective.

1.) argument about improved playing standards; no disrespect to the Irish League but it's currently ranked on a par with the Faroe Islands League. The proposals of EG and Big Ears pool existing playing resources without separating the bad from the good (so to speak). Whilst the IL clubs would benefit from playing against LOI clubs, would LOI clubs benefit to the same extent?
2.) argument about increased revenues via sponsorship etc etc; this argument is based solely on assumptions - it doesn't have any tangible foundation. Anyways with increased revenues comes increased expenditures and what happens if the AIL fails to attract the assumed extra monies?
3.) increased crowds + better stadia; again assumptions without foundation.

Another point that I don't think has been mentioned is the geographical spread of the AIL. Munster is nearly twice the size of Northern Ireland but would be represented by only 1 club (that may or may not be existence for much longer).

Arguably, the only clubs in the IL that can currently add to the LOI are Linfield and Glentoran. Why don't these two clubs seek to join the A Championship and work their way up the LOI "pyramid" instead of creating an AIL, that ultimately from a LOI perspective, is only interested in what these two teams can bring to the table?

[Mr_Parker]

This can be debated until the cows come home, but until there is a fundemental change in the majority of boardrooms, North and South, there is little chance of any sustainable long term change.

Many boardrooms are made up from career committee men with little or no business acumen. They are always looking for the easy quick fix to their problems as EG mentioned in relation to the Platinum 1 proposals.

[osarusan]

Arguably, the only clubs in the IL that can currently add to the LOI are Linfield and Glentoran. Why don't these two clubs seek to join the A Championship and work their way up the LOI "pyramid" instead of creating an AIL

lol, very much.

[ifk101]

P.P.S. One other point which you fail to address is that whatever the prospects for an AIL (and nowhere have I claimed it would be the immediate "answer to a Maiden's prayer"), what is your alternative? For the IL is pretty moribund , and whilst the LOI's rather bolder attempts at reform etc have led to many decent advances, it seems to have been at the price of crippling several clubs with debts which threaten their very existence.

Here's my compromise proposal.

The IL joins the LOI A Championship as the third regional division - but as an "informal partner". By this I mean that the IL structures continue to function as they currently do - hence the retention of European Cup places, prize money etc etc., but these clubs also have assess to LOI structures - ie they'd be part of the EA Sports Cup and FAI Cup for example.

Winners of the A Championship don't necessarily have to enter the LOI First Division so say if Linfield win the A Championship they don't need to leave the IL to join the LOI First Division. However that option exists for any IL club that wins the A Championship. In this way, IL clubs that want to be "full partners" of an AIL can do so.

I think this is the most viable AIL proposal as if things don't work out as planned, the IL can easily revert back to its "independence" (for want of a better word). It also ensures that the best teams are competing in the top division on sporting merit.

[Gather round]

no disrespect to the Irish League but it's currently ranked on a par with the Faroe Islands League

Ha ha. The Irish League is actually ranked ahead of that in Wales as well as the Faeroes, while the League of Ireland is behind many smaller countries with part-time football. In short, they're both no more than mediocre, so like you I'd want same convincing that a merged league would significantly change this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coefficients

Another point that I don't think has been mentioned is the geographical spread of the AIL. Munster is nearly twice the size of Northern Ireland but would be represented by only 1 club (that may or may not be existence for much longer)

Put another way, Munster's problems- few senior clubs, with financial problems- can't add much to the Irish League.

Arguably, the only clubs in the IL that can currently add to the LOI are Linfield and Glentoran

I think you can make an argument for three or four in any given season, over the last five seasons maybe Portadown and Cliftonville. If semi-professional domestic football in Northern Ireland was to collapse as a result of the recession, the situation would likely be no better in the South, and the Blues and Glens could look to Scotland?

[ifk101]

Ha ha. The Irish League is actually ranked ahead of that in Wales as well as the Faeroes, while the League of Ireland is behind many smaller countries with part-time football. In short, they're both no more than mediocre, so like you I'd want same convincing that a merged league would significantly change this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_coefficients

Look again.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/...crank2009.html

no better in the South

of Sweden? Europe? The Confederacy?

and the Blues and Glens could look to Scotland?

Yes by all means they should keep their options open. Their "services" are in demand after all.

[Gather round]

Thanks for the correction to detail, no need to sneer

Clearly the main point stands- both Irish League and League of Ireland are no more than mediocre, as I said. That doesn't mean that they can't benefit from each other, maybe even merge, but let's see a credible business plan first?

I watch most of my club football in English Divisions 5-7 (Conference, its north and south feeders and the Southern League). I'd put the LOI at a similar level to Division 6 and the Irish League D7. (Most of the clubs in D5, the Conference, are full-time nowadays: our teams wouldn't sustain at that level). I realise you are teasing, but for a 'provincial' feeder system to work in Ireland, and be attractive to the IL, the LOI would have to be a lot better, measured by European results and proportion of full-time players. Which realistically isn't going to happen.

Just out of interest, do you watch the Swedish Leagues in Goteborg and locally? How do standards compare?

[ifk101]

Thanks for the correction to detail, no need to sneer

It's not sneering. It highlights the folly in the belief that some posters have that merging with one of Europe's weakest domestic leagues represents an "improvement".

Just out of interest, do you watch the Swedish Leagues in Goteborg and locally? How do standards compare?

I don't live in Göteborg . The team I watch play in the third tier of Swedish football.

Regarding standards, I say the majority of teams in the LOI Premier Division could compete in the top flight of Swedish football. Obviously there are clubs in the top flight of Swedish football that are on a different level to all LOI clubs but there a number that aren't. For example, Häcken, Gefle (knocked out of Europe by a Llanelli a few years ago) and Brommapojkarna would be mid-table teams in the LOI at best.

[Gather round]

1fk- I read the sneer as much in your reaction to "the South". Relax, I won't use it again.

I don't think an AIL is a runner, for broadly the same reasons as others on the thread. The Irish League is weak and has been badly run for decades, although recent changes (reduced top division, investment in facilities, minimum required standards) give some hope for improvement. A half-and-half split isn't realistic on either playing or attendance grounds, but much less than that and the IL clubs may see little in it. On the other hand, if economic problems mean pressure on LOI clubs to revert to amateur status, then the rump might be quite glad of Belfast clubs that can attract a decent crowd. If cross border leagues are accepted in principle, then I'd say the Blues and Glens could quite readily move to Scotland, and we just as welcome there.

In short, I can see any merger only in pretty specific and stark circumstances. But one party being much weaker than the other doesn't mean it's completely illogical, captain.

Re the Swedish leagues, my follow up question is the extent of full-time clubs and players. Broadly, for a club's standards to rise it isn't enough to have more, or even exclusively full-timers- they need to be playing against full-timers regularly too. Otherwise the gap in fitness etc. is just too wide. However much LOI and IL winners dominate their own leagues, they'd do well to avoid relegation from the English Conference until they'd adjusted.

[ifk101]

I don't think an AIL is a runner.... A half-and-half split isn't realistic on either playing or attendance grounds, but much less than that and the IL clubs may see little in it. On the other hand, if economic problems mean pressure on LOI clubs to revert to amateur status, then the rump might be quite glad of Belfast clubs that can attract a decent crowd.

I agree. There are a number of factors that suggest that a 50:50 split isn't ideal or realistic but as you say the IL is unlikely to accept anything less. Nevertheless I believe that my compromise proposal, ie the IL "joining" the A Championship, is the most viable proposal suggested so far as it reduces the risks involved in an AIL, allows the IL to easily pull out if it so wishes, presents IL clubs with the choice to determine their own individual direction and protects the interests of all LOI clubs.

Re the Swedish leagues, my follow up question is the extent of full-time clubs and players. Broadly, for a club's standards to rise it isn't enough to have more, or even exclusively full-timers- they need to be playing against full-timers regularly too. Otherwise the gap in fitness etc. is just too wide. However much LOI and IL winners dominate their own leagues, they'd do well to avoid relegation from the English Conference until they'd adjusted.

I really don't know how strong or weak the lower leagues of English football are. But the LOI is much further down the professional route than the IL and, correspondingly, much more of a competitive force and capable of adjusting in a more competitive setting. As such, a 50:50 merger to create an AIL would see most IL clubs struggling to compete with the top LOI clubs over the course of a season IMO.

[citybone]

Ill throw in my 2 cent

I think have a 12 team AIL premier division with a split just like Scotland.
Have 2 Seperate Cup Competitions, there is pressident for this with FC Vaduz in Leichtenstein play in the Leichtenstein Cup but the Swiss League or the Welsh clubs in the FA cup...
Have a Irish league and League of Ireland below this with one automatic promotion spot each and one playoff position (2nd in the IL and LOI), have 2 automatic relagation from the AIL and 2 playoff spots (10th/9th in the AIL)

This should give 1 Champions league spot and 2 Europa league spots for the League and another 2 Europa league spots for the 2 cup's less than now but one more than similar sized league's, it would also garentee each association would compete in Europe if UEFA agree to this that is???

[WexCar]

I'm bored so here is a rough idea of how to go about a AIL

Ill throw in my 2 cent

I think have a 12 team AIL premier division with a split just like Scotland.
Have 2 Seperate Cup Competitions, there is pressident for this with FC Vaduz in Leichtenstein play in the Leichtenstein Cup but the Swiss League or the Welsh clubs in the FA cup...
Have a Irish league and League of Ireland below this with one automatic promotion spot each and one playoff position (2nd in the IL and LOI), have 2 automatic relagation from the AIL and 2 playoff spots (10th/9th in the AIL)

This should give 1 Champions league spot and 2 Europa league spots for the League and another 2 Europa league spots for the 2 cup's less than now but one more than similar sized league's, it would also garentee each association would compete in Europe if UEFA agree to this that is???

Agree with this except have a 16 team league.
For the part in bold have 3 relegated to two regional leagues, the top 3 from each regional league would go into 2 legged play-off with team from the other regional league with winners being promoted.

As regards the teams that make up the league use a system like this (switching to winter season for start of 2011/2012 season)

IL (normal '09/'10-'10/'11)
LOI ('09 normal) ('10/'11 28 team league for 15 months[march '10 to end april '11] with 2 month break in middle)***

AIL winter season
2011/2012 12 IL teams + top 12 LOI from '10/'11***
2012/2013 top 16 from previous season

(* long season I know but best way of getting the best teams into top league)

[osarusan]

[Umberside]

I get it.

I don't.

[pól-dcfc]

I don't.

You wouldn't.