3 tier league

[pineapple stu]

Not entirely sure how anything in the North can be called progressive tbh.

The league maybe punches above its weight in terms of population when you look at crowds (especially away support) and facilities. But the standard is poor, technique hardly seems a consideration in coaching at all, and losing an entire European place is not something progressive leagues do.

That said, I don't blame him at all suggesting the current AIL proposals are too vague for consideration

[ashbournebohs]

Team Total Attendance No. Attendances Recorded Average Attendance
Ards 10753 19 566
Ballymena United 27969 20 1398
Cliftonville 24677 20 1234
Coleraine 26946 18 1497
Crusaders 22299 16 1394
Dungannon Swifts 12255 19 645
Glenavon 23999 20 1200
Glentoran 28525 18 1585
Institute 7705 19 406
Linfield 45410 19 2390
Newry City 12601 20 630
Warrenpoint Town 5203 20 260


Found these figures for last season up north average attendances .
Our league performs much better but population has to be taken in to account somewhat

[Mr A]

Facilities and attendances have been improving steadily in the Irish League and they have had massively fewer club meltdowns in recent times. I can see why they would look at the LOI and wonder what would be in it for them.

[ashbournebohs]

I think they have had fewer basket case clubs as they historicaly never chased the European dream so to speak. That may change with the increase in Euro money

[Martinho II]

I didnt know with this AIL that the FAI and IFA would still operate. How could this be? I know for 31 years until this states foundation in 1921 there was an AIL but under the NI jurisdiction so cant blame the IFA for doing this!

[Mr_Parker]

I think they have had fewer basket case clubs as they historicaly never chased the European dream so to speak. That may change with the increase in Euro money

Historical they did. Several clubs got into serious problems. However the nettle was grasped many years ago and mechanisms were put in place to negate such problems arising again.

Facilities on and off the pitch have steadily improved, with more planned changes in the pipeline, once we get a government back. Attendances have been rising year on year for many years now. We have at least 16 live tv games. A results show on Satuday. An online highlights show. Various podcasts as well as good newspaper exposure. NIFL clubs have every right to have a positive outlook and rightly be cautious of a project that at this time lacks clarity and has little substance.

[Mr_Parker]

Interview with the Chair of Cliftonville on his views of an AIL

https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/sport/...abels-17126488

[Mr_Parker]

Team Total Attendance No. Attendances Recorded Average Attendance
Ards 10753 19 566
Ballymena United 27969 20 1398
Cliftonville 24677 20 1234
Coleraine 26946 18 1497
Crusaders 22299 16 1394
Dungannon Swifts 12255 19 645
Glenavon 23999 20 1200
Glentoran 28525 18 1585
Institute 7705 19 406
Linfield 45410 19 2390
Newry City 12601 20 630
Warrenpoint Town 5203 20 260


Found these figures for last season up north average attendances .
Our league performs much better but population has to be taken in to account somewhat

You are right to say population should be taken into account. Based on the average LOI attendance as given in another thread on this forum, 0.22% of the population go to a LOI over a round of fixtures. NIFL attendances, based on the current average attendances are 0.4% of the population. Not sure it can be claimed that the LOI performs better on that basis.

[pineapple stu]

Yeah, basically the population of the North is roughly one-third what it is here, so attendances should be one-third as well.

That'd be one team pulling 7k average, and four more pulling in 4k+

Not happening obviously

[ashbournebohs]

Yeah, basically the population of the North is roughly one-third what it is here, so attendances should be one-third as well.

That'd be one team pulling 7k average, and four more pulling in 4k+

Not happening obviously

Its a factor but not entirely relevant .For example how many then conversly should be attending football in China Russia etc etc .I know they are vastly more populated but to say attendances should be x % greater is true . Also the strength of the sport as an industry and a lot of other variables

[pineapple stu]

True, but the LoI and the IL are close enough in size that the comparison holds a bit of water.

[EatYerGreens]

A tweet this morning from the Chairman of Cliftonville.

"@GerardLawlorCFC: Lots of media & PR around an All Ireland league, I find the current proposals lack substance and are unrealistic, some of our southern clubs joining @OfficialNIFL could be a way forward, we in the north have a very progressive league and we should be weary of tampering with it."

So progressive that only last year Cliftonville's team found themselves in a position where they had to bow their heads to 'God Save the Queen' before a Cup Final, whilst their fans booed throughout it. Because the DUP forced the IFA to go back on a policy they had introduced to not play the anthem if a 'nationalist' team made the final.

Screams of progressiveness right there.

[EatYerGreens]

Not entirely sure how anything in the North can be called progressive tbh.

The league maybe punches above its weight in terms of population when you look at crowds (especially away support) and facilities. But the standard is poor, technique hardly seems a consideration in coaching at all, and losing an entire European place is not something progressive leagues do.

That said, I don't blame him at all suggesting the current AIL proposals are too vague for consideration

Some provincial clubs do well in NI for their population size e.g. Coleraine and Balymena. Not so much the rest. Crusaders have pretty poor support, considering their level of success over the last 5 years.

And it's easy to bring decent numbers of away fans when most of the games they need to travel to are within roughly 30-40mins distance. Many Irish League fans list the short distances as a reason against an AIL, which in my view just smacks of minnowism.

[EatYerGreens]

Facilities and attendances have been improving steadily in the Irish League and they have had massively fewer club meltdowns in recent times. I can see why they would look at the LOI and wonder what would be in it for them.

Being realistic, they've had fewer meltdowns because no-one has been putting money into the Irish League.

What has caused almost every club in the LOI to meltdown has been spending to excess to chase the dream - a vicious circle which means other clubs then feel they ned to up their spending too just to stand still. Creating a widespread contagion of financial risk (at Shels, Rovers, Cork, Derry, Drogheda, Sporting Fingal, Bohs). Also the fact that Linfield have an in-built financial advantage due to the deal they have with the IFA over Windsor Park - which means other smaller clubs probably just accept their place in the pecking order (in a way that the likes of Drogheda United and Sporting Fingal didn't in the LOI when they decided that they could live the dream too.

Now that the IL is finally starting to see some external investment at Larne and Glentoran, it'll be interesting to see how and where this all pans out. Money inevitably corrupts sport, and the IL is now starting to get some money put into it.

[EatYerGreens]

You are right to say population should be taken into account. Based on the average LOI attendance as given in another thread on this forum, 0.22% of the population go to a LOI over a round of fixtures. NIFL attendances, based on the current average attendances are 0.4% of the population. Not sure it can be claimed that the LOI performs better on that basis.

I think that's a bit of a disingenuous way to look at it though. 5 of the 6 counties in NI have an IL team. Only 12 counties out of 26 in the Republic have an LOI club. So to take a whole-territory approach is essentially to cook the figures against the LOI in terms of macro-population.

Also - what tiers do those figures include for both leagues? Just the top level in each, the top 2 in each, or the IL top tier vs LOI 2 top tiers? If the latter - then again it wouldn't be comparing apples with apples.

[EatYerGreens]

Yeah, basically the population of the North is roughly one-third what it is here, so attendances should be one-third as well.

That'd be one team pulling 7k average, and four more pulling in 4k+

Not happening obviously

That just doesn't work though. No matter where you live in NI, you have a team in the Top 2 tiers of the Irish League to support within a relatively short distance of you - at the very least in your own county.

The same just can't be said in the Republic, where more than half of all counties have no LOI presence.

And that's before we get into the greater competition from GAA down south, and also the fact that people take a much more parochial view of country boundaries as a result of it (which would impact the number of people from, say, Meath prepared to support an LOI club from Dublin - just as a random example).

Finally - NI's population (1.85m) is almost 40% of the ROI's population (4.85m).

[Mr_Parker]

Being realistic, they've had fewer meltdowns because no-one has been putting money into the Irish League.

What has caused almost every club in the LOI to meltdown has been spending to excess to chase the dream - a vicious circle which means other clubs then feel they ned to up their spending too just to stand still. Creating a widespread contagion of financial risk (at Shels, Rovers, Cork, Derry, Drogheda, Sporting Fingal, Bohs). Also the fact that Linfield have an in-built financial advantage due to the deal they have with the IFA over Windsor Park - which means other smaller clubs probably just accept their place in the pecking order (in a way that the likes of Drogheda United and Sporting Fingal didn't in the LOI when they decided that they could live the dream too.

Now that the IL is finally starting to see some external investment at Larne and Glentoran, it'll be interesting to see how and where this all pans out. Money inevitably corrupts sport, and the IL is now starting to get some money put into it.

The reason no one can throw money at a NIFL club on a punt is because of the controls in place that I mentioned earlier. That's why there have been no meltdowns since. Yes both Larne and Glentoran have had major financial injections, but those too are constrained by the controls in place and any danger of things going out of kilter will be spotted by the authorities long before they become a significant issue and then a club would be forced back on a straight path. NIFL clubs cannot chase a dream to a point of destruction.

[Mr_Parker]

I think that's a bit of a disingenuous way to look at it though. 5 of the 6 counties in NI have an IL team. Only 12 counties out of 26 in the Republic have an LOI club. So to take a whole-territory approach is essentially to cook the figures against the LOI in terms of macro-population.

Also - what tiers do those figures include for both leagues? Just the top level in each, the top 2 in each, or the IL top tier vs LOI 2 top tiers? If the latter - then again it wouldn't be comparing apples with apples.

Stats can always be played with, but the population point was raised and I have provided an answer.

[pineapple stu]

Finally - NI's population (1.85m) is almost 40% of the ROI's population (4.85m).

OK - so LoI has 2½ times the population to draw on, not 3 times. Same basic point.

That just doesn't work though. No matter where you live in NI, you have a team in the Top 2 tiers of the Irish League to support within a relatively short distance of you - at the very least in your own county.

The same just can't be said in the Republic, where more than half of all counties have no LOI presence.

True. But why don't Kilkenny, Monaghan, Kildare and Tipp, for example, have an LoI presence? They had one, but there was so little support for it that all the relevant clubs went bankrupt. Teams from Carlow, Kerry and Mayo dipped their toes into the A League, but went no further. So I think that stat reflects badly on the LoI rather than excuses it to be honest.

Yes, the GAA is an issue - though they have it in the North as well - but if football is culturally more dominant in the North, well that's a plus for them, and part of the reason why they get proportionally better figures. You can't twist that to excuse the LoI's relatively poor crowds.

Bottom line for me is that the IL is a relatively well-supported league for its level, though it's not without its faults; the technical standard, like so much else in the North, is stuck several decades in the past. But there tends to be a bit of a view on here - not from everyone, but from some - that for the IL not to want to join an AIL indicates a lack of ambition, when it's "ambition" that's caused so many problems for the LoI in the first place. I think we in the LoI can look down on the IL to a bigger extent than we're entitled to do.

[ThirdManRun]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo....co/JfDxrYe9xS

Looking forward to hearing if there’s anything concrete on these proposals or if it’s all just hot air.

IF they have DAZN on board that would be brilliant, absolutely top notch streaming service.