Third Tier Talk - A Championship Mk II

[EatYerGreens]

What do you mean by "on fire"? Were that the case, then everyone inside (PD) would perish. If you mean that the "big" PD clubs are in a different financial league from the rest, then fair enough, but even there, there are significant financial disparities within the PD between clubs like UCD, Harps or Drogs, compared with Shams, Cork, Derry etc
Or how do you explain eg Scotland, where the Two Ugly Sisters suck the life out of the rest, yet a country of 5.5m can still somehow sustain a 42 team/4 division league pyramid, with Highland and Lowland feeder leagues beneath. Cove Rangers anyone?

You talk about "the LOI", as though it was one division. But teams coming up from a third tier wouldn't have to go straight into the PD (obv). The best/most sustainable should be able to find their level in the FD, until they grew, in time, to hope to go up another level.

Loughgall are an outlier - I doubt they'll last a season or two (max), just like their only previous short stay in the Prem, in the early noughties.
Which is hardly much different eg from Cobh (2008), Athlone (2014) or Wexford (2016) having their own solitary season in the sun.

In any case, I'm not saying that you should eg create a third tier next year or the year after and expect the top club or two to go straight into the FD the year after that - if anything, that is the opposite of what I'm suggesting.

Which is to build from the bottom up, rationalise your Junior clubs/leagues locally, then build up the best of those into a regionalised, Intermediate set-up, with ever more stringent requirements (financial, facilities, infrastructure etc) along the way, if participants are to achieve the appropriate License. So that eventually (10 years?) the best of the Intermediate clubs in a 3rd tier should be able to have a crack at the 2nd tier.

Or do you you have some alternative plan to expand the domestic professional game in ROI?

Or are you saying that a country like ROI can only ever be capable of sustaining a maximum of 17 or 18 Senior professional clubs, with some of those on a p-t basis?

And even then at the cost of occasional member clubs going bust every few years, only to re-emerge in a new wrapper, as though nothing had ever happened?

Ignoring a bit of weirdness and some factual errors in the above (e.g. Harps aren't a Premier Division club), how do you propose installing the root and branch change you suggest when leagues below the LOI aren't interested in changing to a Summer season (one actually took advantage of the recent turmoil in the FAI to revert back to a winter season), and the senior game is a minority voice within the sport ? It's all very well to excitedly map out a new structure for Irish fotball. But how do you implement it ? I've asked you this previously and don't recall a credible response (apologise if I missed it).

[EatYerGreens]

How does eg Scotland manage it?

It's very simple. The money for being in Scottish football is substantially higher than it is for being in the LOI. To the point where one league does not entail financial risk to clubs taking the stepping up, whilst the other clearly does.

The total prize pot for the SPL alone is £30m. For the LOI PD it's €430,000 (£369,000). The LOI PD prize money is therefore just 1.2% of the SPL prize fund (despite having crowds which are much higher than just 1.2% of Scotland's). The total prize fund across al 4 tiers of Scottish football is £34.35m (€39.2m). For the LOI's 2 divisions it's a total of €610,000 (£520,600) = 66 times smaller.

The prize money for being LOI PD Champions is €125,000 (£107,000). That's identical to the prize money just for finishing in second place in Scotland's 3rd tier (which is not even an automatic promotion place).

The winners of Scotland's lowest senior tier - League 2/4th tier - get £67,500/€76,500. The wnners of the LOI's lowest senior tier (FD/Tier 2) get less than half that = £31,000/€36,200. The LOI First Division involves 18 away fixtures. If we assume an average travel cost for each of those away games as being €1,000 for a decent 'luxury' coach (others can advise if that is too high or too low), then a club would have to finish in 4th place out of the 10 FD clubs just to cover their travel costs alone from the prize money. And this is a league with clubs at diametrically opposite eneds of the country (Donegal to Kerry and Wexford).

If you finish bottom of the LOI First Division this year, your prize money will be €11,600 (£9,900). That would only cover a fraction of your travel costs for the season. And all this FAI prize money is of course before deductions for all the things the FAi enforces financial penalties for (e.g, flares, player discipline etc). If you finish bottom of the Scottish 4th tier/League 2, your prize money is £45,000 (€51,000). Which would cover travel costs in that division. BTW - Finishing bottom of Scotland's 4th tier results in higher prize money than you get for finishing 3rd in Ireland's top tier (€45,000). So Cowdenbeath's financial prize last year for finishing rock bottom of all of Scotland's 42 senior football clubs, and being relegated to non-league in the process, was 13% greater than the money Dundalk got for finishing 3rd in the Irish top tier.

Is the penny dropping yet as to what the differences between Scotland and Ireland are, and why a club joining the LOi would face financiall risks of a level it just wouldn't in Scotland or NI ?

You're doing that thing you have a habit of doing on here where you come to a conclusion and fight to the death to defend it, even in the face of clear facts and'or overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

It is not at all financial suicide for a non-league club to step up to senior level in Scotland - given the money available there. It is in the LOI. And the fact that so few clubs actually want to step up is clear and incontravertible evidence for that. Unless you just believe that Irish clubs are just uniquely unambitious within world football.

[EatYerGreens]

Ultimately, as someone has mentioned, at the moment it would be financial suicide for St Michael's to join the LoI so until that changes we're just going to be left with the status quo and maybe a few jumped up academies and a couple more University sides to emulate UCD, though I would prefer if existing clubs established those links with universities as UCD have shown there isn't really much in the way of support for those teams, which I think is kind of important for the image of the league.

A number of us have now made that point, but Ealing Green refuses to accept it. Perhaps he knows and nderstands the reality of football in the south better than those who actually live and support the game here do.

[EatYerGreens]

As for Distillery, I don't think it's overstating it to say they were a (direct) victim of The Troubles. And if for various reasons their future in Lisburn is likely to be as an Intermediate club, that's partly because they're being overtaken by their Lisburn neighbours, Ballymacash Rangers.
The Cash are a very progressive club who have developed terrific facilities from scratch in just a few years. For their extensive community involvement, they're similar to eg Mullingar Athletic, the only difference being that having gone from Junior football to Intermediate football, they are determined to go all the way and give Lisburn its own home-grown Senior club for the first time:
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/sport/f...isburn-2925442
Once again, none of this would have been possible without there being a pyramid, indeed such clubs wouldn't even have tried.

Ballymacash have made tremendous progress, but are hampered by the fact they have a small stadium in a hemmed-in location that is completely surrounded by a loyalist housing estate. All of that will put a relatively low ceiling upon their long term potential and appeal.

Their crowds this season have been decent for their level, but nothing spectacular either despite the obvious buzz around the club. They may well harbour hopes of being a top tier club, but I don't think they have the ingredients to sustain themselves at that level beyond the short term.

[EalingGreen]

Thank you for the 450 word explanation of what licencing is, but your lengthy post didn't address or show any understanding of the post you were replying to. Senior is a meaningless term to apply across leagues. It does not have a fixed meaning and is not a standardised internationally or, indeed through time.

Yeah, you're right, I could have dispensed with 449 words and just gone with "Nonsense".

[nigel-harps1954]

A very good location in a fast growing town of 20,000 people sounds like a fairly decent starting point tbh. The stadium can always be improved. Is there space at the site to do that ?

They don't have much expansion space at all without purchasing a bit of land around them. 4G pitch runs alongside their main grass pitch, carpark at one end, small bit of space at the other end, and about six foot at the other sideline to the perimeter fencing.

[EalingGreen]

Ignoring a bit of weirdness and some factual errors in the above (e.g. Harps aren't a Premier Division club), how do you propose installing the root and branch change you suggest when leagues below the LOI aren't interested in changing to a Summer season (one actually took advantage of the recent turmoil in the FAI to revert back to a winter season), and the senior game is a minority voice within the sport ? It's all very well to excitedly map out a new structure for Irish fotball. But how do you implement it ? I've asked you this previously and don't recall a credible response (apologise if I missed it).

There's no doubt that the LOI/FAI have erected a huge barrier for themselves with the seasonal split etc.
But if you're ruling out the pyramid structure that is used in just about every other country in Europe (and beyond), what is your prescription for expanding the domestic game?

Or are you happy to continue with the same 18 or 19 clubs, in the same 14 or 15 locations, with no real hope of anything new*?

Oh and btw, Finn Harps spent 4 of the previous 5 seasons in the PD before this one. But I'm sure you knew that.

* - Unless you count the occasional club going into Examinership/Bankruptcy, to be replaced by a "phoenix" club in a new wrapper as "new".

[EalingGreen]

It's very simple. The money for being in Scottish football is substantially higher than it is for being in the LOI. To the point where one league does not entail financial risk to clubs taking the stepping up, whilst the other clearly does.

The total prize pot for the SPL alone is £30m. For the LOI PD it's €430,000 (£369,000). The LOI PD prize money is therefore just 1.2% of the SPL prize fund (despite having crowds which are much higher than just 1.2% of Scotland's). The total prize fund across al 4 tiers of Scottish football is £34.35m (€39.2m). For the LOI's 2 divisions it's a total of €610,000 (£520,600) = 66 times smaller.

The prize money for being LOI PD Champions is €125,000 (£107,000). That's identical to the prize money just for finishing in second place in Scotland's 3rd tier (which is not even an automatic promotion place).

The winners of Scotland's lowest senior tier - League 2/4th tier - get £67,500/€76,500. The wnners of the LOI's lowest senior tier (FD/Tier 2) get less than half that = £31,000/€36,200. The LOI First Division involves 18 away fixtures. If we assume an average travel cost for each of those away games as being €1,000 for a decent 'luxury' coach (others can advise if that is too high or too low), then a club would have to finish in 4th place out of the 10 FD clubs just to cover their travel costs alone from the prize money. And this is a league with clubs at diametrically opposite eneds of the country (Donegal to Kerry and Wexford).

If you finish bottom of the LOI First Division this year, your prize money will be €11,600 (£9,900). That would only cover a fraction of your travel costs for the season. And all this FAI prize money is of course before deductions for all the things the FAi enforces financial penalties for (e.g, flares, player discipline etc). If you finish bottom of the Scottish 4th tier/League 2, your prize money is £45,000 (€51,000). Which would cover travel costs in that division. BTW - Finishing bottom of Scotland's 4th tier results in higher prize money than you get for finishing 3rd in Ireland's top tier (€45,000). So Cowdenbeath's financial prize last year for finishing rock bottom of all of Scotland's 42 senior football clubs, and being relegated to non-league in the process, was 13% greater than the money Dundalk got for finishing 3rd in the Irish top tier.

Is the penny dropping yet as to what the differences between Scotland and Ireland are, and why a club joining the LOi would face financiall risks of a level it just wouldn't in Scotland or NI ?

You're doing that thing you have a habit of doing on here where you come to a conclusion and fight to the death to defend it, even in the face of clear facts and'or overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

It is not at all financial suicide for a non-league club to step up to senior level in Scotland - given the money available there. It is in the LOI. And the fact that so few clubs actually want to step up is clear and incontravertible evidence for that. Unless you just believe that Irish clubs are just uniquely unambitious within world football.

You keep banging on about Prize Money, as though that were the overriding source of revenue for any aspiring professional club, whether p-t or f-t. Meaning you ignore gate money, sponsorship and corporate, social clubs and lotteries, government funding/grants, UEFA and European money, plus the odd benefactor (DCFC or Larne), all of which bring income into clubs outwith mere Prize Money.

While you also ignore eg the fact of 20% VAT on gate revenues which hampers UK clubs.

You ignore the fact that with a population hardly much bigger than ROI, Scotland manages to maintain 42 Senior clubs, with a pyramid below, despite the Old Firm sucking the life out of everyone else.

You ignore the fact of 4 guaranteed European places giving a disproportionate financial boost to a small league of 10 clubs compared with other, larger leagues.

And you ignore the fact that there is bugger all prize money for the leagues in NI or Wales either, but they manage somehow to expand.

Or is that all you've got?

[EalingGreen]

They may well harbour hopes of being a top tier club, but I don't think they have the ingredients to sustain themselves at that level beyond the short term.

Ballymacash very likely couldn't sustain Prem football into the medium term or beyond, but they're going for it nonetheless. And considering where they've come from (i.e. nowhere), in such a short space of time, the likes eg of them, Loughgall and Larne demonstrate what can be done with vision, ambition and investment - so long as there is a framework within which to go for it.

[joey B]

A very good location in a fast growing town of 20,000 people sounds like a fairly decent starting point tbh. The stadium can always be improved. Is there space at the site to do that ?

Seem a bit hemmed in with the river and retail units at both ends but seems plenty of room either side with their own Astro and a decent bit of ground on the other side.......

[Buller]

You keep banging on about Prize Money, as though that were the overriding source of revenue for any aspiring professional club, whether p-t or f-t. Meaning you ignore gate money, sponsorship and corporate, social clubs and lotteries, government funding/grants, UEFA and European money, plus the odd benefactor (DCFC or Larne), all of which bring income into clubs outwith mere Prize Money.

Because thats how Scottish lower league nationwide teams with small crowds can afford traveling any distance at all and paying travel costs of the cherry picked outlier distances you described. If you don't have crowds, prize money is the next biggest contributer by a wide margin.

Even Scottish second tier clubs earn between €250,000 and €750,000 in prize money.

You ignore the fact that with a population hardly much bigger than ROI, Scotland manages to maintain 42 Senior clubs, with a pyramid below, despite the Old Firm sucking the life out of everyone else.

Most of the population and clubs are in the region of 1 to 1.5hr drive between each other.

Please don't ignore this and cherry pick longest distance outliers again. Please use the median values rather than the extreme, as its very disingenuous supporting your point with rare cases.

Ireland has clubs more spaced out between populations centres with no prize money on offer to offset this big barrier to nationwide league entry.

You ignore the fact of 4 guaranteed European places giving a disproportionate financial boost to a small league of 10 clubs compared with other, larger leagues.

What has this got to do with allowing amateur teams to rise to the top division and established clubs to sink to junior football?

And you ignore the fact that there is bugger all prize money for the leagues in NI or Wales either, but they manage somehow to expand.

NI league can expand very easily in that tiny geographical region - just as there are hundreds of teams in the Leinster Senior League. Low barrier to entry.

Wales is also a much smaller country than Ireland, half the distances in a lot of cases. And even then, their 2nd tier is regionalised North & South.


Also, will let my LSL friends know they're actually p-t professionals!

[EatYerGreens]

There's no doubt that the LOI/FAI have erected a huge barrier for themselves with the seasonal split etc.
But if you're ruling out the pyramid structure that is used in just about every other country in Europe (and beyond), what is your prescription for expanding the domestic game?

Or are you happy to continue with the same 18 or 19 clubs, in the same 14 or 15 locations, with no real hope of anything new*?

Oh and btw, Finn Harps spent 4 of the previous 5 seasons in the PD before this one. But I'm sure you knew that.

* - Unless you count the occasional club going into Examinership/Bankruptcy, to be replaced by a "phoenix" club in a new wrapper as "new".

Where did I say I'm against a pyramid ?

I'm just pointing out to you that it's very easy to come on here and lecture us all about how football should be structured in the south. But you completely ignore reality in the process of that. And when challenged as to how your proposal can be implemented in the face of that reality - your response is to completely ignore that point and instead seek to challenge ME to say how I would change Irish football. When I'm not the one doggedly demanding on here that it be changed in an unachievable way !

So weird. And presumably it's because you have no solution to the limitations preventing your proposal from happening (but you'll cntinue to lecture us all to demand that it happens anyway).

P.S. Where Finn Harps used to be in the past is irrelevant to where they are now. They are very firmly a First Division club right now. Especially as there is zero danger of them getting out of the FD for the foreseeable future. This is just yet more evidence of you doggedly trying to defend anything and everything you say, even when it is clearly wrong. Please stop this and have the humility to acknowledge that sometimes we all get things wrong (and yes - that includes both me and you). You don't have Papal Infallibility, and don't have to defend to the death everything you say just because you've said it.

[EatYerGreens]

You keep banging on about Prize Money, as though that were the overriding source of revenue for any aspiring professional club, whether p-t or f-t. Meaning you ignore gate money, sponsorship and corporate, social clubs and lotteries, government funding/grants, UEFA and European money, plus the odd benefactor (DCFC or Larne), all of which bring income into clubs outwith mere Prize Money.

This is just kicking dust in the air to confuse things.

European prize money will be pretty much the furthest thing from the minds of any club considering taking the step up to the LOI/senior game. Just surviving at FD level for a few years to get themselves established is all they will realistically care about. Kerry FC being a perfect case in point. Gate receipts are a witheringly small proportion of the income for clubs in the FD. Government funding and grants obviously can't cover running costs - just capital investment. And a quick look around the LOI will show you how little such grant money there is anyway. Few clubs in the south have much in the way of a social club - and those that do have limited income from them outside of matchdays. So sponsorship is pretty much the only credible thing on your list there. But again I will point out the obvious - either Irish football clubs are uniquely unambitious within world football, in that they have no interest in rising to a higher level. Or they know full-well how difficult and punishing it is financially, plus the strucutural hurdle of the different seasons, so they're just not interested. Please tell us which of those 2 explanations you believe is causing the lack of clubs wanting to jon the senior game?

BTW - You should send your list of funding suggestions around Leinster Senior League clubs and see if it encourages any to want to take the step up to the LOI. The Champions League participation money in particular will be a real draw to them to enter the FD at the first available opportunity #JonathanGabyVibes

While you also ignore eg the fact of 20% VAT on gate revenues which hampers UK clubs.

I don't ignore it at all. It's just that when your prize fund is 66 times SMALLER tha the money available in a league in a comparable country, the fact you can hold on to a bit more of your fairly mediocre gate money really does whither in relevance and importance. I will highlight again the pretty staggering fact that the worst performing club in the lowest tier of Scottish senior football gets more in prize money than the 3rd best performing club in the LOI's highest tier receives.

You ignore the fact that with a population hardly much bigger than ROI, Scotland manages to maintain 42 Senior clubs, with a pyramid below, despite the Old Firm sucking the life out of everyone else.

What has that got to do with the fact that there is real financial jeopardy involved in a club joining the LOI ?

You ignore the fact of 4 guaranteed European places giving a disproportionate financial boost to a small league of 10 clubs compared with other, larger leagues.

What has that got to do with the fact that there is real financial jeopardy involved in a club joining the LOI's lowest tier ? And that just survivng at FD level is as far as they can realistically see ? I'm sure Kerry FC were planning to hear the Champions League anthem at Mounthawk Park next Summer when they submitted ther applicatio to join the LOI First Division for 2023. #DreamBig

And you ignore the fact that there is bugger all prize money for the leagues in NI or Wales either, but they manage somehow to expand.

Not ignored at all. I've highlighted repeatedly how there is feck all money in those leagues, so the cost of participation within them is a lot lower (plus travel costs are tiny in the NI pyramid). Hence why clubs can get promoted to the top tier of the IL from tiny villages and with relatively few supporters and little money. Because they're only competing against other similar clubs to achieve that prize. What's the old phrase - 'In the Land of thr Blind, the one-eyed man is king' ? Then there's that stubborn problem of different seasons and an unwillingness for non-senior clubs to change away from it, which you repeatedly refuse to accept is a barrier that can neither be ignored nor wished away (and which you have no credible solution for).

Or is that all you've got?

Touché ! You remind me of the Black Night in Monty Python's 'The Holy Grail'. Reduced to a limbless stump on the ground by repeating the same failed points ad nauseum and ignoring nfact-based challenges to them, yet still trying to claim you're thrashing everyone else's points on this issue Just too funny x

[EalingGreen]

@EatYerGreens

Let's strip this back to basics. You say you're not opposed to a pyramid, at least in principle, so why not start to construct one starting from the bottom up, rather than attempting to build it fro the top down i.e. this hare-brained proposal for a third tier.

If nothing else, this would offer time (10 years? 20 years?) to address the problems of entry cost to the 2nd or 3rd tiers for new clubs, such as low prize money and high travelling expenses. I mean, many other comparable countries face those exact same problems and yet have somehow found a solution. Or do you feel that ROI is somehow a uniquely special case?

Maybe you do. Or maybe you are content to accept the status quo such that when it comes to expanding and growing Senior, professional club football in ROI, the LOI has pretty much stalled at 20 clubs (incls DCFC, UCD and Kerry), with all attempts at expansion to date proving unsuccessful ('A' league, new "Franchise" clubs, parachuting in of existing small clubs, Reserve sides etc). A further consequence of which is that the existing LOI clubs know that they can risk spending money they don't really have, in the pursuit of silverware, since even if they should go belly-up, the league cannot take the ultimate disciplinary action and demote, or even expel them, since there are never any new clubs to take their place.

Do you have your own solution to all this?

Or maybe you don't feel the need for a solution, since you don't consider this to be a problem in the first place?

I'll throw this back to you, in the (possibly vain) hope that you will stick to the issues and not resort to your m.o. of personalising the debate and handing out ad hominem digs etc

[EatYerGreens]

@EatYerGreens

Let's strip this back to basics. You say you're not opposed to a pyramid, at least in principle, so why not start to construct one starting from the bottom up, rather than attempting to build it fro the top down i.e. this hare-brained proposal for a third tier.

Honestly - this is in 'banging head against brickwall territory' now.

Please educate us all on how a pyramid can be implicated in a scenario where :

1) The seasons are out of synch.
2) Clubs below the LOI appear to have little interest in switching to a Summer season (& one actually reverted back to a winter one at the first opportunity).
3) The LOI is a minor voice within the running of football here.
4) The FAI's infuence within and control over the non-senior game is lower now than it was during the Delaney era.

I'm not the one banging the table repeatedly, lecturing everyone and demanding that a pyramid be introduced for the LOI. You are. So it's YOUR responsibility to expain how what you're demanding can be delivered. It's not for me to dig you out of this particular hole. (Though I note that I did previously some months ago provide an answer for how a pyramid could be introduced, which you rubbished at the time on the false pretence of 'political interference')

Please don't respond again with more bluff, obfuscation, segways and lectures until you have an answer for how your proposed revolution in Irish football will be implemented in the face of entrenched opposition. Surely you have some idea for how to deliver what you're demanding ?

Many thanks.

[EalingGreen]

How to build a pyramid?

Even the Ancient Egyptians new 3,000 years ago that you start at the bottom and build up.

In ROI's case that means starting with Junior clubs and rationalising the setup by introducing local leagues with broadly comparable standards.

Then when you've got that sorted, you add a regionalised, Intermediate set-up at the next level up (mitigates the travel problem).

With each step upwards, you progressively increase the requirements to get the appropriate Licence - stadium, finances, facilities, qualified staff etc.

Eventually you get to the stage whereby the step-up to a 3rd tier, and from there to the FD, and then PD, is not so steep and unrealistic as to be completely prohibitive.

Of course such a process could never be achieved overnight, but that just means there is time to address the major issues such as Prize money, and of course, the seasonal imbalance.

All of which takes long term vision, commitment and resourcing from all the different stakeholders who control the game. Which means starting sooner rather than later.

Of course you may consider that this is unachievable (though I really do wonder how comparable countries like Iceland, Finland, Albania, Wales and NI have managed it).

Either way, the FAI's current proposal to start with a third tier (the subject of this thread, remember), must surely be doomed to failure - it's that building from the top down thing again.

On which point, if you agree that that cannot work, but also don't believe that my suggestion could be made to work, then instead of having a pop at me - again - then why not answer the questions I posed to you in my last post, namely:

"Do you have your own solution to all this?

Or maybe you don't feel the need for a solution, since you don't consider this to be a problem in the first place?"

[JC_GUFC]

To be fair I think this has kind of somewhat started in Leinster/Dublin.

The AUL used to be the big 'Junior' League in Dublin mainly consisting of Northside teams and then the Leinster Senior League was the big Intermediate League, mainly consisting of Southside teams.

For various footballing political reasons a lot of clubs started to leave the AUL and join the LSL - they had to join in 5th or 6th tier. Now the AUL is pretty much redundant and the LSL is the strongest league in the country.

In the top Division of this season's LSL Killester, Malahide and Ballymun were all playing in the AUL relatively recently. Even Sheriff YC who were the AUL's strongest team left a couple of seasons ago - they were promoted to Intermediate from Junior football but for whatever reason seem to have not finished this season in the LSL 4th tier.

I do agree with EalingGreen that other leagues need to be similarly structured. Like the Munster Senior League is exclusively clubs from Cork but surely this needs to include the best of Waterford, Tipp, Limerick, Kerry and Clare leagues - you could even have the argument that it doesn't necessarily have to be on a provincial basis - depending on how many 'senior leagues' there will be. You should get promoted from those "county" leagues into a wider Munster League, if there is an element of rivalry within Limerick, for example, this would really boost the profile of the local cup tournaments, so the "big shots" from the Munster League are playing the teams left behind in the cup competition!

The Ulster Senior League being wound up should present an opportunity to review what the plans are for Donegal/Inishowen etc.

[JC_GUFC]

I think though the Kerry situation should be what we're trying to avoid - a club coming in and running the risk of losing all early momentum and goodwill with a series of crap results. It's what happened Cabo (who also didn't remotely have the facilities in place, apart from a big academy, and I agree with you that I think it's a definite help) and others before. Too soon they end up playing in front of 300-400 people and it's a real struggle to build from there.

So while I agree with your "What do we want to achieve" goal, I don't think the current setup is the way of doing it.

I also think with a pyramid, you take away the question of working out which towns can support a league team. The structure will naturally provide the answer. And it might be somewhere nobody considered before.

But how else would a team from Kerry enter League of Ireland when no structure is in place to enable them to do so? Tralee Dynamos tried to enter via A Championship but were stopped - I do feel this version is more sustainable than Tralee Dynamos would have been as they already have the structures in place with the academy and they have a greater reach than a club named "Tralee".

I've been at a couple of their games so far and though their crowds will inevitable drop they're far more likely to survive than Cabo ever were. First off the facilities at Mounthawk Park are far superior to those at Stradbrook, which really shouldn't have been allowed host LoI matches, also I'm not sure how much the people of Cabinteely really bought into them being represented on the LoI stage? That's definitely a thing for Kerry - and it would likely be more a thing for Ballymun, if for example they joined.

I suppose you're right - the pyramid should, in theory, show which clubs are serious about being a LoI club. If for example Crumlin United kept winning the Leinster Senior League but made no effort to improve their ground so were kept on being refused LoI status it could create a bit of a log jam of teams behind them - but ideally the scenario would be that players would leave Crumlin as they'd like to earn more by playing LoI (in practice at the moment that's not the case).

Finally just on the NI structure, a club like Annagh, who were in the playoff last year and will be again this year, being promoted and playing in Coleraine, surely doesn't add much, if anything to the clubs who want the NI League to become professional. There's an absolutely massive gulf in standards between the top and bottom sides, much more so than in LoI.

[nigel-harps1954]

You'd wonder if Warrenpoint will possibly look towards the LOI, if rules permit, and they seek UEFA permission, since they're being pushed out of the senior Irish League ranks.

[JC_GUFC]

You'd wonder if Warrenpoint will possibly look towards the LOI, if rules permit, and they seek UEFA permission, since they're being pushed out of the senior Irish League ranks.

I would say there's absolutely no chance. First off IFA would have to sanction that move, which I'd imagine they absolutely wouldn't as in their view Warrenpoint have broken the rules. I think there was some talk of Newry doing similar when they suffered a similar fate but I've no idea if they seriously looked into it. It didn't take them long to get back up and Warrenpoint should be able to manage the same.