Professional Football league is it sustainable in this country?

[Duggie]

if the league isnt full time its going no where really. even from the point of europe. look how bohs mauled rhyl over two legs. do we want to go back to been like rhyl ? part time is just like a hobby.

[Titan]

It depends on how you define full time. If full time is 30 full tie players on €5k a week and all the full time admin staff that goes with it then it probably isnt going to be ever sustainable.

On the other hand if its 15-20 players on about €2,000 a week and the balance of players on about €500 a week playing part time (A league and under 20 players) and some full time admin staff then maybe at some point in the future it would be sustainable!

I do beleive facilities need to improve to get the crowds. While facilities at most grounds are adequate people still expect more. Irish people see stadia like the premiership grounds and expect Cobh,UCD And Shels to have the same thing. This is because Irish people in the main are morons.

As regards the eternal queston of how we get more people to matches?

Well lads without being smart if I knew the answer to that one I would'nt be working in Basketball!

[passinginterest]

I think it's about balance. No club here is going to sustain a squad of 30 or 40 full time pros. At least not in the foreseeable future. It would be better if clubs maybe supported 5-15 full time players and supplemented the squads with part-timers. This way they still have a full time core, without spending vast amounts.

The other good point being made is that pros here are paid far more than is reasonable, considering the crowds and income generated by clubs. We've all heard the stories of lads here getting paid more than they would in the championship or league one, when our clubs generate a fraction of their income.

[Duggie]

It depends on how you define full time. If full time is 30 full tie players on €5k a week and all the full time admin staff that goes with it then it probably isnt going to be ever sustainable.

On the other hand if its 15-20 players on about €2,000 a week and the balance of players on about €500 a week playing part time (A league and under 20 players) and some full time admin staff then maybe at some point in the future it would be sustainable!

I do beleive facilities need to improve to get the crowds. While facilities at most grounds are adequate people still expect more. Irish people see stadia like the premiership grounds and expect Cobh,UCD And Shels to have the same thing. This is because Irish people in the main are morons.

As regards the eternal queston of how we get more people to matches?

Well lads without being smart if I knew the answer to that one I would'nt be working in Basketball!

no thats not right but the least you could expect is an acceptable standard ie like turners cross. take the current finn park - its a kip to look at. the sooner they move the better.

[Stevo Da Gull]

IMO The only way that we could have 10 professional teams at the moment would be if almost all of the clubs were feeder clubs to big enough clubs to send over 5 or 6 players a season with wages paid by the parent club. Would there be enough big teams interested - I suppose our results in Europe have a big bearing on this.

(woah - overuse of the word club)

[Macy]

Our current model of full time isn't sustainable - matching a players day job wage + their previous part time football wage + a bit more for less security means we're paying way over the odds.

It would be sustainable if we had a proper structure that fed youth players through to the League of Ireland from youth teams were they were getting realistic wages. The top players would be picked up by UK clubs, with the transfer fees going back into irish football.

The irish are a nation of part time band wagoners - you can look at any sport you like, and they don't sustain anything near the top crowds throughout a season. Much is made of the GAA, but the crowds for league games and even early championship games are crap when compared to the later stages. Ditto Rugby, although certainly in Leinster they are getting better - I think 9,000 season tickets sold this year. Even the oft quoted hordes going across to the UK generally only make a few trips a year. Expecting 10,000 a game to fund it is pie in the sky talk.

It's a bottom up approach we need, not all the bull top down leave the rest behind stuff we always see proposed (like with AIL).

[Mr A]

Our current model of full time isn't sustainable - matching a players day job wage + their previous part time football wage + a bit more for less security means we're paying way over the odds.

It would be sustainable if we had a proper structure that fed youth players through to the League of Ireland from youth teams were they were getting realistic wages. The top players would be picked up by UK clubs, with the transfer fees going back into irish football.

The irish are a nation of part time band wagoners - you can look at any sport you like, and they don't sustain anything near the top crowds throughout a season. Much is made of the GAA, but the crowds for league games and even early championship games are crap when compared to the later stages. Ditto Rugby, although certainly in Leinster they are getting better - I think 9,000 season tickets sold this year. Even the oft quoted hordes going across to the UK generally only make a few trips a year. Expecting 10,000 a game to fund it is pie in the sky talk.

It's a bottom up approach we need, not all the bull top down leave the rest behind stuff we always see proposed (like with AIL).

Absolutely spot on.

[A face]

There is one thing that is being overlooked in this thread. Junior and Senior Football relationship. If that were to improve then things could get alot better. Alot of the time the people who might actually be interested in taking in a game have games clashing with eL games and both codes (if thats the way to refer to them) operate as two completely different entities at times.

Irish football, when you compare with other models, seems to have an uphill battle all the time but if Junior and Senior football dont work together to improve situations that things are made alot harder. And that is only one element that needs addressing

In short, there could be alot going for the league, but there currently it is not. If those things were resolved then i'd be prepared to answer this question. There is room for improvement, and until that happens and Pro football doesn't work out at that stage then i'd be prepared to admit it wont work. Until then theres lots of favours we aren't doing ourselves.

[HarpoJoyce]

...........

(woah - overuse of the word club)

Don't beat yourself up about that!

[finnpark]

The fees in are too expensive to most grounds, it should be about 9 euro in for the entertainment we get.

I do think that the players are way overpaid also.

[jebus]

The fees in are too expensive to most grounds, it should be about 9 euro in for the entertainment we get.

I do think that the players are way overpaid also.

This is true, but players wages need to drop before the prices can drop in all honesty. Arsene Wenger made a point in the papers last week though, in relation to top flight European football, that when you start giving players ridiculous contracts (Ronaldo on reported 175k, Georgie on reported 6k) that it's very hard, near impossible, to ever get these players to accept a smaller contract until their careers are winding down. It's a simple fact of employment, but if we are to lower the wages of some of the players in this league it's going to have to be done gradually, over a 10-20 year period. The only other option is to try and offload all of our better players to Britain, get their wages out of the league and try and start from scratch again.

[Macy]

It's a simple fact of employment, but if we are to lower the wages of some of the players in this league it's going to have to be done gradually, over a 10-20 year period. The only other option is to try and offload all of our better players to Britain, get their wages out of the league and try and start from scratch again.

The simple fact is that they wouldn't get those wages in Britain. Arguably, for the money clubs are paying they'd pick up better quality english players rather than being held to ransom by supposed Irish stars.

[MariborKev]

If we didnt have a 'tycoon' pumping money into us right now we'd be gone back part-time

Agreed.

We should be back part time as well. Complete fallacy to try and sustain this madness.

[pete]

The simple fact is that they wouldn't get those wages in Britain. Arguably, for the money clubs are paying they'd pick up better quality english players rather than being held to ransom by supposed Irish stars.

I believe you are correct. With LOI players wages quoted as Net figures means the top earners getting far too much. I know he was really only a squad player but George O'Callaghan was paid less at Ipswich than the LOI. The top earners get paid more than Irish rugby Internationals & as you say it is not as if larger wages awaiting them abroad.

On City forum a Haka fan said their wage budget was E700k & cost of living in Finland is not cheap.

[GuisaSaigon]

If this season has taught us anything it's that we can't sustain an exclusively full-time set up in Galway. To keep it as is here we need to be challenging at the top half of the table. To go full time without the money to attract top players was a mistake. We will return to some kind of mix of part time/full time next season irrespective of which division we find ourselves in.

[Louth4sam]

If this season has taught us anything it's that we can't sustain an exclusively full-time set up in Galway. To keep it as is here we need to be challenging at the top half of the table. To go full time without the money to attract top players was a mistake. We will return to some kind of mix of part time/full time next season irrespective of which division we find ourselves in.

I think Galway's problem was they tried to do full-time football on the cheap. They signed crap full-time players where they could have gotten good part-timers for the same price. If Galway had of kept part-time and not push up ticket prices that lost them lots of customers they might have been in a better position to go full-time after a couple of seasons. A very expensive lesson

[Ronnie]

I believe you are correct. With LOI players wages quoted as Net figures means the top earners getting far too much. I know he was really only a squad player but George O'Callaghan was paid less at Ipswich than the LOI. The top earners get paid more than Irish rugby Internationals & as you say it is not as if larger wages awaiting them abroad.

On City forum a Haka fan said their wage budget was E700k & cost of living in Finland is not cheap.

So City are a bigger club than FC Haka as there wage bill is close to 3 times FC Haka.
Seeing as Irish clubs are paying mad money now, should we not recruit out of contract players from other leagues? A Polish premier division player is a much higher standard that an Irish player and I don't believe many of them would be getting the 5k a week some of our lads get.
In reality, Irish clubs have the same quality of player now as we had 10 years ago, excpet that their full time and their wages have gone up hugely.

[micls]

Georgie on reported 6k)

I know hes on crazy money (3500) but thats just ridiculous. Maybe your counting all his goal bonuses

[dcfcsteve]

In reality, Irish clubs have the same quality of player now as we had 10 years ago, excpet that their full time and their wages have gone up hugely.

I'm not sure how long you've been following Irish football for, but that's simply not true.

Ten years ago the standard of player was much lower. Kids who failed in England came back and did sh!tty jobs rather than play in our league. And no-one went to England as kids, didn't cut it, came back to Ireland to play, and then went back to England again as better and stronger prospects.

The Eircom League now offers a genuine career option for players who didn't make it in England/Scotland, or who are waiting to get noticed. That was not the case 10 years ago. The wages going up is the main reason why those better players now want to play here.

[jebus]

I know hes on crazy money (3500) but thats just ridiculous. Maybe your counting all his goal bonuses

Just what I heard, didn't think it was true so put in reported, doubt Cronaldo is being offered the kind of money the red tops are suggesting either.

3,5k is still too much for a disloyal mediocre footballer in this league