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A commentary on the Greenlandic pyramid?
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
Uber-nerd that I am, your witty comment caused me to google Icelandic* football.
Seems that they have a 4 tier pyramid, each tier consisting of 12 teams, with full P&R between them.
Beneath that there is also a 5th tier, currently consisting of four divisions, one of 6 teams but the others of 8 teams each. And although those 30 clubs must all be amateur and regionalised etc, nonetheless they still have two promotion places to the 4th tier, determined by play-offs:
http://www.league321.com/iceland-foo...ue-tables.html
* - Not even I am nerdy enough to investigate Greenlandic footy
Last edited by EalingGreen; 02/08/2022 at 3:39 PM.
Greenlandic football is pretty interesting, Steve Menary's Outcasts had a chapter on it. There's about 14 sides, they do some very basic qualification rounds on a regional basis, then the best five do a round robin over the course of a week or so in a centralised location, because of how remote the settlements are and how expensive travel is. I vaguely recall that the tournament had a surprisingly big sponsor in Coca Cola or some other big name fizzy brand because Greenland was one of the few places in the world where they had no penetration. You'd think the best team would get to travel to the Danish Cup, or maybe that's a matter of national sovereignty or something.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
https://westernpeople.ie/2022/08/18/...of-facilities/
I wonder if this is an indicator of some kind of move for Westport.... If Westport are not trying to move to LOI, but another Mayo team is, this looks like a misuse of public money.
Sounds like it's community facilities primarily (though I'm not sure what an 'international-sized 4G astro pitch' is). If it was to create a stand etc then I'd be inclined to think it was with an eye on senior football.
Also - I wonder if those contributing to the Immigrant Investor Fund get a say in where and how it's spent ?
Crikey that's a lot of moolah for facilities.
Well that's a fund I wouldnt have thought of for clubs to apply to! It helps flag up if clubs are not trying to get a piece of whats on offer. Politicians tend to know whats on the go and claim credit for an allocation - I will be p!ssed off if Louth GAA, clubs or county get a wedge.
I find this a bit mad to be honest, handing out that kind of money to one junior club. They are getting a new gym and a new clubhouse, and dont have to share it with any other sport. Such a complete inefficient use of funds. As far as I can tell, Mayo LOI Underage is based out of Castlebar, and won't be involved in this (could be wrong).
It really stinks to high heavens when you read into it. It comes from the Department of Justice, and for a way for people to 'buy' residency in Ireland.
https://www.irishimmigration.ie/comi...st-in-ireland/
"2.8 million and we're not sending any of it back. Hopefully we'll have our facilities in the next three years and I might be here myself to open it" - so declares Deputy Michael Ring.
Very slimey statement to top it off. It would be great if Westport Utd used it to develop into a top club in the west, but this is just a senior Fine Gael politician throwing money around to buy votes.
If there's to be a representative Mayo side in the LOI in the coming years, investing into facilities there to cater to more than one area is a smart move. If you had senior team playing out of Milebush Park in Castlebar and underage sides in Westport, with the odd senior friendly there too, it would be a great move for them, and a great way to include more areas of the county in their side.
Otherwise, it's fantastic to see more grassroots sides improve on their facilities. For too long we'd have seen this sort of money going towards GAA clubs, so it's nice to see grassroots football getting a slice of the cake too.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
https://foot.ie/forums/117-Kerry-FC
A Championship: 4 years - 8 first teams - 0 financially ruined. First Division '14: 7 first teams.
Opportunity lost for new clubs/regions to join the LoI family.
A friend of mine who worked for the IFA and got a trip out there for some reason and he told me Icelandic football had a major overhaul and restructure about 15 years ago and now all coaches get paid even at amateur level and down to kids. I believe the pay is structured. Icelandic FA put huge resources into grass roots football as well as coaching they promote diet and wellbeing as well as other social skills. About 5 years after the restructure their National team got to the semi final of the Euros. In saying that we don't hear much about them now
The guardian did a good article and covered it back in 2016.
https://www.theguardian.com/football...lars-lagerback
Basically, Iceland poured tonnes of money into football, but in typical Nordic style they did it in a very sensible way through coaches and facilities. Every school has a perfect astro built beside it, and every town and village in the country had an I door astro hall and loads of full time coaches.
They briefly became the poster boys of Europe for how to develop football success. Even England looked at their model - which was fairly laughable given that the 2 countries could not be more different when it comes to the sport. There's always something you can learn from somewhere else, but England shouldn't need to be picking up tips from a frozen country with a population smaller than Nottingham.
A small country like Iceland will be able to achieve only fleeting moments of success, which is exactly what has transpired. As stated, ni-one talks about them any more now that their brief window of success has passed. The attention deficit approach of orgs like the English FA constantly chasing around after 'the next big thing' is fairly comical really.
Last edited by EatYerGreens; 22/08/2022 at 12:45 PM.
Yet if they weren't receptive to new ideas, even from somewhere like Little Iceland, then they'd get accused of being Little Englanders.
When Iceland went on their great adventure 10 or 15 years ago, they took two, even three steps forward.
Meaning that if they've since fallen back a step or two, they're still ahead of where they had been.
In English club terms, its a bit like a National League side getting promoted to the Championship for a couple of seasons, before dropping down to League One or League Two.
Apart from which, you're only looking at half the picture of Iceland's footballing transformation - their womens' team qualified for the Euro Finals this summer, where they performed creditably to achieve 3 draws and finish ahead of Italy in their group.
Last edited by EalingGreen; 22/08/2022 at 4:45 PM.
Iceland is a bit of a strange one were league spectator facilities have been developed beyond support base levels. Behind that though are excellent multisport facilities and plenty of capacity for youth development irrespective of weather. Publicly financed also and it did show some value when the fortunes of the international side had a big upturn though it was also having a number of decent players just happening to be coming through at the same stage of development. Most of their top players were abroad but the squad also had home based players.
Just seen in Dan McDonnell's newsletter that Monaghan United have withdrawn from the Ulster Senior League, which doesn't suggest they would be likely third-tier candidates?
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
https://foot.ie/forums/117-Kerry-FC
A Championship: 4 years - 8 first teams - 0 financially ruined. First Division '14: 7 first teams.
Opportunity lost for new clubs/regions to join the LoI family.
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