Indo claims advanced all-Ireland league discussions

The Irish Independent claims that top clubs from Northern Ireland and the Republic are in “advanced discussions” about the formation of an all Ireland football league. Such a suggestion has arisen periodically, but the cooperation fostered by the Setanta Cup seems to have crystallised into more serious plans.

Whether Eircom clubs consider such a league as a genuine option or whether there is an element of tactical positioning due to disputes with the FAI is debatable. Personally I view the prospect with ambivalence. Whilst supporters would welcome the prospect of a larger stage on which their clubs could develop and display increased ambition, there remains concern about the financial ramifications.

Increased transport and travel costs both for clubs and supporters demand instant success from the league. Unless crowds increase despite a presumable increase in prices and unless television offers adequate incentives it seems likely clubs would overstretch themselves and this could lead to severe financial difficulties.

The IFA will at some point be asked to come on board with this and I would have severe reservations about cooperating with the FAI unless they are willing to back down in the player eligibility argument.

Comments

Beano said…
As a Crues fan I'm totally against it, mainly because the smaller clubs would get totally left behind even more than they currently do in the Irish League.
11 December 2007 at 12:45
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Football fever in Russia

Russia Blog is getting excited about Euro 2008. Indeed it is drawing parallels between Guus Hiddink and Peter the Great in terms of successful Russo-Dutch exchanges of expertise. Meanwhile, in Moscow, fans have been taking to the streets in order to celebrate the national team’s achievements.
Read more

Stormont might not collapse but paramilitaries continue to disfigure Northern Ireland

Image
The devolved institutions in Northern Ireland are supposedly ‘teetering on the brink’ of collapse yet again.  After repeated failures to agree a balanced budget or implement welfare reform created months of uncertainty, the Executive’s future is now in doubt because the PSNI believes members of the IRA were involved in murdering a republican hit man.  Despite its apparent seriousness, this particular predicament is unlikely to bring the shaky edifice at Stormont crashing down. The IRA was supposed to have disbanded its military ‘structures’ and decommissioned its entire arsenal of weapons back in 2005.  It was on the basis of this understanding that power-sharing resumed in 2007 and the DUP entered government with Sinn Féin.  From the outset it was a fairly flimsy pretext.   Less than a year after John de Chastelain, the retired Canadian general, oversaw decommissioning, the Independent Monitoring Commission reported that the IRA retained a substantial haul of arms.
Read more

Walker loada rubbish

Former BBC employee Brian Walker has overrun Slugger O’Toole lately with countless poorly structured, poorly written posts. It is possible quickly to recognize and avoid these by subjecting each Slugger piece to a cursory inspection and identifying those which feature characteristic lack of paragraphing and a tenuous grasp on the technicalities of linking source articles. Although I generally evade Walker’s posts by this method, occasionally (and unfortunately) I have persevered and found that their content is as unrewarding as the style in which they are written. Today, for instance, I inflicted upon myself Brian’s thoughts on a mooted Fianna Fail / SDLP merger . In actual fact, he is right to welcome news that the Southern Irish party has dropped this proposal from its agenda; however, the logic by which he arrives at this conclusion is parochial nonsense. To summarise, Walker believes that pursuing realignment with larger parties, whether they are from the rest of the UK or fro
Read more