UK and Ireland league?

Crann na Beatha

This post has been deleted.

Xavi6

Why would we?

Peyton Manning

Iolar wrote: »

Why dont we have a UK and Irish league for soccer?

Because the big wigs at United and Chelski are terrified of Bohs breaking up their monopoly of success.

CantGetNoSleep

It would be brilliant though being able to see live football here in Ireland with proper professionals without having to go to the pub or get on a Ryanair flight

Peyton Manning

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

It would be brilliant though being able to see live football here in Ireland with proper professionals without having to go to the pub or get on a Ryanair flight

Are you gonna mail that invite or just hand deliver it?

Xavi6

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

It would be brilliant though being able to see live football here in Ireland with proper professionals without having to go to the pub or get on a Ryanair flight

Define 'proper professional' please or I can only assume you're trolling LOI fans.

Gavin "shels"

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

It would be brilliant though being able to see live football here in Ireland with proper professionals without having to go to the pub or get on a Ryanair flight

Wait till March.;)


We'd never have a combined League anyway, could you imagine the majority of Irish having to follow a team who plays it's home games in Britain.:eek: (In order to have an interantion team you need a domestic league).

Gavin "shels"

Xavi6 wrote: »

Define 'proper professional' please or I can only assume you're trolling LOI fans.

Probably the same as "proper fans".

Crann na Beatha

This post has been deleted.

Peyton Manning

Iolar wrote: »

Xavi please dont lock this thread,its a serious question

For the same reason there isnt a Scandinavian league, or an Eastern European league. We are all seperate countries and are entitled to our own respective leagues. Besides, I cant imagine that the English FA (the dominant party that would be involved) would have it. If they dont want Celtic or Rangers, they certainly dont give a toss about Irish, Northern Irish or Welsh league teams. And Im pretty sure if England declined, Scotland would also decline if it were offered the chance to merge with just Ireland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

Xavi6

Iolar wrote: »

Xavi please dont lock this thread,its a serious question

Well give us a reason why you think there should be one.

GLaDOS

If this happened I'm pretty sure we'd have to combine national teams too, the people who would love a combined league would probably be aghast at such a thought

8-10

Archimedes wrote: »

If they dont want Celtic or Rangers, they certainly dont give a toss about Irish, Northern Irish or Welsh league teams.

Cardiff City, Swansea City, Wrexham, Newport County, Merthyr Tydfil and Colwyn Bay are all Welsh clubs, ex-Welsh League that now play in the English League System. Up until 1995 they could still play in the Welsh Cup too with Wrexham qualifying for Europe a couple of times by winning it while playing in England.

You also have the Combination League: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_Combination

CantGetNoSleep

Xavi6 wrote: »

Define 'proper professional' please or I can only assume you're trolling LOI fans.

As in proper professional I mean international (proper countries only) players, with perhaps a side that can compete in club competitions at a European level, with a half-decent standard of fluid, watchable football, and a nice stadium, covered , seats and that

GLaDOS

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

As in proper professional I mean international (proper countries only) players, with perhaps a side that can compete in club competitions at a European level,

Last seasons Bohs squad had Glen Crowe and Jason Byrne (Irish caps), Joey Ndo (Cameroon caps) and Brian Murphy (In the Ireland squad for France playoff). There's 4 internationals for you.

We were minutes away from knocking out Red Bull Salzburg, who waltzed through their Europa league group (containing Villareal and Lazio) and finished above (in last seasons Austrian Bundesliga) the Rapid Vienna squad that knocked Aston Villa out of the Europa league qualifyers.

But we obviously don't count.

civis_liberalis

Iolar wrote: »

Why dont we have a UK and Irish league for soccer?

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

It would be brilliant though being able to see live football here in Ireland with proper professionals without having to go to the pub or get on a Ryanair flight

Iolar wrote: »

Xavi please dont lock this thread,its a serious question

Urge to kill rising...

m@cc@

8-10 wrote: »

Cardiff City, Swansea City, Wrexham, Newport County, Merthyr Tydfil and Colwyn Bay are all Welsh clubs, ex-Welsh League that now play in the English League System.

At the time, there was no Welsh league in which they could play in.

Zebra3

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

As in proper professional I mean international (proper countries only) players, with perhaps a side that can compete in club competitions at a European level, with a half-decent standard of fluid, watchable football, and a nice stadium, covered , seats and that

So if a player hasn't won an international cap they're not a proper pro? :rolleyes:

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Last seasons Bohs squad had Glen Crowe and Jason Byrne (Irish caps), Joey Ndo (Cameroon caps) and Brian Murphy (In the Ireland squad for France playoff). There's 4 internationals for you.

Just being in a squad doesn't make you an international.

Dub13

This could and would never happen with the English,there product is already the best in the world.

It could happen and some would say should happen between the Scots,Irish north & south and the welsh as all these leagues are struggling big time.

_blank_

Dub13 wrote: »

This could and would never happen with the English,there product is already the best in the world.

It could happen and some would say should happen between the Scots,Irish north & south and the welsh as all these leagues are struggling big time.

Where would The Old Firm go?

Dub13

Des wrote: »

Where would The Old Firm go?

Thats a good question,I am not sure as I am not a supporter of this idea I am looking at it from a layman's point of view.

I suppose if they every fully gave up on the pipe dream that is them joining the EPL they may be open to a Celt League as the SPL is in bad shape and going nowhere fast.

TheBigLebowski

I can't believe people are biting for this trolling muppet.

DSB

Football is a beautiful sport as it is, people need to stop trying to change it all the bleedin time.

Paul Tergat

I would hate this.

Happy with the way the Premier League is

PHB

Dub13 wrote: »

It could happen and some would say should happen between the Scots,Irish north & south and the welsh as all these leagues are struggling big time.

That's an interesting idea. The scots wouldn't have anything to massively lose from it. It would create a league which 14.3 million people were potential fans/footballers. It would probably end up after about 5-10 years with the creation of 5 major football teams, 2 in Glasgow, 1 in Dublin, 1 in Belfast and 1 in Cardiff. It would massively increase the European coefficient potential.

The two real stumbling block would be what would the Old firm get out of it? [Bigger marketing potential would spring to mind yet loss of Irish fanbase might inverse that]. Would the national teams thing still be ok?

BOHtox

I think a 16 team all ireland league is the way forward.
The current league system with 5/10 teams from Dublin and 7/10 from Leinster is ridiculous.

CantGetNoSleep

But come off it now you can hardly call Jason Byrne and Glen Crowe international quality players. Is Glen Crowe that overweight ginger fella? And you hardly achieved a few nearly moments in the CL on a sound financial basis did you?

The LOI has failed butties, it is time to admit it

The Irish public want to see decent players in top class stadia. If they wanted to see your rubbish teams you might get decent crowds - you don't. Don't worry though you can keep that league going when we get our EPL franchise - you won't have to bother us.

Take the example of Rugby - we have had a World Cup winner, captain of Australia and NZs record try scorer moving here to play in the last year. If we had a franchise playing in the EPL we could have some hope of being in a similar position

Foxx92

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

The LOI has failed butties, it is time to admit it

If they wanted to see your rubbish teams you might get decent crowds - you don't. Don't worry though you can keep that league going when we get our EPL franchise - you won't have to bother us.


If we had a franchise playing in the EPL we could have some hope of being in a similar position

Who is this 'we' you speak of. You are of no value to anything in football in Ireland. You expect the LOI to suddenly have an influx of good players in fantastic stadium's. Well, if people like you continue to moan about the state of the league while sitting with a can in one hand and Sky remote in the other the league will never prosper.

Always makes me laugh when people call the Irish the best supporters in the world. If supporting means jumping on the bandwagon of anything successful (Shamrock Rovers, Leinster etc,etc.) as opposed to actually going out to support your team(not some random team hundreds of miles away) well then they're right.

ShooterSF

Maybe i missed this as it seems the obvious answer but "Logistics"? Imagine having to fly to another country every couple of weeks to play an away game...

stovelid

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

But come off it now you can hardly call Jason Byrne and Glen Crowe international quality players. Is Glen Crowe that overweight ginger fella? And you hardly achieved a few nearly moments in the CL on a sound financial basis did you?

The LOI has failed butties, it is time to admit it

The Irish public want to see decent players in top class stadia. If they wanted to see your rubbish teams you might get decent crowds - you don't. Don't worry though you can keep that league going when we get our EPL franchise - you won't have to bother us.

Take the example of Rugby - we have had a World Cup winner, captain of Australia and NZs record try scorer moving here to play in the last year. If we had a franchise playing in the EPL we could have some hope of being in a similar position

For somebody that hates the LOI so much, you never seem to fucking shut up about it?

dreamers75

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

The Irish public want to see decent players in top class stadia. If they wanted to see your rubbish teams you might get decent crowds - you don't. Don't worry though you can keep that league going when we get our EPL franchise - you won't have to bother us.

Take the example of Rugby - we have had a World Cup winner, captain of Australia and NZs record try scorer moving here to play in the last year. If we had a franchise playing in the EPL we could have some hope of being in a similar position

No they dont, they want to watch tv and slag their mates in work about liverpool.

In the last 2 years Pats played in the RDS vs top european teams so lets see:

Nice stadium CHECK
Decent players CHECK
International players CHECK
Covered seats CHECK
Over priced burgers CHECK

Both games were excellent Hertha came and killed the game but we threw everything at them, Steaua came and raped us with proper international players ..... :rolleyes:

Total attendance for both games combined was around 7000, so please shut up about what irish fans want. It was on their doorstep they chose not to go.


Btw Pats beat a russian team at home this year, seemingly russia is a proper country. Beating a russian at home imo wasnt great we were better than them so much we knocked out them out of Europe.

Zebra3

Russia is not a proper footballing country.













Sky don't show their league games.

Het-Field

The logistics of such a league would be imposible to calibrate.

We must face it, the progress that the league made between 1999-2005 has been washed away by greed, boardroom incompetence, and poor infrastructure. The re-development of Shamrock Rovers into an Irish footballing force is the only plus in a decade which has seen Dublin City (once Home Farm) and Kildare County go to the wall, while former superpowers Shelbourne and Derry City sat on the brink, and are no longer involved in the top league. It seems only a matter of time before Cork go the same way, and the future of Bohemians cannot be certain as they are relying on Champions League money, and pre-emptive FAI windfalls to sustain their present position. Drogheda United went from a flavour of the month, to relegation contenders in the space of a few months., and the rest are lads who are

The 1999-2005 experiment resulted in the development of several Irish internationals, who plyed their trade in Dublin, and Cork. Equally, the league became a reputable league from which English clubs could seek a player. Richei Foran, Wes Houlihan, Darren Kelly, Kevin Doyle, Keith Fahey,Stephan Hunt, the Everton lad.and Barry Murphy are testament to that. Some assets are waiting to be stripped, and once they go to balance the books, the league will look even more impoverished.

Regardless of the quality of the players, the National League is a complete joke. The"Summer Football" experiment was considered a success on the back of the excess money which was thrown around. I question its wisdom now.

It is true that some Welsh clubs dont engage with the Welsh leage. Some would even claim that certain "English" clubs are in fact Scottish. However, I couldnt see the highligy professional English FA considering any sort of discussion with our shambolic, and unprofessional setup.

Eirebear

I find the clamour for an Irish Franchise in the EPL possibly the most disgusting idea in football right now.
People will point to the Old Firm wanting in (which aint gonna happen) but at least they are established clubs.

The idea of "Eircom Oireland FC" or whatever the hell they would be called is sympomatic of everything that is wrong about Irish football fans who are nothing but bandwagon jumping morons who have no real attachment to any club they follow that season...but really enjoy being at the party.

Maybe if you did go and see your own football teams play they might be able to afford those better facilities, players and concessions that you so wish for.

DazMarz

The League Of Ireland is for such a small nation, as good a football league as you could expect. Obviously, when comparing it to the top European Leagues, it is going to fall very short of what people would consider ''standard''.

LOI is in an incredibly unfortunate situation of having (arguably) the biggest, most glamourous and most famous football league in the world going on across a narrow strip of sea. People from Ireland can go and catch a game in the Premiership for very low costs and can do the day-trip too.

The gulf in the quality of football between the top flight league in Ireland and many other nations in Europe is staggering, but this is through no fault of anybody; it is simply the result of having such a small population base making it very difficult for huge crowds of supporters to fill (crumbling) ''stadiums''.

The main reason behind the lack of success of the LOI is purely lack of money; even Italy's Serie A is suffering from the diminishing returns, lower funding and all-time low attendances at games.

The main reason blocking a combined UK/Ire league would be the UK end; why, in all honesty, would they want to admit sub-par (for their standards anyway) teams into their league, and also having added headaches of teams having to travel overseas for domestic away games?

This suggestion would not solve anything, and could possibly see LOI teams languishing in the same divisions as Plymouth et al. Logistically impossible, IMO, and not wanted by the powers that be.

stovelid

Eirebear wrote: »

but really enjoy being at the party.

Most of them don't even make it to that.

Paul Tergat

I would be pretty sure we don't want Irish teams in our league.

Unless we know the situation re: the implications for the national teams then its just not even worth talking about.

It would offer very little to the premier league

BOHtox

Foxx92 wrote: »

Who is this 'we' you speak of. You are of no value to anything in football in Ireland. You expect the LOI to suddenly have an influx of good players in fantastic stadium's. Well, if people like you continue to moan about the state of the league while sitting with a can in one hand and Sky remote in the other the league will never prosper.

Always makes me laugh when people call the Irish the best supporters in the world. If supporting means jumping on the bandwagon of anything successful (Shamrock Rovers, Leinster etc,etc.) as opposed to actually going out to support your team(not some random team hundreds of miles away) well then they're right.

Eirebear wrote: »

I find the clamour for an Irish Franchise in the EPL possibly the most disgusting idea in football right now.
People will point to the Old Firm wanting in (which aint gonna happen) but at least they are established clubs.

The idea of "Eircom Oireland FC" or whatever the hell they would be called is sympomatic of everything that is wrong about Irish football fans who are nothing but bandwagon jumping morons who have no real attachment to any club they follow that season...but really enjoy being at the party.

Maybe if you did go and see your own football teams play they might be able to afford those better facilities, players and concessions that you so wish for.

2 great posts

When you get 3500 at pats and steaua
12000 at bohs v derry
8000 bohs v salzburg
Bohs, pats, derry doing well in europe
it's a real wonder why people don't go to matches.

Spiritoftheseventies

Maybe invite a league of ireland team to take part in the Carling and Fa Cups. That would be a start.
But just dont know how you would make it manageable. Bohs and Rovers apart we dont have many good facilities.
Way forward is changing the mindset. Encourage more kids to stay at home and play here rather than abroad.

Peyton Manning

John Delaney would never go for it anyway. He's far too pleased with himself being head of the FAI to drop down to being someone vaguely associated with a UK league.

bohsman

Throw him a Utd season ticket and he might warm to the idea. There is clearly nothing in it for the English. Scrapping the 5 League Cups and having one big British Isles cup could be an idea though.

Peyton Manning

bohsman wrote: »

Throw him a Utd season ticket and he might warm to the idea. There is clearly nothing in it for the English. Scrapping the 5 League Cups and having one big British Isles cup could be an idea though.

Might be a problem for lower level English clubs though. The League cup is very important to them, not so much for the chance of winning it - they rarely if ever do - but for the possibility of a home tie against one of the big clubs which is a huge boost for their revenue.

mink_man

travel

flahavaj

BOHtox wrote: »

2 great posts

When you get 3500 at pats and steaua
12000 at bohs v derry
8000 bohs v salzburg
Bohs, pats, derry doing well in europe
it's a real wonder why people don't go to matches.

All that proves is there are plenty of glory hunnters who'll got to the bigger matches but only a core set of fans willing to support these teams on a regular basis.

OhNoYouDidn't

p_larkin99 wrote: »

I would be pretty sure we don't want Irish teams in our league.

Unless we know the situation re: the implications for the national teams then its just not even worth talking about.

It would offer very little to the premier league

Whereabouts in England are you from?

SantryRed

BOHtox wrote: »

I think a 16 team all ireland league is the way forward.
The current league system with 5/10 teams from Dublin and 7/10 from Leinster is ridiculous.

Not the Dublin team's faults for being good.

Spiritoftheseventies

SantryRed wrote: »

Not the Dublin team's faults for being good.

travelling has to be a big factor here. Dublin teams have less travelling to do and so their overheads are less.

adamski8

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

Whereabouts in England are you from?

well his "location" says bradford so id have a guess thats where

OhNoYouDidn't

adamski8 wrote: »

well his "location" says bradford so id have a guess thats where

Thought so, but whats he doing on board.ie talking about how 'the Irish' aren't welcome in his league?

Seems a bit strange.

Dub13

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

Thought so, but whats he doing on board.ie talking about how 'the Irish' aren't welcome in his league?

Seems a bit strange.

Its not strange at all,are you saying because he may be English that he cant talking about Irish football...?this thread is about Irish & English football.

Spiritoftheseventies

Dub13 wrote: »

Its not strange at all,are you saying because he may be English that he cant talking about Irish football...?this thread is about Irish & English football.

obviously the big sticking point is crowd control. We dont need a reminder of what happened the last time English fans were over here. Sure the FAI would have huge reservations about a combined league on that front