The Return of the LOI A Championship in 2020?

diusmr8a504cvk

FAI in discussions to introduce possible League of Ireland third tier division in effort to bridge gap between underage teams

I know its been touched on in the main thread, but this is a topic worthy of a thread on its own.

Thoughts? Who would you like in it?

kksaints

All of the teams in the underage leagues who don't have teams in the Premier and First division should be "encouraged" (forced) to join.

diusmr8a504cvk

kksaints wrote: »

All of the teams in the underage leagues who don't have teams in the Premier and First division should be "encouraged" (forced) to join.

So that's:
Monaghan United-Cavan,
Kerry,
Mayo,
Carlow-Kilkenny.

Anyone know if there's any new clubs joining the Under-13's?

overshoot

Just wondering but how many loi clubs would run in another league and would have a readily available team to enter? Harps and Derry are in the usl, but it's been bleeding clubs like the loi, if both move it would likely kill that league

Harry Palmr

Do the clubs have any money for the practicalities of such a league?

kksaints

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Do the clubs have any money for the practicalities of such a league?

Unlikely but its in fairly rough planning atm. Also the underage teams need somewhere for their players to go instead of dropping out after U-19s.

diusmr8a504cvk

Just looking at Munster, UCC would be a great addition and to be honest they should probably be a League of Ireland club already.
Probably a MSL club like Avondale United, St. Michael's of Tipp would have to be in there in my opinion.
Whether it be Kerry, Tralee Dynamos or Killarney Celtic you'll have one club from Kerry.
Pike Rovers would be another potential one, a club probably too big for Junior level and would be even more probable if Limerick didn't put in a Reserve side.
Maybe Newmarket Celtic in Clare, my knowledge of Clare wouldn't be the best so I'm not sure if them leaving would kill the league or what.

Omackeral

Jazlyn Greasy Celery wrote: »

So that's:
Monaghan United-Cavan,
Kerry,
Mayo,
Carlow-Kilkenny.

I definitely would be all for a Kerry LOI team. Would be interested to see what a club from The Kingdom can do. I know Mayo probably deserve a shot too but I'd love to see Kerry involved most of all. Kilkenny could give a nice away day I guess but there was no success there before or a real appetite.

Among other names I've heard over time were Newry joining after their demise, although a phoenix club is back in the (Northern) Irish Premier League now for next season.

Weirdly, a team from the Isle of Man called Ellan Vannin FC expressed interested in joining the LOI a couple of years ago.

HalloweenJack

When did the last A Championship come about (2010?)? How long did it last? How did it all unravel?

Much like changing the number of teams in the divisions every few years, this seems like another "doing something for the sake of doing something" stunt. The real issues affecting clubs are financial. Until the cost of running an LOI club is lowered than I don't see what getting more of them on board is going to achieve..

HalloweenJack

When did the last A Championship come about (2010?)? How long did it last? How did it all unravel?

Much like changing the number of teams in the divisions every few years, this seems like another "doing something for the sake of doing something" stunt. The real issues affecting clubs are financial. Until the cost of running an LOI club is lowered than I don't see what getting more of them on board is going to achieve..

CSF

The whole thing should be part of the pyramid really, like almost everywhere else.

Gavin "shels"

Nonsense idea again... the FAI literally just recycle ideas every couple of years. 10 team League, then 12 team League, etc...

Omackeral

HalloweenJack wrote: »

When did the last A Championship come about (2010?)? How long did it last? How did it all unravel?

It formed in 2008 and disbanded in 2011. Mervue United and Salthill Devon actually gained promotion to the LOI First Division from it. Both then reverted to Junior Football when a new Galway United came back.

Other teams that featured were FC Carlow, Castlebar Celtic, Fanad United, Tralee Dynamos and Tullamore Town.

artanevilla

The sooner the league pulls away from the FAI the better.

PhilipsR

No LSL or MSL clubs have any interest in playing in the LOI. It’s why the pyramid scheme would be largely pointless.

The standard is also likely to be poor. Why would lads playing top level LSL/MSL want to leave to play probably in front of poorer crowds and travelling all over the country? Won’t be enough teams go regionalise it sufficiently.

dfx-

The A Championship was very good, there needs to be a reserve type league, somewhere for a mix of youth, new teams playing at an adult level nationwide. There should also be a third tier and fourth tier at whatever level is suitable and teams should be 'encouraged' to join...

LSL clubs have no interest probably because they're not good enough, only pulling off the odd one-off shock win. Their opinion of how good they are is vastly over-inflated.

topmanamillion

Premier Division
10 teams

First Division
10 Teams

Western & Midlands League…. Southern League...……......Eastern League
8-10 teams...…………………….8-10 teams.................……8-10 teams

Prioritise the third tier teams for grants and funding. I`d limit each league to 2 or 3 LOI reserve sides. Promotion could be based over 2 or three seasons. If there is an outstanding side that's tearing it up at third tier level over a few seasons then promote them. If not then the third tier could still be deemed a success as its pitting the top amateur clubs against each other on a regular basis and hopefully keeping graduates for LOI underage sides within the LOI. Also it would be a softer lander for First Division clubs who need to drop out of the league.

If say each of those leagues had 10 teams and they played each other twice over a season. That's 9 away games.
Its not an enormous commitment and regionalised like that the most they`d be doing is 2 or 3 hour round trips. There are teams at a similar amateur level in Europe doing a hell of a lot more traveling to games. I think if we don't have 20-ish intermediate clubs capable of competing at that level, it`s a damning indictment of Irish football.

Athlone are currently running a skeleton side in front of crowds of around 100 people. Its a similar story at Wexford. We have nothing to fear by letting a top intermediate side with good underage structures take their place.

Also no more of this rubbish of "Provincial Leagues", they are glorified Cork, Dublin and Donegal county leagues and nothing else.

Ferris_Bueller

If done properly I think it would be a good idea, a pyramid structure is badly needed and as it stands football in this country is too fractured in terms of structure. It would bridge the gap from 19s to seniors, it would allow the bigger clubs to get their younger and fringe players some game time if they had a B team, it would make the first division more interesting if there was relegation rather than Athlone just sitting there at the bottom for eternity and it would bring league of Ireland football to parts of the country that it hasn't been before (or recently). It all sounds great.

However the FAI are going to make a total balls of it and I don't think it would work out at all. At the minute some of the Premier Division clubs can barely survive so how do they expect A Championship clubs to survive? What would be the incentive for any Leinster Senior League clubs to join and risk putting their club in financial trouble when they are already pretty comfy where they are. The only incentive is that they would get access to the underage national leagues which might tempt a few now compared to when it was last introduced.

For it to work I think it would have to be regionalised, B teams must be optional rather than compulsary and they have to use it with the view to expanding further and starting a proper pyramid structure rather than a once off invite. If some clubs did join and had access to the underage leagues and it was a relative success, then maybe more teams might be tempted and eventually a proper pyramid could be put in place long term.

civis_liberalis

kksaints wrote: »

All of the teams in the underage leagues who don't have teams in the Premier and First division should be "encouraged" (forced) to join.

The idea of the teams in the underage leagues that don't have senior LOI teams is that they would gradually work up to it. I've seen 2 or 3 of them say as much.

Gavin shels wrote: »

Nonsense idea again... the FAI literally just recycle ideas every couple of years. 10 team League, then 12 team League, etc...

I agree the FAI keep changing things around to give the appearance of them doing something radical, while at best, not really doing anything and at worst causing damage (case in point, lack of FD playoffs last year WTF?)

BUT... part of the problem the First Division has is that the teams outside of the running for the playoffs have nothing to play for. No carrot left and no stick either. They are able to drag themselves along on life support. A division below them again would create competition and incentive. It also has allowed the clowns running the Athlone circus to continue whatever the fk it is they think they are doing.

PhilipsR wrote: »

No LSL or MSL clubs have any interest in playing in the LOI. It’s why the pyramid scheme would be largely pointless.

Cabinteely are far from perfect, but they are growing into a good addition to the league in many ways.

It might be that none of top LSL/MSL have no interest, but there will be clubs that will be interested in the step up. It's something that will have to slowly build up over time.

I cannot disagree any more strongly with the idea that a pyramid would be pointless. IMO the lack of it is a big blocker to progress in Irish football.

PhilipsR wrote: »

The standard is also likely to be poor. Why would lads playing top level LSL/MSL want to leave to play probably in front of poorer crowds and travelling all over the country? Won’t be enough teams go regionalise it sufficiently.

In my opinion, the division would only be viable at first with reserve LOI PD teams. There would be enough teams to regionalise it then.

Ideally in the long term a pyramid structure with actual provincial leagues connected to the LOI would be put in place. Teams not wishing to move up could refuse promotion and those with the desire to step up could.

BOHtox

I'm yet to be convinced of the merits of a proper pyramid structure, as is proposed similar to England's but a third tier would work if done correctly. You can have a pyramid system and have the likes of Salthill Devons, Crumlins and Bluebells getting promoted into a current team's catchment area or you can have slow expansion based on geographic location and try create a third division that way.

The league would become way too Dublin based in an already heavily saturated market. There's already Bohs, Rovers, Pats, Shels, UCD and Cabo. The best teams at intermediate football are all from Dublin too.

So fair enough, Athlone don't really add much to the league at present. So the winners of the LSL Premier division gets promoted. So that's St Mochta's based on a quick google search. What would Mochta's bring to the league? They're another Dublin team and they'd be competing with establish LOI clubs with players and new supporters.

So suppose the next year Wexford get relegated and the top team gets promoted. (So let's assume the team that finished second last year then wins it the following year) and now you have Bluebell too. Another South Dublin team. So the Dublin teams within two years would be Bohs, Rovers, Shels, UCD, Cabo, Pats, Mochtas and Bluebell. That's hardly sustainable and it is what will happen with a pyramid system. The heights Dublin teams reach will be limited and ultimately, all jokes aside, that's a bad thing for the league.

So suppose a munster team get relegated, Cobh, and the team that wins it Tralee Dynamos. Great, a Kerry team. But now we go back to the start. Tralee won’t be able to bring more than Cobh, it’s too small. But suppose we made a Kerry team, which is what is the case in the underage leagues as well as a Mayo team and a Cavan-Monaghan team, then all of a sudden you might have a whole county behind you. Let's say Westport get promoted for Galway for some bizarre reason. Will Westport add anything to the league?

Let's say Westport get 1% of population of Westport at their games. That's 60 people. Suppose Mayo FC can get 1% of the county to go that's 1,300 and all of a sudden you have a very sustainable club. Similar let's look at Killarney. Killarney has a population of 14,000, Kerry has a population of 140,000. So I think going for the wider team name opens up potential for much more support. If Bohs we called Phibsboro or Pat's called Inchicore they'd both be in the LSL. At least here we can try get a few thousand through the gates.

The way forward is to create county-wide teams starting at underage level (13s maybe) then give it a year and you have a 15s team and do that all the way up until you have a senior team with a presence in the community, where the kids in the county grow up wanting to be good enough to make the their LOI team (which has the county's name for new clubs)

Carlow/Kilkenny (Which you could split in to two), Kerry, Mayo and Monaghan/Cavan are currently the teams in the LOI underage leagues without a senior team and you'd think Carlow and Kilkenny could possibly be explored by themselves and not with each other so that would be five county wide teams which would be fantastic to see added to the league. Given time, a Clare, Tipp and maybe Kildare and Fingal team (I know they both failed in the past but that was very much just throwing a senior team in to a town and not building in on a county-wide basis from underage up) and smaller towns with a football tradition – e.g Tullamore Town, Mullingar, Portlaoise, maybe a north Cork team etc– could step up, but the caveats regarding GAA dominance/ lack of LOI interest etc still apply.

But I'd love to see it given a go. With that structure you could have two divisions and a regionalised third.

topmanamillion

The issue of too many Dublin clubs in the top two tiers of the league would be very easily solved. Limit it to 5 Dublin Clubs (the amount that are currently playing LOI football).

If another strong Dublin club emerges from the third tier, have a separate promotion path for them where they play off against the lowest placed Dublin club in the first division.

I don't see this being the issue that most do. The last time an A championship happened it was a returning club (Cobh Ramblers) that got promoted. An unusual situation happened when Galway folded that two junior sides took their place in the league but they were still filling a vacuum that was left.

Chances are a similar thing would happen this time around with most likely Athlone and Wexford using it as a springboard back into the league.