Greatest League in the World 2024 [new thread available]

As a Drogheda supporter, I'll be happy with third last again.

But I think that Rovers will absolutely walk the league again. They have a settled squad who are used to winning.

Derry will take time to gel and there is no guarantee that the new signings will work although they have signed very well. I remember when Drogheda had money in 2004, it took us 3 years to win a league.

I don't see both Pats and Dundalk competing. If SOD takes players from Inchicore, it weakens a Pats side with a new manager. And if he doesn't, Dundalk are starting from scratch and have a big job to do with no keeper and a lot of their best players gone.

Sligo might challenge but what should worry them is that almost every side took points from them last season (Longford?). Bohs will flatter to deceive if they lose players on top of Tierney already gone.

Then there is us (Drogheda), Harps & UCD. Harps have lost a few players but will surely pick up a few of Derry's spares. UCD are what they are whilst we have little idea who will be playing for us next season!

On the basis of what I see at the moment, Rovers could win it with half a series of games spare again.

Actually like the new kit, oneills have done quite well with the kits the last few years, big step up from the Hummel kits (and I liked the chevrons)

Interesting move for Wardy to Dundalk, could anyone see him being the main man there or is he going in as backup?

Excellent prospect, really good footballer.

The only question mark for me is his willingness to work hard to succeed and that could be a really unfair question on my part to be fair to him.

He was part of Rovers plans last season but decided that instead of fighting for a place in the team he demanded a loan move for guaranteed football. On one hand I really admire his desire to want to just play football, on the other, he didn’t back himself to force his way into the team and with the squad Derry are putting together he likely won’t be a guaranteed starter there so will be interesting to see if he fights or demands a move down the line. My guess is he now wants to kick on and will fight for it, if so you’ve got a really good young prospect on your hands.

Yeah all fair points and exactly why I said it may be an unfair question on my part it’s just the only unknown. Agree he was really unlikely to break into the team but bear in mind when he left Towell wasn’t there, Danny had only signed and there was a big Jack and Aaron sized hole in the midfield that he could have fancied taking advantage of.

That said at his age it probably was better for his development to go out on loan and be guaranteed minutes. Genuinely interested to see how he progresses and hope he fulfils his potential.

Here's hoping we see plenty of him at the Brandywell this season and next then.

Not full time, just going to training in the mornings. Most players will still be working/studying alongside training/playing.

I think he'll get goals playing centrally with service. We were never gonna use him that way so makes sense not to re-sign him I suppose.

Cork 180/105

Galway launch tomorrow.

Poor Bohs. There whole shtick is sustainability but they can't even beat Sligo Rovers to the awards for it.

Galway Utd 190/50.

That crowd are our U19s front of sponsor already so assuming the forest thing is a avenue from that for the Senior teams.

Nice enough prize for that. More than most of the cup competitions anyway.

Anyone else missing the games on a Friday night?!

Bradley a spoofer - that’s harsh .

It still isn't set in stone, but I would still strongly assume that it is coming back next year and staying for the foreseeable future.

There's multiple-millions of euro in gambling revenues in play on it, the fans' annual passes are really just a sideshow in the grand scheme of it. As long as there is gambling demand then clubs will get the funding to have the consistent and all-encompassing streaming platform.

Id doubt if there's been much of an increase in it.

Its a standard deal they struck with smaller league's around Europe where there's a decent interest from international gamblers. The Nordies league had it a year before it came in down here, so any increase here would have to be reflected in other leagues or they might pull the rights if a similar league was getting more than them.

The whole streaming/live TV thing is a red herring anyway. Clubs will only ever end up with a pittens out of it either through LOI TV or the betting companies.

Clubs should be looking for a deal like horse racing has where they get a % of revenue from gambling on their matches. That would be a game changer and very lucrative.

There's definitely something in that. I don't know the ins and outs of it but there's greyhound racing ran specifically in the mornings here for people to gamble on around the world.

The link is a bit old but I know that they still have morning meetings in Kilkenny.

There was that french investigative journalist who did a Twitter interview last month and talked about a lot of the bad stuff going on in football. He named Ireland as one of the countries when asked about match fixing and said it's a regular problem in the 3rd tier. Mentioned Limerick as well, but we all knew already that they were fixing matches in 2019. There was also Athlone who were supposedly at it, and those are just the obvious ones. I'm sure there's a load of fixing going on that goes unnoticed like betting on cards, corners, shots and so on.

The betting sites have been showing streams of games since 2016, but I don't think think that would be responsible for an uptick in match fixing tbh. It's been going on a long time.