Ireland is a pretend football country

I’d been aware of the adidas rumours too.. by far the best sportswear brand in terms of quality and design.

I liked that Umbro kit we had though… but Castore ? They put zero effort or imagination into the aesthetic design of the shirts.

Google ‘Castore football shirts’ vile looking things..

whoever designed that Newcastle one below literally went to work one day and said..” fûck, deadline for that Newcastle shirt is 5pm today… ahh I can’t be arsed, black, white, big stripes I’ll go home sick at lunch, fück em”…. Horrible cheap looking and unimaginative jerseys…

New Balance were shîte but this stuff..

The English fans are laughing at ejits from some place like Longford wasting their money travelling over to support Liverpool, trying to pretend the are a Scouser, its embarrassing.

it sounds so simple on paper but they've been talking about redeveloping Dalymount, the home of the LOI, for about 20 odd years now and nothing is happening. With all the money the government throw around on stupid stuff, some functioning small stadiums is hardly such a big ask. Ireland just struggles to do anything to do with infrastructure or building, we make it as difficult as possible, too many vested interests who want different things and zero leadership people can get behind. We should be aiming at having something like what Norway have, but unfortunately a half decent league is just a pipe dream let's face it.

I’ve witnessed some of it, firsthand, albeit a long time ago and I’ve seen the news “reports” on more recent times.

Didn’t think you’d have much interest in LoI much these days, N? Not with United turning things around but maybe it’ll take a few, actual, trophies to get those “fans” back.

Hahaha, well met. Some are real fans, I had counted yourself as one, and a large number are now ex-fans who “jumped ship” to LoI, particularly Rovers and Bohs, once United went rubbish.

The surge in attendances, and the drop in visibility of United jerseys, correlating with the massive dip in form, bear this out. Along with the large number of, fickle, ex-United fans who claim to “no longer follow soccer at all”, of course.

Your post makes me think you don't understand football. I'm sure you know that in any given home game week theres loads of Pool fans in Anfield that are not from Liverpool so if any English fans were to laugh at such a thing then that fan would be a gobsh*te who doesn't understand what's important to EPL clubs.

Nobody from Longford has ever pretended to be a Scouser and people are allowed to decide for themselves what they want to spend their money on

Yeah well if someone from Southampton wants to support Man united, at least they are English.

What I could never understand is why the FAI never approached the government with a plan for a proper league and payments to players? Easy to blame the likes of the GAA or rugby who make use of their funding, but soccer has been grossly mismanaged, mostly through greed and internal politics, and it has left soccer in the state it is.

I haven't heard one decent plan in my years other than complain about what other funding sports are getting. What's even worse, is that it's the most played sport on the island, pretty much everybody that's played sports in one form or another has played or plays soccer. The numbers are there, the vision or competence not so much.

There's so many approaches Irish soccer could have to improve things, but it always seems to take the wrong option.

Theres massive interest in Soccer/Football in Ireland.

But expecting us to have a League of Portugal/Denmark standards let alone England will never happen.

Ive heard grumblings about the likes of Portlaoise and Thurles but those stadiums represent by and large a county team and are a great venue for neutrals. Portlaoise would be almost too big for a LOI fanbase. Certainly one in Laois.

Club GAA will always be a big event for a town but it doesn't really work for soccer as more than likely the same town might have 2 if not 3 soccer clubs and even some might be playing further away with another club.

Even looking at the League of Ireland its by and large for people that live in the bigger cities/towns spectator wise. Its good that Kerry have represenation in the league of Ireland but its not all that accessible for someone from say Dingle or Cahirciveen to follow them week in week out.

Soccer is just too fragmented to command the audience of the GAA.

People moan about those from Ireland that follow English Football but you may as well moan about the rest of the World as they follow it too. On its day the Premier League is a glorious event.

Not only that but every Stadium is within reach of the majority of fanbases. The travel infrastructure in place, the population and a modest sized land makes England one of the most ideal places in the world for a Football fan(or any for that matter). Those things works heavily in its advantage. Its no wonder fan culture is so strong there.

Other than our size we could never get that for League of Ireland. Buses and Trains service and all that just isn't there

Besides the GAA is as good an organisation you could wish for anywhere in the world for country of about 5m. It will always have the community appeal that Soccer and Rugby will never match. Every grade seems to matter and the club games are accessible to people with the County Championship and then Provincial System. You'd be hard pushed to find a sports body with such broad appeal amongst the grassroots all the way to the top(underage, club,second/third level, club,). The GAA nails the lot.

I would like to see LOI improve its standing (I've been to a few games myself) and though I like the game I wouldnt sacrifice the GAA for it. Bar 1 or 2 things the GAA is near perfect.

Gaelic Football is nowhere near as bad as it is made out to be.

In the past week you had a cracking sigerson cup final, and about 7 to 8 decent games at least out of 16 in the National League last weekend.

The attendances are so shît here because for decades, the product is poor.

spectator facilities are third world ( being kind ) and by and large the quality of football ain’t terrific.

INVEST in the product. It’s not fûcking rocket science.

governments should have given every LOI premier division team an x million stadium grant, staggered… that has to go towards stadium construction / upgrades. No matter what ground in what city, what team, there would be a ground of suitable comfort, modern, state of the art.

problem is when as a government you are beholden to other sectors in society, like the arts. The arts council get grants of roughly 130 million a year…

but if soccer fans, clubs etc got a dig out the GAA and their hardcore would be triggered to the point of outrage despite the advantages and multiple millions invested in their sport over decades.

its almost as if governments and the GAA would be a little afraid of another sport usurping their status in the country.

Will be at Dalymount on Friday, playing dundalk and sold out. Can't wait! Had been at a couple of Palace games of late but more excited about this tbh.

No, and I’m not talking about the FAI..

The money should go directly from the government to the clubs… the money shouldn’t go anywhere near the FAI, nor did I anywhere suggest that it should. I clearly and specifically said… “governments should have given every LOI premier division team an x million stadium grant, staggered… that has to go towards stadium construction / upgrades. No matter what ground in what city, what team, there would be a ground of suitable comfort, modern, state of the art.”

going on about how shît the FAI are isn’t adding to the debate. The FAI are shîte, the sky is blue, we know this..

that’s not an excuse as to why there shouldn’t be responsible and savvy investment to improve the sport, the playing and spectator infrastructure.

GAA lads are routinely triggered by other sports getting a fairer shout, or indeed any shout… even a suggestion..

yet the resources they have… they can facilitate massive events…Rolling Stones, Taylor Swift, Michael Buble ..According to the stadium’s financial accounts for 2018 they earned a tidy €5.56m from what was termed ‘hire of facilities’. This was an increase of 36% on the 2017 figure of €4.10m.

The FAI and Government has let down Football so badly in this country for the past 40 years or more its been terrible. The facilities are disgraceful and support for both LOI clubs and grassroots football is beyond a joke, the FAI only care about the national team and propped up by a lot blazers in different leagues just interested in own small section rather than overall picture. There are many brilliant people working in football in Ireland from LOI down to local clubs, and let down so badly by the overall association.

My annoyance with the situation isnt premiership TV followers etc but the load of Irish players off the radar playing in League 1 and 2 who week in week out are entertaining & are role models for children in towns and cities throughout the UK. A lot of these players should be able to make a similar living in nice 6/7 to 10k seater stadiums across Ireland entertaining football mad Irish children, they can also play in Europe and see opportunities here in the game to develop the standard. This is the real failure with was has happened with neglect by the FAI etc

Oh, I’m aware alright. Well aware. I just don’t see how the association, pulling in 50 million as you say, can preside over a domestic league run on a shoe string.