All Ireland League? Reneging on the Wage Cap?

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Advanced discussions about the introduction of an All Ireland soccer league have taken place between clubs from both sides of the border and interested stakeholders, with the intention of drafting a New Year proposal that will be too good for the FAI and IFA to refuse.

The Irish Independent has learned that top eircom League sides have been involved in secret talks with counterparts in the North and with the backing of significant third party encouragement in the hope of bringing the project to fruition.

They have been given reason to believe that governments in the North and South would be receptive to the project and are confident that UEFA - who have been informally sounded out - and FIFA will give the necessary backing to the venture.

Now, they are looking to put an attractive final package together by January with the necessary levels of support and a business plan to convince the two football associations to give the green light to press forward.

Their involvement is pivotal so that any league including the island’s top clubs would be capable of gaining the places to compete in European competition.

“If the FAI and the IFA want to buy into it then everyone is happy,” says one club source.

"It would be difficult to proceed without their support.

"There’s a bigger picture here. Certainly, there are very professional people involved in this project and there is a lot of excitement about what can be achieved.

“This could be very big for football in this country and is capable of bringing it to the next level.”

The origins of the initiative came from meetings between the six leading eircom League full time clubs – Cork City, Drogheda United, Derry City, St Patrick’s Athletic, Bohemians and Galway United – to discuss grievances regarding their participation agreement with the FAI and the wage cap thats coming into place next season.

However, those discussions have snowballed with other parties being sought out for advice and to ascertain their interest as the desire for a full time professional All-Ireland league emerged as the ultimate objective.

Tentative discussions have taken place with a television company who are willing to offer their backing to the venture.

Other league members, who were not part of the original group of six, have now asked to be kept aware of developments as the project grows wings and some have been invited to subsequent gatherings.

Regardless of the success of the plan, the 22 eircom League clubs are preparing to lobby the FAI for the re-drafting of the participation agreement amid widespread unhappiness at its implementation.

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Would be a great move to see an All Ireland League. I for one would be far likelier to go to games if this came about.

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IFA said today or last night that they won’t be supporting it, which could kill it dead. Apparently Fintan Drury is also trying to set up an All Ireland league, separately.

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Why so Larry? I’d be interested to know

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Bohs - Harps and Rovers - Sligo on a Friday, or Bohs - Glentoran and Rovers - Linfield.

Pretty self-evident Flingo, the games would attract far bigger crowds than are currently turning up in both leagues.

I believe the Fintan Drury thing, and the thing with the clubs, is one and the same thing. Drury’s agency would handle organisational/broascasting issues, or something.

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Agreed Sledgehammer. Games probably would attract bigger crowds. My question is why? I can’t see the why this would make someone with no interest in domestic football suddenly begin to attend games.

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Without wanting to sound too Dublin City franchise about it, what an All Ireland league might do is create a bit more local pride in teams. Unless you’re from Ringsend or Inchicore why should you care who wins between Shamrock Rovers and St Pat’s? Extend it a bit more though and you’ll find St Pat’s against Linfield will attract more support in Dublin.

The only way the Eircom League teams can attract more fans in my opinion is to be more representative of their localities. Dublin City is obviously not the way to go because there are already too many teams and that was clearly a pure marketing initiative. However there’s too many clubs competing for the same pool of fans which means the attendances are too small and those who don’t have a club don’t see much difference between the lot of them.

This applies primarily to Dublin of course but Cork would get bigger crowds if they were playing better teams or if there was a bit more bite in their matches. As it is they probably play a Dublin side every second week so there’s no spice there.

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In theory, and taking into account the population of Dublin, there is no reason why 4 Premier Division clubs cannot be sustained, as well as Bray and UCD on the fringes. The reality is different, but the reasons have nothing to do with “too many clubs competing for the same audience” or any rubbish like that. Either way, the reality is that clubs are not going to merge so things aren’t going to change as far as the number of clubs is concerned. The increase in attendances will have to come via other means, and an all-Ireland league is certainly one of them.

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I know it won’t change and to be honest I’m not a fan of any of those teams so I’m not going to be particuarly sympathetic to the existing teams. There are 4 sustainable teams but only if you can differentiate between them. Scotland sustains professional teams because the commuter towns have small professional teams and the big cities have big clubs with very definite distinctions. There’s no difference between Pat’s and Rovers that I can see, so a match between them is irrelevant.

But if either of them play Linfield then I’ll support Pat’s or Rovers because I’ll support indifference over hatred every time. So you’ll get a boost by having an all-Ireland league and it will dilute the number of Dublin clubs in the top division. They might all still be there but there’ll be a few other teams in there too which will mean a bit more variety.

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Flano wrote:

Why so Larry? I’d be interested to know

All Ireland League would appeal far more to me than Eircom League primarily for political reasons. I don’t like the idea of supporting a league that operates primarily on a partioned basis. The only Drogheda matches (my local team) that I have thought of going to have been those in European and Setanta Cup matches. Also add in the higher standard of football and the superior atmosphere which these games would create and you have a far better product imo.
Not surprised IFA aren’t supporting this. Disappointing thing is that FAI don’t seem to push it either. Setanta Cup was something they fell open rather than designed wasn’t it?