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Bitored wrote: I'd be in favour of a 22 game league season. Sounds mental but it works in Iceland. Albeit they have a much more generous FA than here. Possibly split it after that for a total of 27 games. Or Play offs after 22 games. Similar to the pro 12. Obviously for that to work prize money would need a big increase. To supplement smaller clubs gates we could have a round robin round in the FAI cup with the European clubs excluded. No replays in the cup before the semi final. The goal of all that would be to have no more than 1 game a week. For anyone saying "oh no shur clubs wouldn't have enough games". On average, LOI grounds are 25% full on match nights. I would imagine it's costing alot of clubs more money to open the gate then they take in. Most clubs are being propped up by people reaching into their own pockets or good sponsors. Barring that just go with a 10 team league. 2 automatic relegation spots and 1 relegation play off. A play off for the last European place. Turn it into a wolf pit with no midtable.

oldbilly wrote: Some great points on here.another thing to consider is the utterly stupid system of playing your rivals 3 times,familiarity breeds etc.,i havent seen anyone bar my own side more than twice and i bet a lot of other fansare similar.now sometimes this was financial ie broke midweek,but a lot of times it was not bothering away because i knew id be seeing the same opposition at least twice more.repitition is not a crowd puller.

roverstillidie wrote: I think there is a very big drive to cut the PD to 10 clubs. Problem is clubs will only vote if they think they will be in that 10 - so the likes of Sligo, Drogs, Longford etc will vote it down.

Bitored wrote: Barring that just go with a 10 team league. 2 automatic relegation spots and 1 relegation play off. A play off for the last European place. Turn it into a wolf pit with no midtable.

Roma in the next round too...do they have them at the cross?

zizu Kilbane wrote: Roma in the next round too...do they have them at the cross?

Bitored's suggestion is the best i heard. I dont like the idea of a play off to decide the winner but relegation and a european stop will help make the mid to lower places team's games more interesting

Terzino wrote: SOUTHERN CONFERENCE Cork City Limerick Wexford Youths Longford Cobh Ramblers Waterford United Athlone

You've basically just relegated City there 

AnCearrbhach wrote: Fair play for the effort but I would say that after 16/17 games half the teams would have nothing to play for. If even that. The threat of relegation is vital which is why so many on here want a pyramid in place.

Relegation does give the teams in the lower end of the table something to battle against, and it gives the fans something to get interested in, but is it worth it in the long term?

Especially if it creates more problems for teams struggling to survive?

In an ideal world you'd have a pyramid structure with relegation and promotion. However, the conference structure gives teams security and hopefully stability. They can use it to try and build season to season.

If they mess up one time, then they aren't punished severely, and can try to rectify what went wrong the next.
If they find they have little to play for midway through a season, then perhaps they could use the remainder of their games to take more risks. All out attacking football, giving youth a chance, developing a better standard of football, and so on.

Shedite says that Cork are effectively relegated because of the teams they play, which is fair enough. Though,  they would still play get to play the better teams in the other conferences, and they'd have the Champions Group as well.

However every other team is given the security to try and build themselves into something better.