What would you change?

roverstillidie wrote: Trapped wrote: Go to local primary schools promoting the particular club, give them a scarf or something to associate themselves with the club, then bring as many as possible of them to a few games free of charge. Every club does that. Don't they......?

An All-Island league has to be the way forward. Unfortunately the blazers in the FAI and IFA may not agree to this, even though both bodies treat their domestic leagues with disdain. As Roddy Collins once remarked: "the LOI is nothing more than an inconvenience for the honchos in Abbotstown".

At the root of our poorly-supported leagues, North and South, is a lack of patriotism and belief in our local product. Kenny Cunningham is blue in the face reminding us that the quality of the LOI is completely overlooked. Look at just two recent examples of ex-LOI players, Paddy Madden and Dave Mooney. Madden was top scorer for Yeovil last season and Mooney`s goals are keeping Leyton Orient top of Div 1.

Half the current Irish squad began their careers in the LOI. The difference with the old days of Dunphy and Giles is that nowadays, instead of a talented kid taking a punt at 15 or 16 across the water, Irish parents want their kids to go as far as possible in education. That`s why the UCD model works so well, because players can have a college degree under their belts and then take a punt on pro football in Britain. (Kevin Moran lit the way here, playing GAA for Dublin and footie for Shelbourne, while completing a Commerce degree in UCD. He then went across in his early 20`s to make a name for himself at Old Trafford).

The combined population of this island is around 6 million, equivalent to Denmark. Yet the Danes dont go spilling across the border into Germany in order to follow some Bundesliga team. They`re very patriotic and get behind their local teams. That`s why FC Copenhagen can get gates of 25,000 at major home games and why Ebsjerg, Brondby, Odense, etc regularly feature in the business end of European footie.

"But we`ve the English & Welsh Premier League right on our doorstep". This is complete BS. The Scots, French, Dutch and Belgians are far nearer England than us, yet they support their domestic leagues with a passion. I`m sorry but we`re pathetically unpatriotic and cant seem to believe in a team unless they were formed on the far side of the Irish Sea.  
        

The following in my opinion.

Kick clubs that will never get fans like UCD out.

Disagree about moving from Friday nights. Friday night is football night IMO. The central contracts idea has to be a positive step. I'd limit it to players under 23 with sell on value which would mean the scheme would be cost neutral

Facilities will help crowds, but not straight away. It will take time to shake the stigma attached to LOI that sh*t football is played in sh*t facilities. If we have a league that is run properly with proper youth set ups with nice facilities slowly but surely the crowds will improve but dont expect them to start coming back overnight.

planning wrote: Shoco wrote: If bray play in a state of the art stadium will their crowds improve? I doubt it Limerick have the best facilities of the lot, their first season back in the premier league in years, are their crowds impressive? Not particularly You have the second best facilities, using the attendance thread on foot.ie your attendances have fallen by 1000 people per game from 2 seasons ago Fai cup final in a state of the art stadium, two teams from 2 of the biggest towns in the country and only 17000 people turn up, only 16000 there last year for two teams from two cities Don't get me wrong, I would love if we could all improve our facilities and have the fans to use them, I just don't buy the whole if you build it they will come argument 17,000 is a great LOI crowd. Unfortunately it's completely lost in a stadium three times it's capacity. While Thomond Park was not designed to host LOI games. I would change ticket prices to reflect the general economy. I would scrap the Friday night games altogether, and market the games properly. There is minimal marketing in the LOI, which is almost exclusively poster material. In the age of 24 hour television and instant communication, more sophisticated marketing material is desperately needed.

Trapped wrote: Go to local primary schools promoting the particular club, give them a scarf or something to associate themselves with the club, then bring as many as possible of them to a few games free of charge.

Shoco wrote: planning wrote: Honey Monster wrote: I'd completely agree on the second point; the league is not marketed and promoted enough. I used to hear the odd radio ad but apart from advertising a game on the telly, is the league actually promoted on the TV? I presume it's still not. The league has the right idea to promote live football; they just need to do it much much more. This all comes down to their Marketing budget which I'm sure is extremely restricted.     Its up to clubs to market their games. People are influenced by what they see on tv rather than the local paper. RTE won't do it even though they have the rights to the league. I was in Hungary during the summer, and they had full domestic games on every night. The football was poor, crowds were low, but the national broadcaster was dedicated to the local game. The RTE coverage is minimalist and does nothing to promote the game. Friday night is a weeknight, and a challenge if people have to travel any serious distance. Therefore games should be played at weekends, like most countries across the world. so you want to clash with the EPL?