A Load Of Balls: New clubs embody lack of vision in LOI

When the decision was made last year to form the “A Championship”- a third tier of Irish football- the idea was to create a link between the League of Ireland (LOI) and non-League football in Ireland. The clubs involved would be the strongest from the Leinster, Munster and Connacht Senior Leagues; amateur teams who had real plans and aspirations towards playing in the League of Ireland- clubs like Mervue United, Salthill Devon and Tullamore Town. These clubs would face reserve teams from all the top Premier Division and First Division clubs (minus a few notable absentees – Shelbourne and Dundalk).

The objectives were to foster the development and popularity of the League in areas that had no LOI club and allow the clubs that had reserve teams to develop young players in a competitive environment.

Some clubs have used the A Championship, now with its title sponsor as Newstalk, effectively to move young players along the road from the Under-20 league to the Senior squad. Last issue, The College View profiled Marc Hughes, the Bohemians striker who got his break in the Newstalk A Championship. UCD, who at time of writing are top of the First Division, won the A Championship last year. Out of the team that won last year, all but three are now regulars in a strong UCD senior team. Players who starred for UCD Reserves last season like Greg Bolger and David McMillan now star for the senior team in the First Division. The transition from Youth side to Senior side was made seamless with the help of the UCD reserves side.

So has the A Championship suceeded in its aims? Maybe the second one. As for the claim that the new LOI clubs set up for new regions would increase the popularity of the League, one only has to look at the lone promoted club - Mervue United of Galway.

Mervue have had poor attendances all season, peaking at around 200. The club lie second from bottom in the First Division, only avoiding the wooden spoon thanks to the thoroughly awful Kildare County- which may be part of the reason attendances are so low.

Can a city like Galway really support two LOI teams? Galway United get around the 500 mark on average, so did the FAI really think that introducing a new team to a city with a population less than that of Tallaght would bring out the crowds?

As if it weren’t enough, Salthill Devon (another Galway City club) look set to get into the playoff against Kildare County. So next season we could have three Galway City clubs; Galway United, Mervue United and Salthill Devon. The combined attendance for all of the clubs on a night with three home matches in the city would probably be well under the average attendance of a single Dublin club. I can see the logic of having LOI teams in new places like Tralee or Tullamore, but three teams in Galway? In short; having three LOI clubs in a city with a population of under 73,000 is madness when one club can barely get 600 in the gate on a regular basis.
The FAI should, instead of introducing new clubs doomed to failure, promote existing clubs. Or maybe they were doing that when they “bailed out” Bohemians earlier in the season to the tune of €100,000…