The final game of the season is upon us, albeit twelve days away. As I said before, it’s been a tumultuous season for Dundalk FC and given the poor quality of the league this season, I regret to say this season was an opportunity lost, moreso by the poor decision making of our owners on and off the pitch.
And, given the working environment the management, staff and players have had to work in during that time, I’m proud of each and everyone of them for doing their jobs professionally and with so much character, they showed that even with absentee owners and a poor board of directors steering the ship, they all held their heads high and represented Dundalk FC with pride.
We head into the final day of the 2021 season on November 19th with a game against Derry City, and given results between now and then, a win against Derry could see us qualify for Europe, dont get too excited just yet, Derry need to lose against Sligo this weekend and St. Pats have to win the FAI cup and there are numerous calculations to be made before then.
Ah look, it’s a long shot, it’s permutations and luck, but we have a job to do to put ourselves in that position and if we can do that, then fuck it, at least we done all we could. You never know, lady luck could be sitting in the Aviva on November 28th and she might help St. Pats to a memorable victory over their Dublin Rivals. You never know, maybe Agent O’Donnell might help out his old club.
With the Derry game now 12 days away, I thought I would discuss the shambles that is the Fixture Management within the League of Ireland. Why, given all the fixture congestion experienced during the season, are we waiting 12 days for our final game of the season?
It seems completely illogical and its an on-going issue for every club throughout the league, its been highlighted by Managers and players alike but there seems to be no action taken by the League authorities to try and eliminate unwanted and sometime unnessecery fixture congestion and then have clubs wait weeks for their next fixture. It just makes no sense!.
The people who are given the task of managing the fixtures need to take into account the load that fixture congestion has on the players, in recent years we have seen more and more injuries to players and more stress on clubs, clubs with smaller budgets and clubs who are facing into European campaigns in July and August.
The League of Ireland is not setup to support the clubs who are competing in European competitions and its definately not setup to support teams who qualify for the group stages of European Competitions, its time the FAI and Airtricity League authorities sit down and work out a plan that will support every club in the league and especially those clubs who represent the League of Ireland on the European stage.
In July, Shamrock Rovers, Dundalk, Bohemians all had long runs in Europe and while the FAI initially postponed some games for these clubs to try and give them a chance to perpare, ultimately, they failed in their good intentions, with these postponed games being forced on teams the weekend after they were knocked out of Europe.
For example, Shamrock Rovers played Flora Tallian on the Thursday night, unfortunately they failed to qualify for the group stages, but instead of giving Rovers the weekend off to rest and push any postponed games out a week, the FAI forced the game against Bohemians on them for the Sunday.
The same happened to Dundalk and Bohemians after their european exits.
The FAI need to think different regarding European Competitions, this should be embraced as an opportunity by the governing body as a means of not just improving the league co-efficient but also a means of improving the league and making it an even better attraction to foriegn players and investors, along with a good marketing strategy and promotional campaign, the FAI could really take major steps forward to make the League of Ireland a more lucrative prospect for everyone involved.
As it stands, the prize money for winning the League of Ireland stands at €110,000, taken from that money is any outstanding fines for the use of pyrotechnics or for ground issues during the season, the cost of the license for the following season and other expenses, thus leaving the “Champions” with a potential financial reward of approximately €50,000, this is a mind-boggling situation given the cost of running a club, if the FAI took a real interest in this league, marketed the league correctly and put the correct financial investment in place, for example raising the prize pot as follows:
€1 Million for the League Winners.
€500,000 for second place,
€300,000 for third place,
€100,000 for fourth place,
€50,000 each for the remainder of teams.
The league would be a stronger place all round. If we had a TV rights package to sell the league on a larger scale and had advertising campaigns to generate investment, there is a real opportunity.
Overall, the management around the League of Ireland needs to improve on every level, we have all seen the consistently inconsistent refereeing standards, I won’t go there this time, we have all seen the poor promotion of the league and we have seen the poor management around the fixture planning, so where do we go from here?
I hope we see improvement, I hope the FAI take this opportunity to promote the league, promote the teams who will represent the League in Europe next year, maybe we will be there, maybe we won’t, regardless of that we need to get behind the teams who qualify, because they are showing the rest of Europe what the Irish are capable of.
Fingers crossed, come November 19th, we make 4th position and come November 28th St Pat’s can do us a favour.
All we can do is jump that Final Hurdle and keep our fingers crossed.
Believe.
End.