Dermot Keely: Should clubs vote to renew the League merger with the FAI?

ON June 23, people in the United Kingdom will vote on whether to remain in the European Union.

At some point this year, the 20 clubs in the SSE Airtricity League will vote on whether to renew their merger with the FAI.

In both situations, it’d require a leap of faith to abandon what you know and decide to go it alone.

Those who want to retain the status quo will inevitably resort to scare tactics, in my opinion.

But while it seems to me like the British stand to lose more than they’d gain by leaving the EU, I’m not sure the same applies with the League of Ireland.

In the decade during which the clubs have come under the FAI’s control, things have not got better in our league.

I’m sure they would point to crowds which, according to their figures, were 351,021 in 2006 and 374,790 in 2015.

But they reported in December that the 2015 figures were 6.9 per cent up on the previous year which means there were fewer people going to games in 2014 than 2006.

The spike last year can probably be largely explained by factors such as Limerick’s dramatic improvement in the second half of the season and their move to the Market’s Field, along with Finn Harps having their first successful promotion campaign since 2007.

In other words, there is not a general upward curve which you can point to and say, ‘Yes, sustained progress is being made’.

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I’d love to see the numbers broken down club by club rather than being presented with an overall figure which makes it difficult to analyse.

There has been no improvement in our performances in Europe. Again, I’m sure the Abbotstown apologists will point to Shamrock Rovers reaching the group stages of the Europa League in 2011.

But it has become apparent that was a one-off.

Overall, we are ranked 41st out of 54 nations.

We were 40th when the FAI took control.

The FAI will say that the league is far more stable since it took charge. I’m not sure about that.

In their decade at the helm, nine sides — Kilkenny City, Kildare County, Cobh Ramblers, Sporting Fingal, Monaghan United, the old Galway United, Salthill Devon, Mervue United and Shamrock Rovers B — have left the league. Four of those — Fingal, Salthill, Mervue and Rovers B — had been allowed in on the FAI’s watch which suggests they couldn’t identify a viable club to save their lives.

Cobh have since come back in, while the only surviving first-time entrants — to date — are Cabinteely, Wexford Youths and the new Galway United.

And their creation and admission was only clearing up the mess that had been created by having three clubs in Ireland’s fourth-largest city.

So, however you choose to assess the merger, it has not been a success.

And the only argument for it to be renewed that I can see is to remind clubs of the infighting which went on when they ran themselves.

I agree that a return to that is not an option.

What should be an option — unlike when the clubs ran it themselves — is going it alone and hiring a chief executive who’s exclusively for the league and independent of all clubs.

I wouldn’t be his biggest fan but it’s clear Niall Quinn has some interest in getting involved in the domestic game.

A franchise model has to be a better alternative to our current licensing system, even if upsets a few people and clubs.

Whatever the clubs opt for, in this instance, I don’t accept that it’s better the devil you know.

Athlone lights off



JUST how far do you have to push your electricity supplier to be cut off?

I can’t imagine it is a decision which they take lightly, and yet, that is exactly what happened to Athlone Town.

Boss Alan Mathews laid bare the perilous existence of the once-proud club. He admitted that they had resorted to using a generator for power, only for that to fail.

That in turn resulted in their first home game of the season against Shelbourne being called off.

He made it clear that he had not been paid on time and that players in his squad were earning only €20 or €30 a week. This comes after Waterford United’s public appeal for help seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

A crowd of only 268 people turned up for their game against UCD at the RSC on Friday night.

It is just 12 weeks since both clubs were awarded Premier Division licences. The mind boggles.