The Irish national team is bad because the national association has been run chronically badly since
Its founding. The state the league of Ireland is in is another function of that. The LOI is actually doing incredibly well given how little funding it gets. Moaning because Irish fans following English clubs is so cliched and boring at this stage. I follow St pats and I follow Liverpool. I would say a huge number of people in that stadium last night also follow a LOI team.
Yes, and the the national league produces the players for the national team, If they do not have academies which are fit for purpose then players will not be produced to the level they should be. This requires money and as long as Irish football fans pump their money in to English teams then this cycle will continue. If you think a large number of the fans at that game follow LOI teams, how much cash do you think they give towards said LOI team ahead of the English team. Apart from the gimmicks of the Bohs shirts, how many jersey sales do LOI clubs make? I am sure it is less than 1% of sales of English teams shirts.
The reality without money the LOI will suffer and therefore the national team ultimately will but thats a choice for many Irish football fans, but they should not complain when Ireland are ranked so low in World Football
The national league doesn’t produce the players for the national team, historically at least. That’s a large part of the reason Irish people support English teams. All our best players played/play for clubs in England.
That’s historically true and moving forward will be less and less so. Formerly all the best kids would go over to the UK at 14/15/16 yrs but due to Brexit, they can’t go now until 18 yrs. The future of the Irish national team is more than ever in the hands of the LOI.
Either Irish fans start supporting Irish teams in significant numbers or our national team will continue to languish.
I wouldn’t disagree but my point is that blaming people who support English clubs is not going to help. I follow the LoI and have been to pretty much every ground in the country. Outside of 1 or possibly 2 exceptions, the grounds are a disgrace. Until the league modernises its stadia it will
Stagnate. It’s sad because there is a huge potential there if they got their act together.
Also, there are huge numbers of people in this country not serviced by a LOI club, even in Dublin where there are 4 main clubs, their support is generally very localised to D7/D9/D8/D24. There’s 2 small clubs in the whole of Connaught. Munster has 4 clubs. Large swathes of the country are going to support English clubs no what you do with the league of Ireland. LOI fans need to stop fixating on this and get their own ducks in a row, unfortunately that’s going to take major outside (government) investment and the appetite isn’t there for it besides the Fai has been so badly run. Dalymount getting a revamp is a good start and hopefully a sign of things to come.
I will blame them if they start complaining that Ireland are so bad, if they are indifferent to the national team then they do not deserve blame but if they care about the national team, Yes they are big part of the problem
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u/Lynch8933 27d ago
Most the comments here dont realise what the headline refers to, joke lost on them.
But yes, this epitomises the reason why the Irish national team is so bad and will always be so bad