Paul Corcoran
Growing up in the Republic of Ireland you may get the impression, as Giovanni Trapattoni put it that, “there is no league in Ireland.”
That was a comment made by the Italian during his time in charge of the Republic of Ireland National Team.
It was 1975 when Trapattoni last had any interaction with the domestic game in Ireland. Athlone Town took on Italian giants AC Milan, in St. Mel’s Park, in the European Cup all those years ago. The match ended in a nil all draw, and the Italians progressed in the second leg with three late goals.
A lot has changed in the last forty years, however. The English Premier League is king, and took its throne in the 1990s. Most young people in Ireland grow up only talking about their English club, with not a whisper about the domestic game here. Attendances and interest have fallen.
Curiously Scottish super-power Celtic still hold the attention of many a punter in Ireland rather than their local club. Many will say it is because the standard is far better in Scotland than in our own country. Outside of the champions in Glasgow, however, the reality is quite different.
Disregarding Celtic, the attendances become very ordinary in the rest of the Scottish Premier League (SPL). They are noticeably bigger than the attendances in the League of Ireland Premier Division (LOI), however.
Cork City, the highest in the LOI, have an average attendance over 43,000 less than Glasgow Celtic. The average attendance of Cork is only higher than one SPL club, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, and only by approximately 200.
The Scottish league has always been well attended. In fact it is one of the best attended (per capita) in Europe. In numbers: 2,312 people per 100,000 in Scotland in comparison to the measly 408 per 100,000 attending games on average in the Republic of Ireland.
Taking a quick look at the UEFA coefficient rankings. Scotland are 16 places above the Republic of Ireland. The coefficients are measured by European performance. No surprise that the only team in Scotland actually performing for their league in Europe are the seemingly eternal champions, Celtic. In general the other clubs in the SPL rarely get farther than the LOI clubs in Europe. The gap, in the coefficient ranking and without Celtic, would be much closer between the leagues.
It stands then that the argument that the SPL is more widely attended because of its higher standard is unfounded.
The Irish Premier League (IPL), in Northern Ireland also discredits this claim. For a start attendance in The North is 589 per 100,000. This is more than in the LOI. Take another look at the coefficient rankings, the IPL is five places behind the LOI. Surely if the LOI is demonstrably of a better standard than the league in Northern Ireland more people should be attending games.
Television deals are another argument thrown about to explain the low attendances in the LOI. More than 700,000 Irish people in the Republic have signed up to Sky’s service showing English Premier League. There are also Premier League games shown on BT and Setanta too. The thing about this argument is that Scotland have as many subscriptions to these services and have far better football accessible to them, in England, yet more Scots attend their domestic league than Irish attending the LOI.
These deals do come into focus regarding the revenue of the respective leagues. Last season the prize money in the SPL was €18million, admittedly far less than in the English Premier Division. LOI clubs, however, just €241,000 was shared out amongst the teams. That’s 75 times less than the prize money in Scotland, with only 16 places in the UEFA coefficient rankings between them. Bottom line, this has a knock on effect on both revenue, wages and the overall pulling power of the league for star players. The SPL offers an average wage of over €180,000 while here in the Republic of Ireland it is just €16,000.
A final area that could unravel the mystery surrounding the general apathy that exists towards the LOI, yet still linked to television, are our national games. While Scotland has its own native sport, Shinty, its popularity is significantly diminished by traditional Scottish interest in football (The first national football match took place in Glasgow in 1872).
Certainly in the Republic of Ireland attitudes to our native games are very different. Gaelic Football is certainly the most watched sport in the country.
The above graph shows the 2005 All-Ireland Football Final between Kerry and Tyrone and the FAI Cup Final between Drogheda United and Cork City, the soccer All-Ireland so to speak. Obviously the two were not broadcast at the same time but the graph displays the different shares of television viewership the two attracted. Of a potential viewership of, roughly, 1,211,748 the Gaelic Football Final pulled in a staggering 887,000. The FAI Cup Final, however, only managed 179,000 viewers.
Really, when it comes down to it, it seems the standard of Irish football is irrelevant. Maybe it is just a case of the Irish not having any real room in their sporting psyches for a tangible football product, particularly when the top tier of English football is so easily accessible and digestible.