There’s been talk of the Airtricity League being changed to a 12-team Premier Division once again in the not-too-distance future. But how can it be justified, when it’s effectively an eight-team division this year?
Often, irrespective of whether it’s the Premier League, La Liga or the League of Ireland, the relegation battle can be more pronounced and exciting than the race for the title.
Whereas a couple of teams, at most, can challenge for top honours, all but the wealthiest clubs can get sucked in at the bottom; if the wheels come off, it can be almost impossible to get them back on while the vehicle is still trundling forward.
There can be a feeling of dread that is not wholly – or even, for the slightly sadistic, at all – unpleasant when we watch games at the foot of the table where the merest slip can result in the moment which seals a team’s fate.
Forget the 30-plus games before then. When the fans think of success or failure, a single moment usually comes to mind, and when it’s relegation, an error can see an individual player take on an unenviable but indelible role in a club’s history.
All that suggests some level of drama, though, and drama at the foot of the League of Ireland Premier Division table is conspicuous only by its absence this season.
After 16 games, Drogheda United and Galway United have a grand total of five points apiece. Galway are in the automatic relegation spot, behind their fellow cannon fodder on goal difference.
But does it all really matter? One of the two will be playing in the First Division next season. The other will have a chance or two of a reprieve through the play-off system, but both are so uniformly out of their depth that survival is almost unthinkable.
And still there is talk that the League requires more top flight teams, that an increase to 14 or 16 teams would spread the wealth, because it would see Shamrock Rovers bring a crowd of paying fans to Athlone or Monaghan or Waterford at least once a year.
On the evidence of this year, though, anything more than eight sides is optimistic. Which, with cashflow tighter than ever, brings the dire need for an All-Ireland League into sharper relief than ever.
Dessie Baker is away.
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