The FAI on Thursday released the fixture list for the upcoming League of Ireland season, and along with it came confirmation that from the 2018 season forward, the structure will switch to a two-tier, ten-team league, meaning that three teams will be relegated from the Premier League, while only one will be promoted to the first division.
The news was, as expected, met with bemusement and anger by a lot of fans, as not only does it make life incredible difficult for every team in the First Division this season, but after the much criticised €5,000 grant for clubs to compile a strategic report to grow, it has completely changed the structure that those reports were based on in the same year.
This is something that particularly bothered CoBh Ramblers boss Stephen Henderson, and he hit out at the decision on twitter as he explained how difficult things had now been made for his club.
If Waterford do what limerick did last season expect a few 1st division clubs to crash during the season.
— Stephen Henderson (@stevehendo07) December 22, 2016
Every strand of our hugely positive & effective strategy is gone out the window . We start again but with no direction . This is galling.
— Stephen Henderson (@stevehendo07) December 22, 2016
As for those clubs that voted for this ! You are an integral part of the problem in LoI football.
— Stephen Henderson (@stevehendo07) December 22, 2016
It's incredibly frustrating for all involved.
There is also questions being asked about the number of clubs that did indeed vote for a restructure, as there have been murmurings that it was a minority of clubs that agreed with the policy, and yet it was still passed. The general consensus from the reaction on social media seems that more would have favoured expansion to 16 teams in the Premier League, rather than a reduction to 10.
Henderson is certainly not alone in his feelings, and it is remarkable how the decisions taken for the supposed benefit of the league continue to infuriate those who love it most.
