Drogheda's Lawlor wants fully-professional league

The new National League sponsors, eircom - the name will be officially adopted by Telecom Eireann next month - yesterday unveiled a dramatically-increased prize fund for this year's competition, with a rise of more than 70 per cent to £95,000.

Teams finishing in the top half of both the premier and first division tables will receive prize money next year with the league champions earning £15,000, in addition to the £4,000 which will be guaranteed to every one of the 22 competing clubs. The winners of the League Cup will now receive £10,000.

The mood at yesterday's announcement at Tolka Park was upbeat. The deal will eventually be worth a total of £1 million over four years. Drogheda United manager Martin Lawlor, speaking on behalf of his fellow managers, urged everybody involved in the game here to react to the backing of eircom by redoubling their efforts to develop the league into a full-time professional set up within the next five years.

Such a move, he admits, looks a little daunting at the moment but, he insisted, "it's got to happen; part-time football simply doesn't have an appeal to people here anymore and so if we want to move on we have to take the next step forward.

"This sponsorship is a vote of confidence from a very major company who have taken a critical look at what we have to offer and decided we are worth backing but it can't stop there. I hope that it will be a platform for achieving a full-time professional league."

Lawlor's views are widely held within the game here but they have been expressed more regularly by those involved with the bigger clubs, most of whom would be seen as being capable of making the step forward more easily than Drogheda United.

But the current United boss is spectacularly upbeat about their prospects, seeing them at the front rather than the rear of any move to transform the league. In the more immediate future, Lawlor sees them doing what no newly-promoted club has managed in quite some time, finishing in the top six - and, since yesterday, in the money.

"We have plans to start going full-time within three years," says Lawlor, whose progress at United Park so far has been all the more admirable for the fact that it has been achieved on the sort of budget that conjures up images of postal orders rather than big fat cheque books.

"I've been working on a proposal that would bring the entire league forward," he says. "It would require the support of all of the clubs, the sponsors and the association but there are considerable benefits there for everybody if the sort of things I'm proposing are implemented."

One controversial proposal is that clubs would, for a few seasons at least, withdraw from all European competitions. "It would prevent the sort of hammerings that we seem to take every year which have the effect of sapping everybody's confidence about the game here. It would give us time to get the approach right, and go back in a bit down the road with a more professional approach," Lawlor argues.

Clubs may prefer to continue taking their chances for the time being, however, given that the potential earnings for competing teams are several times what they might earn in prize money in the domestic leagues.

On the home front Lawlor would like to see the average age of premier division footballers reduced to around 22 on the basis that clubs here have to be seen to be bringing through young talent if they are to thrive.

This is not just theory in United's case. Last season Lawlor brought many of the young players he had inherited at United Park into the first team panel and he will probably now have, with the possible exception of Galway United, the youngest squad in the top flight.

Some would claim this lessens their chances of staying in the top flight. Most of the pundits have certainly been tipping them for a fourth relegation in seven seasons and their manager is not amused.

"Even the way you ask the question shows what we have to put up with," he says. "If you were talking to a manager from one of the more established clubs you'd be talking about `looking forward to the new season' or something, but with us, the assumption is always that we're going down which we're not."

"I told my players all through last season that they were playing at a level below them and I still believe that now. We have to bring in three players, which we will before the end of September, but this squad is capable of finishing in the top six, anything less and we'll be very disappointed."

St Patrick's Athletic manager Liam Buckley said yesterday that he was confident of adding Donal Broughan to his squad ahead of tomorrow night's first league game against Derry City.

The Bohemians defender, who has been having talks with the Inchicore club for a couple of days, had played several times during pre-season with Waterford United, but Waterford's Mike Flanagan conceded yesterday that the player was likely to go to the champions instead.

"We were certainly keen to get him but after agreeing terms he said that he wouldn't sign anything until he'd talked to St Patrick's, which I think is where he's going now; so all I can do is wish him the best there."