Will League of Ireland ever learn their lesson?

HOLD THE BACK PAGE: IF YOU'RE to believe followers of baseball, a certain gentleman by the name of Yogi Berra was the greatest catcher in the sport's history. He was famous for other things too, like coming up with wise old sayings that had more in common with Chinese proverbs. Gems like, "Life is a learning experience, only if you learn".

The latest crisis regarding Cork City – unfortunately one of many in the League of Ireland in recent seasons – brought that particular one to mind, for it seems time and the history of past failings haven’t fully registered with those involved in the beautiful game here or, if they have, lessons haven’t been fully learned or in some cases, have simply been ignored.

This is a league currently without a main title sponsor (since Eircom bid them adieu) but which, in its day, produced some majestic footballers and marvellous characters: Jackie Jameson, Al Finnucane, Mick Leech, Peter Thomas, Liam Coyle and Paul Doolin spring to mind. More recently, Kevin Doyle and Shane Long – however briefly – and Keith Fahey and Brian Murphy showed quality that made them fit for export.

And, in the dim and distant past, the likes of Bobby Charlton and George Best deemed it worthy of their last hurrahs on tiring legs.

It’s a league with history, but with a real image problem.

We’ll know on Monday if Cork City have dodged another bullet, and their inclusion in the provisional fixture schedule would indicate those in high places believe things will be in order for a licence to be issued, but Berra’s words keep coming back.

Have the lessons of the past fallen on deaf ears?

What of the name of Cork Hibernians and Cork Celtic, which are blasts from the past, or of Kildare County and Kilkenny City, who never reached those heights but who were forced to concede defeat in their attempts to survive as minnows in shark-infested waters.

Others, like Shelbourne – who sought to be prophets extolling the European vision only to almost crumble out of existence under the weight of their financial debt – took the medicine dished out to them and, fortunately, have survived. Drogheda United, too, seem to have come out the other side; both clubs do so with reduced expectations and severely reduced budgets.

Derry City are still in the league (albeit with First Division rather than Premier Division status) which can only be a good thing given the infusion they gave with their arrival on the scene in the ’80s and into the ’90s.

The new campaign starts in just three weeks’ time and many clubs are taking uncertain steps into the season. They’re punch drunk, with financial wheeling and dealing from one end of the country to the other meaning accountants and business suits have become as integral a part of any club’s set-up as the players and coaches and trainers.

But you’ve got to wonder where the grand plan extolled by the FAI in assuming responsibility for the league – well into its original five-year concept – is bringing clubs?

The old arguments haven’t gone away, like the fact that soccer here is living in the shadows of the English Premiership and is also playing second-fiddle to Gaelic games and, increasingly, rugby in terms of attracting crowds and generating needed finance. Yet, in terms of participation levels, the soccer authorities should be in the shadow of nobody. Something is fundamentally wrong.

But, in terms of the LoI, other arguments persist. Like the number of clubs, and their geographical spread. Does the league really need a Premier Division and a First Division?

Has the time come for a complete overhaul?

Does it make sense to have five Dublin clubs in a 10-club Premier Division (which could conceivably be increased to six in a geographical catchment sense if Cork’s problems aren’t sorted out and Bray Wanderers are moved up a division to replace them)?

Does it make sense to have three clubs in Galway? THREE!!

No offence intended to Salthill Devon, the latest to join the LoI family, but that just doesn’t stack up.

A lot doesn’t make sense, in fact. There are too many clubs and not enough supporters going through the turnstiles to sustain professionalism or even in some cases semi-professionalism.

There is an image problem that just won’t go away, with soccer supporters and participants adopting a mightier than though attitude in preferring to support the Red Devils or the Pensioners ahead of the Gypsies or the Hoops.

The travails of Shelbourne, Drogheda etc has at least brought a semblance of reality with many clubs cutting their cloth to suit and returning to part-time structures rather than attempting to buy success in Europe with full-time squads. And yet . . . and yet . . . you can understand why Shels and Drogheda and Cork and Pats bought into the European dream, for they came within a kick of the ball of getting into the mega-rich stages of European competition.

Maybe a streamlined All-Ireland League – as envisaged by Fintan Drury but rebuked by the powers that be North and South – holds the magical cure to all the ills. Maybe!

It just seems that the struggles faced by clubs in the League of Ireland heading into this new season are eerily similar to the ones faced in the old days by such dinosaurs as Cork Hibs and Drumcondra.

India's security goes on trial

SPORT IS unfortunately an easy target for extremists, with even threats – without the need for any actions – often sufficient to put a spanner in the works.

Take the hesitancy in recent days of the New Zealand hockey team to decamp from its training base in Perth, Western Australia, for the upcoming World Cup in India as an example where such threats have the desired effect without any act actually being carried out.

The security threats to sporting events in India – including the Hockey World Cup, the upcoming Cricket League which will entice many of the world’s top batsmen and fielders there and the Commonwealth Games in October – could yet scupper that country’s attempts to one day play host to the Olympic Games.

The Commonwealth Games will be the biggest international sporting event to be held in India since the Asian Games in 1982, and organisers have hopes that a successful staging could open the way for an Olympic bid down the road.

As they’re finding out, terrorism threats and sport are – unfortunately – closely linked. Let’s hope, for the good of sport, that the hockey, cricket and Commonwealth Games go off incident-free.

Rugby shows other codes the way

THE HARSHEST critics of all are to be found in the world of rugby, whether they’re to be found sitting in cosy chairs in a television studio, or in a press box, or in the stands/terraces or – the harshest of all – perched on a bar stool.

Unlike their soccer and Gaelic football brethren who seem to take it as their very right to question officialdom, the only place, it seems, whingeing and moaning in rugby don’t take place is on the actual pitch.

If rugby players do wrong, they take their punishment without a tirade of foul-mouthed “F” words.

As evidenced in the Jerry Flannery case, his kung-fu or judo kick – call it what you will – on Alexis Palisson reaped justice of a kind. He had no option other than to go into the midweek hearing with his hands held high and a confession of guilt in the matter.

Flannery’s woefully inept kick at the ball that instead cut down the man got him what he deserved, and – yet again – the speed and justice of the disciplinary hearing affirmed just how far rugby is ahead of those other round ball codes.

The litany of “I-told-you-sos” from critics of the bar stool or TV punditry variety after Ireland’s defeat to France was a chorus to be expected and inevitably the expectation – based on one loss in 15 months – is for change.

Flannery’s omission from the team for Twickenham next week means that Rory Best – a better scrummager in any case – will go into the frontrow but that is an enforced change and the more interesting scenario is if Declan Kidney makes the move (a match late!) to replace the Munster halfback pairing of Ronan O’Gara and Tómas O’Leary with the Leinster equivalent of Johnny Sexton and Eoin Reddan.

Jenkins not for giving the 'kid' a break

DAN JENKINS is one of the most venerable sportswriters in America, and many wondered why he kept his counsel so long on the whole Tiger Woods episode.

After all, the words of Dan the Man are devoured by his fans and there is the fact he was at every one of the New Coming’s major victories.

Now, he has finally allowed the keys on his laptop to click into action, and – to be honest – it has been worth the wait.

In the upcoming issue of Golf Digest, Jenkins gives his tuppence worth, initially taking the golfer's agent Mark Steinberg to task for asking the media to, "give the kid a break".

“Kid? Tiger Woods was a month away from 34 years of age when his debutantes began turning up on the news. He was a grown man with a wife and two children. Well, we supposed he had a wife, but that was before we learned she was only an ornament.

“Kid? Kids flew B-17s in daylight bombing raids over Germany in World War II. Kids fought in Korea and Vietnam. Kids are serving today in Iraq and Afghanistan so Tiger Woods can live in a world where he can win 14 majors and match that number, the last time I counted, with 14 casting couches, most of them reserved for blondes.”

On and on goes Jenkins, one jewel after another.

How about, “Hogan, Palmer and Nicklaus never set themselves up to become future statues in Central Park . . . (Hogan, Palmer and Nicklaus ) never pretended to be the All-American Daddy-Pop Father of the Year Who Also Wins Golf Tournaments . . . . (Hogan, Palmer and Nicklaus ) were never what Tiger allowed himself to become from the start – spoiled, pampered, hidden, guarded, orchestrated, and entitled.”

Jenkins reserves his knock-out punch not for Woods, but for agent Steinberg. There’s history, you see. He describes his efforts to arrange dinner and get a Q&A, on or off the record, with the golfer.

The agent apparently informed the wordsmith, “we have nothing to gain”.

Should Steinberg come knocking on Jenkins’s door whenever he gets around to damage limitation, Old Dan has an apposite response: “Now it’s too late. I’m busy.”

Aussies Rules branches out

F I N A L S T R A W:IF THE mandarins in Croke Park thought the only concern they faced with those odd-balls from Down Under poaching their players came at the top level of inter-county football, they might want to think again. The Australian Rules football league in Ireland continues to expand and recruit players . . . and everyone is fair game.

Indeed, there are now teams like the Redbacks (in Belfast), the Lions (in Cork), the Crows (Clare/Limerick), the Demons, Swans and Saints (all in Dublin), the Tigers (Westmeath/Meath/Longford/ Offaly) and the Magpies (Galway/Mayo/ Roscommon) breaking into the GAA’s traditional heartlands.

All these Aussie Rules clubs are currently involved in a recruitment campaign for the upcoming league.

And, for those in the Dublin area, if you happen to go down to Bushy Park in Terenure tomorrow afternoon – from 2 pm – prospective players will be put through their paces. Wonder if there’ll be any eagle-eyed GAA men in the high grass with binoculars looking for possible defectors?

The Aussie Rules blokes might see them as converts.