National League: Representatives of the 22 Eircom League clubs are expected to meet again in three weeks to formerly ratify their decision to hand control of the league over to the FAI after the proposal comfortably achieved the support it required over the weekend.
At a board of management meeting held immediately prior to the league's agm, 18 clubs voted in favour of the merger with the remaining four - Dublin City, Monaghan United, UCD and Waterford United - opting to abstain rather than formerly opposing the scheme under which the system of promotion and relegation will be suspended for the coming season at the end of which clubs will have to apply to join a new league.
"I think the need for change was recognised which is welcome," said league director John Byrne yesterday. "Obviously a few clubs have concerns about their own futures in the Premier Division but the basis on which the decisions regarding membership will be made is all to be decided between now and July or August.
"What we have to do is to get things right between now and then so as to ensure that the standards we adopt are fair and help to move the game here on."
The detail of the merger will now be worked on by two committees, one comprised of league representatives Paddy McCaul, Eamon Naughton and Byrne as well as John Delaney, David Blood and Michael Cody from the FAI along with Fintan Cummins of the Munster FA. The other, drawn from the clubs, contains officials from Kilkenny City, Cobh, Sligo Rovers, Derry City, Cork City and Shelbourne.
A vote to ratify Saturday's board meeting will be taken in February, most likely around the 20th, so as to allow the licensing process to be completed and fixtures to be adopted for this year after which work will intensify on finalising the precise criteria to be used for considering applications for membership of the new league.
Fans' group, the National League Supporters Association, expressed its disappointment with the outcome of Saturday's meeting. "The proposals," said the organisation's Kevin McDaid, "suggested that the FAI will decide which clubs will be in either the Premier or the First Division in 2007."
"Reports suggest that this decision will be based on arbitrary criteria such as marketability and potential, contradicting the ethos of fair sport. A club could perform well in the Premier next season and yet be relegated due to infrastructure or attendance figures.
"We acknowledge the need for facilities and off-field practices to improve," he continued, "but this is supposed to be what the FAI were to achieve through Uefa Licencing. Fans were assured that the introduction of the Uefa Licence would herald a new dawn for the league, but it appears that the licence has now been discarded. Therefore it is unsurprising that fans are far from convinced that these new proposals will provide any real benefits."
At Saturday's agm itself, meanwhile, it was revealed that attendances for last year were up six per cent with 336,689 paying into Premier Division games and 77,405 passing through the turnstiles at First Division clubs.
"Obviously the biggest crowds were at clubs like Cork, Derry and Shelbourne (the final game of the season between Cork and Derry attracted 8,058, the campaign's largest crowd) but," observed Byrne, "there were encouraging signs elsewhere too and at clubs in the First Division."
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