Next month the 9th edition of the Setanta Sports Cup will kick off with four, two-legged ties featuring, supposedly the very best teams from the Irish Premier League and the League of Ireland Premier division. Entrance into the cross-border competition is based on merit with the current holders, league champions, runners-up and cup winners gaining qualification. However the 2014 competition will not feature Irish Premier League champions Cliftonville or the inaugural Setanta Cup champions Linfield.
Both clubs have cited fixture congestion, and the reduced competition prize money (the total prize fund is €73,000 down significantly from the peak figure of €350,000) as reasons for their non-participation, their places have been taken by Coleraine and tournament new-boys Ballinamallard United. It seems the cup has become a hindrance to be avoided for Northern Irish clubs while most League of Ireland sides view it almost as a pre-season warm up with the majority of sides fielding second string teams. The sizeable decreases in prize money and supporter attendance sadly means that the cup competition which began to such fanfare is now very much viewed as second rate.
This would tend to reinforce the notion that there is not much appetite on any part of the island of Ireland for a cross-border competition. The Setanta Cup is only the latest in a long line of such competitions, its predecessors include the Texaco All-Ireland Cup, the Blaxnit Cup and the Dublin – Belfast Intercity Cup, all burned brightly for a while but ultimately ceased. It might be tempting for fatalists to predict a bleak future for the Setanta Cup as a result.
However that narrative was interrupted by the statement from Glentoran’s Aubry Ralph stating that he believed it was time to create one All-Ireland football division. This followed a surprise, and perhaps off- the-cuff suggestion from Taoiseach Enda Kenny in November that an All-Ireland national team could compete on a semi-regular basis to raise funds for good causes. It seems that an old favourite of bar room conversation, the All-Ireland league was perhaps creeping back on the agenda.
This is of course not the first time that an All-Ireland league was mooted, there were significant developments during the last decade when Platinum One, the sports management and events company, met with Belfast clubs Linfield and Glentoran as well as six clubs from the League of Ireland with the idea of forming a professional All-Ireland top division with prize money reported around the €4 million mark. For a number of reasons this did not proceed, there was the potential loss of European places by folding two leagues into one, the two different football calendars, as well as the various permissions that would have been required from UEFA. It was also a time when the Celtic Tiger was still roaring and many clubs in Ireland, both North and South were living well beyond their means and perhaps felt that they did not need an All-Ireland league.
The changing economic circumstances in both leagues; Ralph mentioned that Glentoran have recently cut their budget by two-thirds and the club had faced the possibility of a winding up order as recently as 2011, means that perhaps an All-Ireland league would perhaps be better received. Ralph went on to state his belief that Northern clubs would be willing to forgo the extra European places if the prospect of a new league was compelling enough. At present League of Ireland clubs are faced with a prize money structure that means that the majority of teams competing in the Premier division actually lose money taking part as the costs for league participation far outweigh the prize money on offer.
There have been several attempts to re-establish an All-Ireland league since the split between the IFA and FAI back in the 1920’s but none has yet proved successful. While Rugby, Gaelic Games and Cricket continue as all island sports Football has remained in a state of partition. Competitions like the Setanta Cup, (significantly named after the famous warrior hero of the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology) have served and important function and shown that games between teams North and South can take place, the next question is whether in hugely challenging economic times for Irish football the financial potential of meaningful All-Ireland league competition will convince clubs to take the next step.
For this to happen however a significant financial proposal, similar in scale to the Platinum One plan would need to emerge, as well as a broader consensus among club chiefs both sides of the border that this is actually something that want and believe in. At present, despite the positive noises from Aubry Ralph and even Enda Kenny an All-Ireland league remains something of a pipe-dream only to be realised in bar-room conversation.