Mood swings in favour of inter-league cup format

Having met their counterparts prior to Wednesday night's inter-league game in Galway, National League officials are confident that a new, 32-county cup competition will be up and running for the start of next season.

The details have yet to be worked out, and both sides expect to present further proposals by the end of the month at a meeting, the timing of which will probably be agreed today.

But the initial signs are positive, with officials from the south confirming after this week's representative game that there is general enthusiasm for the idea.

"I think the greater reluctance was on their part before this, but now the feeling seems to be that this is something that could be very attractive to the clubs, the supporters and potentially to sponsors and television," said league treasurer Brendan Menton.

While the proposals remain vague, one possibility is that the competition would include 16 clubs from each side of the Border, competing in a straight knock-out competition, with the first round run on a home and away basis.

The opening games could be run early in the league season, probably during September or October. Both leagues are considering the implications such a move would have for their current roster of competitions. The abolition in the Republic of the League Cup, which has become somewhat marginalised in recent years, is a distinct possibility.

The feeling north and south is, however, is that the new competition would generate considerable interest amongst supporters, attract lucrative support from sponsors and generate coveted television exposure.

"There is a possibility that, because of the timing, we might have to go up against the Champions League games on television, but there's no real way of avoiding that these days," said Menton.

"The important thing is that a competition like this should throw up some very attractive ties and, whatever the final agreement on a format, it looks at the moment like something that is well worth pursuing."

Whether everything can be in place by the end of the summer remains to be seen, but with another meeting planned for this month, the hope is that agreement can be reached on the outline of the competition by the end of the year, after which financial and other concerns can be explored.

"There are a lot of things that have still to be sorted out," said FAI chief executive Bernard O'Byrne, "such as whether the required sponsorship can be put in place and whether the two governing bodies will okay it. But I have no reason to believe that everything required can't be agreed."

Given the problems that have arisen with clubs this week over the representative game, the possibility of playing so many midweek games may also raise further concerns among clubs who, unlike their northern counterparts, have grown used to playing on Friday nights. But O'Byrne feels that the nature of the proposal may overcome such difficulties.

"The fact is that, if the whole thing was being put to clubs from above, then there might be problems having it accepted," he said, "but with something like this the basic initiative is really coming from the clubs themselves, and so it's hard to see there being too much resistance to it."

While such a competition may benefit from the enthusiasm of the main National League clubs, it seems that the prospect of further inter-league fixtures being arranged has probably been damaged by the reaction of various managers to this week's game in Galway, as well as by the poor attendance.

After the tie, though, the National League side's manager, Dermot Keely, called for "a little bit of imagination" on the part of the league authorities to such games.

"In my playing days," he remarked, "we used to play Serie B from Italy and I can't see why we can't get back to a stage where we have regular matches against teams from other countries. It could be Wales or Northern Ireland or, say, the Nationwide League from England."