Its a joke why not jus make it one league and stop changint the structure every year!

Exactly, they could have twenty teams
And have the top 8 play it out in the finals, it would work a lot better, and I think the attendances would be higher.

Another troubled season looms. The FAI need to start looking at the League of Ireland as a pinnacle of football in the country, not just as an obligation that comes with running an international side. Every year for the past number of seasons we have at least one club fold or struggle through to the season’s end. Clubs simply cannot be sustained on a long term basis in the current structure. Initiatives such as the licencing structure are bold and clever but are undermined by the stupidity of those administering them. The debacle of senior football in Galway is a prime example. After promoting Galway Utd at the expense of Dundalk on the basis of a stronger licence application, they then allowed two other Galway clubs enter the First Division via a half assed pyramid system involving the A League. The result was that Dundalk struggled in the graveyard of the First Division growing weaker each season, while Galway United were mortally wounded in the struggle to survive a suddenly crowded market place on their own door step.

The very idea that a club can sustain itself playing in front of crowds that measure in tens rather than hundreds is laughable. With tight finances the regular journeys to Donegal, Wexford or Limerick are a huge expense no matter what part of the country you are located in. Almost without exception teams that have come up to the Premier League from the First Division have struggled to survive because the depth finance is not behind them.

I feel that the league needs a top division of 16 teams playing each other twice a season with a series of eight regional divisions beneath it. These divisions comprising six to ten teams each playing a minimum twenty four games a season, would be structured soomething like this in order to minimise travel;
1. Dublin;
2. Meath,Louth, Monaghan, Cavan
3. Wicklow, Wexford, Kildare,Carlow
4. Kilkenny,Laois,Offaly, Tipperary, Westmeath
5. Cork, Waterford
6. Kerry, Limerick Tipperary
7.Galway, Clare, Mayo
8. Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon

The top teams in each league would be drawn to play each other leaving four teams to be drawn against the bottom four in the Premier League for promotion/relagation, subject to scrutiny of the finances, facilities etc. before being admitted to the top division. This would be my Ideal world.

In reality the prospect of such a structure ever coming into being is slim as it would involve moving teams out of the existing amateur leagues which would surely be resisted. The situation of the League of Ireland as it stand s now is critical. A division of seven teams spread out from all over the country is asking for trouble. Clubs can’t afford it, players don’t want it. The result is that many players who should be playing at a higher standard but who are not quite up to Premier league are playing in lesser amateur leagues with no interest in First Division football due to the time committment and travel involved versus very small financial reward.

Again it comes down to how much the FAI want the League of Ireland, but with their eyes now fixed on how to fill Lansdowne for the World Cup qualifiers any radical changes to the LoI are a long way away.