Stop making comparisons between Wales and Ireland as there is no comparison.

All of Ireland's clubs are involved in the league, whereas the 4 best supported clubs in Wales are not and never will be.

All of Irelands major cities are represented whereas Cardiff, Swansea, Newport and Wrexham(sorry Cefn doesn't count) have no representation in the WPL, Cardiff have had 2 but both have failed dismally to last.

A better comparison would between us and the Scottish 2nd division

Ireland is not a valid comparison.

But the plans could be improved a great deal. Here are my ideas I posted elsewhere as an alternative. No final decisions have been made. Would be good if fans' meetings were held

1) Run the season from Aug 1st to March so that clubs are back in training a little earlier to help preparations for Europe.

2) 14 club league. Don't want to play clubs 4 times a year, but we need to reduce it to increase the quality.

3) Have Div 1 North and Div 1 South of just 10 clubs playing loads of local derbies in their 4 games against each other, and ensuring 2 feeder leaguies of reasonable quality below the Premier.

4) Invite all clubs playing in Wales back into the Welsh Cup, lobby UEFA to accept any of them as Welsh representatives. Make them enter from 2nd round. Make QF and SF 2-legged.

5) As they will play in both Welsh and English Cups, lobby English FA for the 14 WPL Clubs to be accepted to 1st qualifying round of English FA Cup. Cardiffs etc to accept that, altho they play in both cups, they can only qualify for Europe as Welsh reps.

6) Celtic Cup - top 8 clubs from Wales, Ireland, Loyalists, and maybe Scottish 1st Div with TV sponsorship. To make it practical, 1st Round internal e.g. Welsh Group, Irish Group etc one Saturday in Autumn. Then Final 16 in an Open Draw, QF in February in warm-up to Irish season and SF and Final in Spring.

7) Make League Cup an Under-21 Comp and having proper entrants a condition for membership of WPL (optional for Divs 1 in the preliminary round).

To fill the Fixture List - There are 36 Saturdays during the season mentioned in Point 1. 26 Premier League Fixtures + nominate 2 or 3 Saturdays for rounds of Welsh Cup + nominate a Saturday for Celtic Cup 1st round + nominate 2 Saturdays for first 2 qualifying rounds of English FA Cup + showcase a Saturday for Under-21 League Cup.
When you add Euro fixtures, clubs would have - dependent on their success - between 32 and 40 far better quality fixtures than at present with new challenges each year.

Now if we can just get RT and Ioio to run the league...

was that "run" or "ruin" ?

I do enough in the basketball world now there's an underfunded sport!! Believe me we think we need improvements!!! HA. I'd wipe the floor with the FAW on how to improve

Anyhow, of course there ARE example to draw from the Irish league (and I'm not talking about clubs - open your eyes there are many value that we can draw from)!!! 2 things that have improved are (what are facts - heard of them ppl) attendances are sponsorship/ income & money.

For all those who call for the FAW to input monies where their mouths are then obviously they have to draw it from somewhere and by gaining monies they have to make something that isn't good at drawing money into a "cash-cow" (layman terms the golden goose) - "how I hear you cry" - exactly!!!

The answer is quite simple (which is currently being developed) changing the league so that it has a different market!!! Commercial companies love change because they think that it might also open different avenues via marketing and if they can market a brand all year round (i.e. with winter & summer football) then everyones a winner - follow me!?!?!

Seasonality is a killer and the winter is a killer to the current WPL, however, changing the seasonality will offer a different target audience and current followers might disagree, but if your a TRUE supporter you'll follow your team till the end of your time!!! Therefore having a different K.O. time will open up attendances (even if you make K.O. earlier by a month or two)!

With more ppl & better sponcership little TV companies will go "oh, I want a piece of that action" and bag-wallop off we go!

You can either moan and disagree or open your eye and look outside of your box - either way IT IS CHANGING and you can either embrace it or walk away your choice really, I know I'm left with a smile

that's not a smile - it's a cheesy grin

Craig is right on this issue. Comparison with Ireland does not stand up. Our border with Ingerland is just a line on a map whereas the Irish have 80 miles of water between them and ingerland (or 40 miles and us !). So Welsh semi-pros could much more easily than the Irish opt to keep their summer hols and play their winter footie in ingerland. More true of Rhyl than Llanelli of course.

Re TV coverage, we can NEVER EVER get any sort of TV coverage of the UEFA, Inter-toto or Champions League games in the summer (unless the Welsh club is playing L'pool). They don't want to know about football in the summer here. You've got the footie season til May, then every other year the build-up to and coverage of World or Euro Cup til end of June. Then the TV companies, and fans (unless their own club is involved in the UEFA Cup), want a few weeks break before all the coverage starts again in August. This side of the water, there is NO break nor window of opoortunity for coverage of Welsh footie in summer.

Very good point that one, unless we go full time I think it would be very difficult for us to attract players from over the border.

Players who work shifts where their 2 week holidays are factored into the summer are not going to be too impressed with the idea of playing throughout the summer.

Of course we could all go full time like Nicholas suggests and lose about £250k a season unless you win the everything and make the 2nd rd of the champions league or freakishly draw Liverpool in the 1st Qual rd

I do agree with those points and those are the down falls of summer footy as well as full time, it is easier said than done and disagree with Nico - FT isn't for everyone and will put you in the red quicker than being PT!!!

I didn't realise that Northern Ireland were changing their set-up too and could the developments from this league help us with our restructure???

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/irish/7399454.stm

Blimey. This is ominous. Shelbourne didn't obtain their domestic license last season and got demoted, now it's happened to Portadown.

I'm guessing when the WPL changes in 09/10, participating clubs will need a domestic license?

Welshpool better build that new stadium quickly

But it also shows that the clubs in the lower division have a chance to get promoted without success on the pitch (that's good for clubs like Lido & ENTO who have the structures but not the success). Although ENTO need to update their stadium etc...

Exactly. That's why i'm optimistic that the Crows will at least be in 'WPL2' when it comes about

Although it could be expensive as i expect Llanelli, Carmarthen, and PTT to be in WPL1, which means only to short trips to Neath and Haverfordwest. For me, that's the big stumbling block about the WPL2...

..which is why Div 1 North and Div 1 South under the Premier League makes more sense.

They say they are going for a national Div 1 so that there are clubs which have the criteria to be promoted to the Premier. But that doesn't make sense cos they also say that they want a Premier of 10 clubs only because of the strict criteria !!

I wonder if they've noticed that Scotland and Ireland have gone from 10 to 12 clubs - apparently 10 is boring !

I was in favour of North & South Divisions and then play off for the winner, it would make the competition more interesting... But Reds Commercial Managers said that would NEVER happen... Oh well...

North and South Divisions BELOW the Premier.

In an ideal world...(just daydreaming)...

PREMIER LEAGUE
H'west
Carmarthen
Llanelli
Neath
Talbot
Merthyr
Aber
Newtown
Oswestry
Rhyl
Bangor
Caernarfon
Barry Comeback
Pothmadog
( + loads of Welsh + English FA Cup games + Celtic Comp + Europe )

DIV 1 North (Play each other 4 times)
Colwyn Bay
Nomads
Flint
Druids
Llandudno
Prestatyn
Holyhead
Bala
Welshpool
Llangefni

DIV ! South
Cwmbran (just for you)
ENTO
Ton Pentre
Pontypridd
Bridgend or Maesteg
Afan Lido
C.N. Emlyn

Caersws
Rhayader
Dinas Powys