The Airtricity League comes in for regular criticism as being of a poor standard but St Patrick’s Athletic’s victory yesterday, securing a first title since 1999 shows the mark of a competitive competition that is unequalled across Europe.
St Pat’s are the seventh different side to win the title in the last nine years. In the same time period Only France of the top nations with six different winners comes close in terms of open competition.
Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany have produced four, England and Italy three with Spain and Portugal sharing the honours between only two sides.
In terms of the number of goals you are likely to see, a visit to Tallaght Stadium, Tolka Park or Hunky Dory’s Park will yield an average of 2.80 goals making it the 12 highest scoring of 50 leagues in Europe.
The average age of players taking to the field is also a good mark for the future of the league with Ireland’s 24.2 making it the eleventh youngest set of players.
Part of the criticism is that the League does not prepare enough players to go on to full international status but the proportion of Irish eligible players lining out is also high with 86.9% of players drawn locally, as opposed to 37.8% in the Premier League in England.
Finally, the crowds may not match the number who travel overseas to watch top flight action but with .22% of the population attending matches regularly, that is a higher proportion than the top flight leagues of Croatia, Poland and Turkey and above the proportion that attend second tier action in each of Spain, Germany, Italy and France.
With regular live coverage of matches on RTE, and Monday Night Soccer established as a popular magazine programme, alongside Airtricity extending its title sponsorship deal last November, the League has plenty to be proud of as it raises a cheer for St Pat’s this Monday morning.
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