Opinion: The ‘haves’ and ‘have a lot less’ in the League of Ireland - Colm Kinsella

A FEW short hours before Cork City played 13-time Polish Champions Legia Warsaw at a sold-out Turners Cross in their glamour UEFA Champions League qualifying game on Tuesday night, the Limerick FC players ambled out onto the pitch at a modest Hogan Park to begin a squad training session.

A tale of two cities, the ‘haves’ and the ‘have a lot less’ in the League of Ireland. Cork are set to earn more than €800,000 from this season’s European campaign. What €800,000 wouldn’t do for the prospects of Limerick FC this season?

Earlier this week, the Limerick FC players were still waiting to get paid their monthly wages due last week. It is the second time wages have been late in recent times. The hope is that the outstanding money owed will be paid later this week. Far from satisfactory, though.

Just eight short years after emerging from the depths of administration, turnover at Cork City FC reached €2.7million last year.

Soccer fans on Leeside rallied around in 2010 when Cork City FC temporarily went out of business over a debt to the Revenue Commissioners.

Starting from rock bottom in the First Division, the prospect of Champions League football within eight years would have seemed like a wild fantasy.

Champions League football seems light years away for Limerick FC right now.

Limerick’s ambitions over the remaining months of the season are far less lofty – basic survival in the Premier Division.

The Limerick business community and sports fans need to play their part. Limerick FC simply cannot afford to be relegated from the top flight at the end of the regular season.