THE eve of a new football season and I should be excited. Sorry, but for the first time ever I couldn't give a damn if a ball wasn't kicked in anger. You see, the League of Ireland's a farce, a competition and entity that seems to stumble from one disaster to the next. Derry City's deceit finally caught up with them. The litany of Cork clubs consigned to the annals of history grows. Champions Bohemians are mortgaged to the hilt.

Drogheda are teetering on the brink once more. Three, yes three, clubs in Galway, a city barely capable of supporting one.

The mirage that is Sporting Fingal and UCD, with two men and a dog when it comes to support. Poor Bray Wanderers, who didn't know which division they were playing in until days before the league kicks off.

The list of catastrophes is endless, apart, apparently, from Shamrock Rovers who are now conveniently being touted as 'the model club' by an increasingly desperate league management.

What's more, as a competition it can no longer be regarded as truly national, with eight of the 10 clubs participating in the Premier Division all located within a stone's throw of Dublin.

It's hardly a surprise, then, that the league has found it difficult to find a main sponsor, struggles when it comes to financial backing from business or benefactors and attracts minimal support from a few thousand deluded fanatics week in, week out.

God bless new sponsors Airtricity who were pulled like a rabbit from the hat at the official launch of the new season last week. The lights had to be switched off as they could only have signed up with this lot in the dark.

So who or what's responsible for this shambles? Fair enough, there's an economic downturn, let's take this as read, cut your cloth etc.

Our geographic situation that sees us sit on the doorstep of football-mad Britain, which boasts the greatest league in the world, doesn't help matters.

That soccer plays second fiddle to the GAA here at home is also a given. And a further recent squeeze has emerged in the guise of the Irish Rugby Football Union who have embraced and capitalised on the professional era magnificently.

Also, historically for one reason or another there's been little or no Government support for the League of Ireland and its member clubs.

Investors, an essential ingredient to financial stability and key to success in any professional game, have been few and far between. Regrettably, many of those who have injected funds into clubs have been stymied or burned by the experience, never to return and ward off future potential sugar daddies.

The vast majority of stadiums (an insult to the term) are simply shocking, with the majority lacking even the most basic facilities, a major impediment in attracting the new, discerning supporter that must come through the turnstiles to assist financial well-being.

Clubs have in the main been poorly run, constantly overstretching themselves financially in pursuit of silverware and participation on the European stage to the point where their very existence has hung in the balance.

In the main they're also a disparate and desperate lot, out for themselves, not interested in the common good and with no understanding of the term strength in unity.

In the end they became tired of it all and were only too willing to hand over their their product lock, stock and barrel over to the FAI.

The FAI then rode into town like a knight in shining armour. The lads in Merrion Square, now in the process of relocation to their ivory towers in Abbottstown, were going to straighten out this ramshackle of an organisation once and for all.

It goes without saying that the FAI's prime focus is on the senior international side, followed by everything else. But what's really disconcerting is the fact that the old LoI seems way down the pecking order in an organisation awash with reports, plans and strategies on amateur, junior, schoolboy, ladies football etc.

The stick chosen to beat clubs into shape – UEFA club licensing – implemented to the letter of the law on hapless, weak and cash strapped entities has not and is not working.

Derry were caught operating dual contracts by chance. It looks like Cork and others have and will continue to descend into financial meltdown, unchecked until the situation is irretrievable. The checks and balances within the licensing system are poor and still wide open to dishonesty and abuse by the cute hoor clubs who've always manipulated matters to their own advantage.

I can see no leadership, planning, vision or ambition – just fire-fighting, boot on the neck stuff and appeasing the strong at the expense of the weak by a parent body that aren't up to the task.

The buck stops with the clubs for washing their hands of responsibility and allowing the FAI lead them up a blind alley. The national soccer league under the auspices of soccer's national governing body has been an abject failure.

Taking all of the foregoing into consideration, is it any wonder the game here at home at the highest level is on its knees?

The patient's on life support, so do the humane, decent thing and switch the machine off. It's time to let the League of Ireland die.