Lack of football will have lasting impact – Sproule

DERGVIEW boss Ivan Sproule believes the fact that there hasn’t been competitive football for Championship players for nine months will have a detrimental impact on the standard of the game locally and the development of players.

And the recent attempts of the Irish Football Association (IFA) to secure ‘elite’ status for the Championship and the Irish Cup is in his opinion “too little too late”.

Sproule insists the IFA should have been fighting the Championship corner at the start of the season and not at a time when the threat of the coronavirus pandemic is on an upward trajectory.

NIFL had provisionally pencilled in January 2 as yet another start date for the second tier of local football but that was kicked into touch by the latest round of lockdown restrictions which came into affect on Boxing Day. Those measures will be in place for all of January and quite possibly the first two weeks of February.

Sproule admits he’s struggling to see an end game.

FULL STORY IN TODAY’S ULSTER HERALD