For a whole host of Premier Division clubs, the decision to have three teams automatically relegated to the League of Ireland First Division at the end of this season meant they were always going to spend the campaign looking over their shoulders.
At present, Finn Harps are in the bottom three, sitting 10th among the 12 top division clubs with the season ticking towards its conclusion.
"When decisions are made, usually you're given the pros and cons of why this happened. There's a lot of debate about the way the decision was made by the PCA (Premier Clubs Association) and copper-fastened by the FAI," said Finn Harps manager Ollie Horgan as he joined Off The Ball to discuss the battle to avoid the drop and the decision to restructure both domestic divisions in the way that they have.
You can listen to the full interview with Ollie Horgan on the podcast player below or stream/download on iTunes:
"I still haven't been told what the positives are," he said.
"I just don't see where the positives are. There'll be a bigger club than Finn Harps relegated to put it that way to you. I think the professional side of it, the budgets of clubs were already agreed well before this decision came in and all of a sudden then, it's announced that three teams get relegated."
Aside from bottom side Drogheda United of Louth, the other clubs in and around the relegation zone are in the North West and West which means an entire region could be absent from the top division next season and Horgan added, "There's going to be a full time club that gets relegated and football in that area, if you take the towns you're talking about, they're brilliant, brilliant clubs. They're full time with serious supporters. They're football towns."
The Irish Independent's Dan McDonnell was in studio and set the scene for the relegation battle:
The decision to send three teams down has left us with a frantic situation in the #loi Premier Division as @McDonnellDan explains pic.twitter.com/ZBr0Q10tQE
— Off The Ball (@offtheball) August 23, 2017
