Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

2007–08 Irish Premier League

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Season
  
2007–08

UEFA Cup
  
Cliftonville Glentoran

Dates
  
22 Sep 2007 – 26 Apr 2008

Goals scored
  
698

UEFA Champions League
  
Linfield

UEFA Intertoto Cup
  
Lisburn Distillery

Champion
  
Linfield F.C.

Matches played
  
240

2007–08 Irish Premier League

Champions
  
Linfield 48th Irish title

Top goalscorer
  
Peter Thompson (29 goals)

Location
  
Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

Relegated
  
Armagh City F.C., Donegal Celtic F.C., Larne F.C., Limavady United F.C., Portadown F.C.

People also search for
  
2007–08 Primera Divisió

The 2007–08 Irish Premier League was the fifth and final season of Northern Ireland's national football league in this format since its inception in 2003, and the 107th season of Irish league football overall. This was the last season of the competition before the league system in Northern Ireland was restructured. The 2008–09 competition onwards would be re-branded as the IFA Premiership, with stricter rules governing the eligibility of clubs wishing to take part. The top tier of the Northern Irish league system would also be reduced in size from sixteen clubs, to twelve.

Contents

The season began on 22 September 2007, and ended on 26 April 2008. Linfield were the defending champions, and successfully defended their title, winning their 48th title by 3 points. Five teams were relegated to the newly introduced IFA Championship for the following season.

League table

Source: rsssf.com
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) goal difference; 3) number of goals scored
(C) = Champion; (R) = Relegated; (P) = Promoted; (E) = Eliminated; (O) = Play-off winner; (A) = Advances to a further round.
Only applicable when the season is not finished:
(Q) = Qualified to the phase of tournament indicated; (TQ) = Qualified to tournament, but not yet to the particular phase indicated; (RQ) = Qualified to the relegation tournament indicated; (DQ) = Disqualified from tournament.

Results

Each team played every other team twice (home and away) for a total of 30 games.

Source: rsssf.com
^ The home team is listed in the left-hand column.
Colours: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

League restructuring

From the 2008–09 season onwards, the league system in Northern Ireland was re-structured. It would be renamed as the IFA Premiership, and reduced to twelve teams, included on the basis not only of their performance in the 2007–08 season, but in the previous two seasons, and other off-the-field criteria as follows. Each applicant club was assessed by an independent panel and awarded points against the following criteria:

  • Sporting – based on league placings, Irish Cup, League Cup and European performances in 2005–06, 2006–07 and 2007–08; with points also awarded for running youth teams, women's teams and community development programmes.
  • Finance – based on solvency, debt management and cash-flow projection.
  • Infrastructure – based on stadium capacity, changing provisions, sanitary facilities, field of play, floodlighting, existence and standard of control room, first aid room, drug testing room and media facilities.
  • Personnel – based on qualification and experience of staff
  • Business planning
  • Attendances
  • Five of this season's sixteen Premier League teams failed to gain a place in the new twelve-team Premiership and were relegated to the newly introduced IFA Championship. Of the five teams that missed out, two of them - Armagh City and Limavady United failed to obtain the necessary domestic licence, while Larne did not apply. Donegal Celtic obtained a licence, but were ranked thirteenth in the entry list, and thus missed out by one place. Finally, Portadown also obtained a licence, but were relegated to the IFA Championship as a result of submitting their application for the IFA Premiership 29 minutes past the deadline for consideration. That left thirteen clubs to be ranked - twelve from this season's Premier League plus Bangor, who had finished third in the First Division.

    Rankings

    Source: BBC Sport

    References

    2007–08 Irish Premier League Wikipedia