2007–08 Irish Premier League

The 2007–08 Irish Premier League was the 107th edition of the Irish League, the highest level of league competition in Northern Irish football, and the 5th and final edition in its current format (as the Irish Premier League) since its inception in 2003.

Irish Premier League

Season	2007–08
Champions	Linfield 48th Irish title
Relegated	Armagh City Donegal Celtic Larne Limavady United Portadown
UEFA Champions League	Linfield
UEFA Cup	Cliftonville Glentoran
UEFA Intertoto Cup	Lisburn Distillery
Matches played	240
Goals scored	698 (2.91 per match)
Top goalscorer	Peter Thompson (29 goals)
Biggest home win	Glenavon 5–0 Armagh City Linfield 5–0 Crusaders Linfield 5–0 Newry City Lisburn Distillery 5–0 Limavady United
Biggest away win	Armagh City 0–5 Glentoran
Highest scoring	Dungannon Swifts 4–6 Newry City
← 2006–07 2008–09 →

Belfast

Armagh City

Ballymena United

Coleraine

Dungannon Swifts

Glenavon

Institute

Larne

Limavady United

Lisburn Distillery

Newry City

Portadown

Belfast teams : Cliftonville
Crusaders
Donegal Celtic
Glentoran
Linfield

Location of teams in the 2007–08 Irish Premier League

Cliftonville

Crusaders

Donegal Celtic

Glentoran

Linfield

Location of the Belfast-based teams in the 2007–08 Irish Premier League

Linfield won the league for the 48th time and 3rd consecutive season.

Summary

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.

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

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	Linfield (C)	30	23	5	2	71	18	+53	74	Qualification to Champions League first qualifying round
2	Glentoran	30	22	5	3	69	24	+45	71	Qualification to UEFA Cup first qualifying round
3	Cliftonville	30	18	6	6	55	32	+23	60
4	Lisburn Distillery	30	17	7	6	50	28	+22	58	Qualification to Intertoto Cup first round
5	Portadown	30	15	2	13	44	39	+5	47	Outside relegation zone, but failed to qualify for IFA Premiership
6	Ballymena United	30	12	8	10	42	41	+1	44
7	Crusaders	30	12	7	11	45	47	−2	43
8	Newry City	30	13	4	13	45	52	−7	43
9	Coleraine	30	11	7	12	41	50	−9	40
10	Dungannon Swifts	30	9	9	12	38	44	−6	36
11	Donegal Celtic	30	9	8	13	39	47	−8	35	Outside relegation zone, but failed to qualify for IFA Premiership
12	Glenavon	30	9	3	18	37	51	−14	30
13	Larne	30	7	4	19	44	71	−27	25	Outside relegation zone, but failed to qualify for IFA Premiership
14	Institute	30	5	8	17	23	41	−18	23
15	Limavady United (R)	30	6	5	19	26	57	−31	23	Relegation to IFA Championship
16	Armagh City (R)	30	5	6	19	29	56	−27	21

Source: rsssf.com
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) goal difference; 3) number of goals scored.
(C) Champions; (R) Relegated

Results

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

Home \ Away	ARM	BYM	CLI	COL	CRU	DGC	DUN	GLA	GLT	INS	LRN	LIM	LIN	LIS	NEW	POR
Armagh City		1–2	0–1	0–1	2–2	1–1	0–1	2–0	0–5	1–1	2–5	1–0	1–3	4–1	1–2	1–1
Ballymena United	2–1		0–1	2–0	2–2	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–4	2–1	3–0	3–0	0–4	2–2	2–1	2–1
Cliftonville	2–1	3–2		1–2	0–1	5–1	2–1	3–3	4–2	2–0	1–1	4–1	2–2	2–2	2–0	2–1
Coleraine	2–0	1–1	0–3		3–3	3–2	2–2	0–1	1–4	2–1	4–1	1–0	1–4	1–4	0–1	1–1
Crusaders	1–1	3–0	1–1	3–4		2–0	1–0	2–1	0–2	1–0	4–1	2–1	0–3	1–3	4–1	0–2
Donegal Celtic	3–0	0–2	0–2	1–1	3–0		3–1	2–0	3–3	0–1	4–3	3–1	1–1	1–2	2–3	0–1
Dungannon Swifts	5–1	2–1	1–0	4–1	1–1	0–0		1–4	0–0	0–1	1–0	0–2	4–0	0–3	4–6	0–3
Glenavon	5–0	1–2	1–2	1–0	0–4	0–1	1–2		1–2	2–0	2–3	0–3	0–2	2–3	1–0	0–3
Glentoran	1–0	2–4	2–1	2–1	3–0	5–1	1–1	3–0		4–0	1–0	3–0	1–0	2–2	2–1	3–1
Institute	1–1	1–1	1–2	0–0	3–1	1–1	1–0	2–3	1–2		0–1	0–0	0–1	0–2	0–2	1–2
Larne	0–2	2–1	1–2	1–2	0–3	4–2	3–3	3–4	0–3	1–2		2–2	1–5	1–2	3–0	1–2
Limavady United	0–3	3–1	3–1	0–0	1–2	0–1	1–1	1–0	1–0	2–2	2–3		0–4	1–2	1–3	0–2
Linfield	2–1	1–0	0–0	4–0	5–0	2–0	2–1	3–2	0–0	1–0	3–0	3–0		2–1	5–0	1–0
Lisburn Distillery	1–0	0–2	1–2	2–0	1–0	0–1	1–1	0–0	1–2	0–0	2–0	5–0	0–0		1–0	1–0
Newry City	3–0	2–2	1–0	0–2	1–1	1–1	3–0	2–1	0–3	2–1	2–2	3–0	0–3	1–4		2–1
Portadown	2–1	2–1	0–2	1–5	2–0	2–1	0–1	0–1	0–2	2–1	5–1	2–0	2–5	0–1	3–2

Source: rsssf.com
Legend: 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.^[1] That left thirteen clubs to be ranked - twelve from this season's Premier League plus Bangor, who had finished fourth in the First Division.

Rankings

Rank	Club	Points	Division	Notes
1	Linfield	1339	2008–09 IFA Premiership
2	Ballymena United	1054
3	Glentoran	1016
4	Coleraine	965
5	Cliftonville	945
6	Dungannon Swifts	855
7	Glenavon	828
8	Crusaders	826
9	Lisburn Distillery	815
10	Newry City	796
11	Bangor	641		Only club from outside this season's Premier League to apply.
12	Institute	632
13	Donegal Celtic	543	2008–09 IFA Championship	Missed out on the Premiership by one place.
–	Portadown	–		Gained Domestic Licence, but Premiership application received past deadline.
–	Armagh City	–		Applied, but failed to gain Domestic Licence.
–	Limavady United	–		Applied, but failed to gain Domestic Licence.
–	Larne	–		Did not apply.

Source: BBC Sport