Opinion: Can Sky Blues gain financial fast-track from nonsensical play-offs?

Ballymena United's defeat by Ballinamallard on Saturday dented the Sky Blues' hopes of finishing in seventh place. Picture: Press Eye.

Reality may finally have bitten in the David Jeffrey era, there's still a chance for Ballymena United to finish the season on a high.

Beat Portadown on Saturday and Sky Blues fans might still - incredible as it seems - be checking their passports for a possible, if unlikely, European trip.

I’ve been a big fan of many of the initiatives that the Northern Ireland Football League (NIFL) have introduced since they took over the governance of the top three divisions a few seasons back but I can’t warm to this play-off idea at all.

At present there are a yawning 22 points between the team in fourth place - Glenavon sealing third spot at the weekend takes them out of the play-off equation - and the team in seventh - can anyone REALLY say that the latter deserve a chance of what is now - in an era of increased UEFA money - a huge prize, more so than the former?

Don’t get me wrong - I won’t be sitting at the Showgrounds this Saturday willing Portadown to beat Ballymena so that the Sky Blues fail to reach seventh. Quite the opposite - if Ballymena were to finish seventh and then somehow win the play-offs, it would be exactly the financial fast-track that the club needs in order to be able to compete with the clubs above them.

If they do so, they will have done it legally and within the rules that every club knew about before a ball was kicked.

But to have a season’s worth of graft turned a 90 minute showdown is a further example of the Americanisation of sport where all your good work in the regular season can be undone in one afternoon in a one-off game. A sprint, after a marathon.