DOOMED to failure or the heralding of a new chapter in local football.

It?s difficult to know what to make of the professional six-a-side league indoor veteran David Bascome proposes to launch in just over a year?s time.

Some cynics are writing it off already, others believe the very nature of the fast-paced six-a-side game will serve to raise standards, increase competition among local players and complement the regular game.

Certainly Bascome appears to have done his homework. At a press briefing last week, the owner and self-appointed league commissioner offered a slick presentation outlining just how the league would operate.

Backed by corporate sponsors, scheduled to run at the end of the BFA season, utilising the best of local players in eight different teams, non of them aligned with existing Bermuda clubs, the league will run over a four-month period on Friday and Saturday nights at the National Sports Centre.

Players, of course, won?t be full-time professionals but the plan is to reward them depending on the success of their respective sides.

What remains to be seen is how such a league will capture the imagination of the public.

At the end of the day, it will be the fans who make or break Bascome?s ambitious plan.

While America?s Major Indoor Soccer League, in which Bascome has plied his trade for a decade or more, has enjoyed moderate success, six-a-side football has never held the same attraction as 11-a-side.

Leagues have also operated in Europe and South America, but with little media coverage, limited TV exposure and generally in front of sparse crowds.

Another potential problem locally, as outlined by former national team goalkeeper Dwayne (Streaker) Adams earlier this week, is the impact a professional league would have on those Bermuda players currently attending or hoping to attend US colleges.

NCAA rules are rigid when it comes to eligibility and if the league had to exclude our best young players, then it might not be so attractive.

Moreover, if it?s going to work in Bermuda the hundreds of hardcore supporters who regularly turn up to watch the likes of Dandy Town, Devonshire Cougars and Somerset Trojans on cold winter evenings and rainy Sunday afternoons are going to have to get on board from the start.

If they don?t, interest among sponsors will quickly evaporate and the Island Soccer League, as Bascome proposes to call it, could rapidly find itself out of business.

Hopefully, that won?t be the case.

Bermuda?s hardly a hotbed of sports entertainment.

And if Bascome manages to create the drug-free, family-friendly environment he promises, a night out at the NSC to watch the best of Bermuda?s talent might just be the kind of attraction that will lure back those who have stayed away from the game in recent years.

STILL on football, one can only feel for Shaun Goater as he comes to terms with the fact that his glittering career is sliding towards an ignominious end.

A miserable couple of years at Reading seemed to be behind the former Man City hero, as he started this season with a bang, ramming home five early goals to help propel his new club, Southend, to the top of League One.

But the goals have dried up, Goater again frequently finds himself warming the bench and the club have suffered a slump that has left them winless in more than a month.

A glance at some of the football websites reveals that the fans who once hailed Goater?s arrival at Southend as the best thing since sliced bread are fast having second thoughts.

Unless things turn around quickly, the Goat?s retirement may come sooner than later.