Former Cork City manager John Caulfield says the time is fast approaching when the leading clubs in the Premier Division will decide to break away and form their own league.
The Covid-19 crisis has placed additional strain on club finances - with the majority laying off players at an early stage of the lockdown.
A small number did continue to pay players and staff, the most vocal among them being Derry City, who have argued that this effort should be recognised "in the proposed distribution of financial compensation".
In the past half decade, the league has witnessed an increased gap between those at the top with their sights fixed on European competition while the rest strain to keep pace.
Speaking on the RTÉ Soccer Podcast, Caulfield, who led Cork City to the league title in 2017, predicted that the clubs at the elite end of the League of Ireland will seek to break away from the rest in the coming years.
"There is no other employment in this country that treats employees the way League of Ireland players are treated," he said.
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"You've a scenario here where clubs stopped paying them a week after the Covid started, some stopped paying them halfway through.
"In any other job in this country, if you lost your job, the unions would be demanding a statutory pay-off and would be fighting hard for it. In fairness to the PFAI, they work very hard but until they're at a stage where they can cover players' wages when there's issues, there'll always be a problem.
"I think it's getting to the point where there's going to be a breakaway, elite league very shortly - whether it's three or five years.
"The time has come whereby you've some clubs at the point where there's huge investment, they want to be in Europe and they're trying to do things right.
"And you've lots of clubs that are run by decent people who are amateur and who have their own businesses, and where the football comes second and the running of it is from year to year.
"Unfortunately, this has been the history of our league. And it's getting to the stage where that can't happen.
"I think bigger clubs and stronger clubs and clubs that get more investment will decide that we have to push on. We need to breakaway.
"I think in the next couple of years, that will happen."
In between his stints as Cork City player (from the mid-1980s to early noughties) and Cork City manager, Caulfield was involved in amateur soccer in Cork, coaching Avondale United and UCC for decent stretches.
He praised those who kept amateur soccer going but said that this ethos shouldn't apply to the League of Ireland.
"We've been at this point for the last 30 or 40 years and we've had no change. Our players, who are now full-time employees, are treated disgracefully.
"We can't have that because it happens in no other football industry in Europe. I think there'll be significant changes happening shortly. If it doesn't happen we're going nowhere.
"I think it'll be driven by clubs who decide we want to do things right, we want a football industry in this country. And either clubs come with it, make the alterations and bring the investment in or they don't.
"I was in amateur football for 11 or 12 years. In amateur football, I dealt with brilliant people who ran their clubs, fundraised for all the clubs within their remit, from underage to senior. And you run those clubs to get your costs and make sure you can lay out a season. And then you go into the next season.
"But unfortunately, too many of our (LOI) clubs in this country are run like that. And that isn't applicable (to professional game). And the people who suffer the most are the players. That's the way it is."
