Tickets for Ireland’s opening Rugby World Cup game in France ended up on a notorious scalping site, priced as high as €1,316 each

In 2019, the last full year of normal sports attendances before the pandemic, approximately 60 per cent of all revenue at Leinster came through its ticket office.

There may be better news ahead with ongoing attempts to lure a large tech operator over the line, with tentative hopes that an announcement might be ready by the time the players meet up in 10 days.

Currently, there are no formal ‘fit-and-proper’ tests for potential owners of league sides, where anyone can effectively takeover a club without having to go through a formal interrogation process.

Grassroots coaches can expect to pay up to €3,000 for a ‘Uefa A Licence’, while the same Level 4 standard for goalkeeping coaching - which are shorter courses - is as high as €1,640.

Klopp said that the FAI’s medical department told the goalkeeper that his now long-term injury “would be good after a holiday”, something which has been denied by Stephen Kenny.

For 2022 the FAI will receive €5.8m in ‘Field Sport Investment’ — €3.6 more than the IRFU (€2.2m) and €3.2m more than the GAA (€2.4m).

The football strategy and statistics game resumes tomorrow, ahead of Arsenal’s league opener at Crystal Palace, with up to 10 million teams expected to be entered from around the world, by the 6:30pm deadline.

In an interview with The Pitch, Padraig Power emphasised: “Professional sport is about winning and the more money you invest, the better your chances.”

In a critical year where stability was key, the Thomond Park hierarchy held their nerve and turned a potentially major negative into a positive for the future on and off the field