John Fallon: Cup final sell-out has to be FAI's next mission
BUMPER CROWD: St Patrick's Athletic celebrate with the FAI Challenge Cup after his side's victory in the 2021 Extra.ie FAI Cup Final. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
EIGHT teams became four and soon there will be just two but increasing numbers around the FAI Cup ought to be the priority of the governing body.
Last week’s quarter-finals delivered everything that magnifies the Blue Riband — all four ties drifting from the favourites’ reach.
Friday saw the pair of top-flight outfits scalped by First Division sides, the elimination of six-in-a-row finalists Dundalk to Waterford more of a surprise than strugglers UCD coming unstuck at Treaty United.
Forecasting the outcomes of Sunday’s meetings were marginal calls, yet both conquerors, Shelbourne and Derry City, were positioned behind Bohemians and leaders Shamrock Rovers in the league table.
Cup fervour abounded, especially in maintaining the potential for either Waterford or Treaty, or both, becoming the first club/clubs in the second tier to reach the decider since Shelbourne in 2011. They might even emulate Sporting Fingal’s feat of lifting the trophy two years earlier.
Treaty’s prospects of returning the cup to Limerick, where it last graced in 1982, have undoubtedly been diminished by the hand they were dealt in the draw on Sunday.
Facing a Derry City unit on the up is arduous enough for the part-timers but trekking to the north-west for a 2pm kick-off on Sunday, October 16 compounds their task. At least the squad can travel on the eve, whereas supporters will be departing the Midwest in the 7am darkness.
Television restrictions dictate the scheduling, with the second tie of the day, Shelbourne’s trip to the RSC, clashing with the meeting of Liverpool and Manchester City.
Still, sell-outs are probable at venues at opposite ends of the country but the wisdom around planning does warrant questioning when a captive audience is there for the taking.
Which leads us to the final on November 13.
Last year’s decider drew the largest turnout for 53 years, the attendance of 37,126 also smashing the record for a final at Lansdowne Road.
Now, the challenge is to grow the interest in the national decider, sprouting from latent to active regardless of which half of the remaining quartet earn the right to participate.
The 2021 spectacular could be attributed to various factors which don’t feature this time around.
Foremost was the reopening of full stadia to punters, denied to them during the pandemic as apparent by the empty stands for the previous year’s installment between Dundalk and Shamrock Rovers.
Additionally, there was the derby dimension to the meeting of St Patrick’s Athletic and Bohemians, heightening the relevance in a city and county where 40,000 kids alone play weekly at underage level.
Other elements might have been at play and not necessarily mutually inclusive. For instance, while the international team’s World Cup qualification ambitions were torpedoed by that stage, the proliferation of players from the domestic game in the team, as well as manager, deepened the affinity to the spectacle. Watching tomorrow’s stars today, as the FAI’s slogan preaches.
It was also consistent with the pattern of incremental improvements from the finals of the three years pre-Covid, peaking at the 2019 showdown that Shamrock Rovers claimed to end their 32-year drought.
This is the day Irish football gets to showcase its image at professional level and regression whereby it slips back to offloading under half of the 51,000-capacity — as was the case only five years ago — cannot be countenanced.
That’s why, seven weeks out from the finale, the FAI would be minded to ensure its marquee occasion is presented both nationally and internationally in the best light, beginning with occupied rows and seats.
Enticing families to spend their well-earned cash on a day’s entertainment in Dublin 4 amid a cost of living crisis is the objective so, against that backdrop, it’s disappointing to see the ticket prices.
Whereas it cost €15 for an adult ticket in recent years, prices advertised on Ticketmaster on Tuesday began at €20, an increase of one third.
The FAI on Wednesday outlined their ticket pricing plans for the FAI Cup final, men’s and women's.
Ticket Prices: Premium Level - €35. GA Adult - €20. Children - €10. Family Ticket (2 Adults + 2 Children) - €40. Club Offer – 2 X Free Adults with every 10 U16 @ €5 each.
Ticket Prices: Premium Level - N/A. GA Adult - €10. Children - €5. Family Ticket (2 Adults + 2 Children) - €20. Club Offer – 2 X Free Adults with every 10 U16 @ €5 each.
Surely, it would be prudent to aim for a larger attendance than 2022 by freezing costs rather than running the risk of losing the loyalists by hiking prices?
The final, being sponsored by a media outlet, doesn’t carry the broader clout that the women’s team are armed with through their association to Sky, placing the onus on the FAI and the finalists to whip up the frenzy to put bums on seats.
Yet they have a clear run to optimise the spectator numbers.
Fifa’s winter World Cup removes the October international window for men and the women will have to sustain their march to next year’s World Cup in either Austria or Scotland during the same month.
Aside from the likely visit of Erling Haaland and Norway to the Aviva 10 days later — which is, after all, a friendly — there’s scant competition on home soil competing for the hearts and minds of the football public over the year’s final quarter.
A range of promotional packages for families and clubs will inevitably emerge — or that’s the assumption — but some inventive thinking from a marketing department that has been merged with communications to fill the vacuum for fans and neutrals would be welcome.
Missing their World Cup winner Heather O’Reilly has cost Shelbourne in recent weeks but she hasn’t ruled out returning from America for their crescendo.
Back-to-back defeats against Peamount United and Athlone Town have resulted in the champions ceding the top spot they enjoyed for most of the season to Wexford.
They remain four points adrift with four games to play, including a meeting on the final day, October 29, against the new leaders at Ferrycarrig Park. Peamount and Athlone Town are both two points further behind and not out of the title race either.
O’Reilly was a shock recruit of the Reds in July, the US legend not merely realising her ambition of figuring in the Champions League but scoring the winner against hosts ZNK Pomurje in Slovenia last month to reach the final of the mini-group qualifier.
The midfielder, whose Twitter message about usurping fellow 37-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo to the Champions League this term drew global attention, is back in Chapel Hill coaching the next generation at University North Carolina. Coming back to Shels is on her radar but she’d better hurry to experience the business end of the campaign. Noel King’s Reds face Bohemians on Saturday for a place in the FAI Cup final on November 6 and they could do with her contribution on the run-in to a possible double.
Of all the oddities within the league affectionately known as the greatest in the world, Cork City going three weeks without a game ranks among the classics.
And it’s no ordinary game. The Rebels only have themselves to blame for allowing a title that was within their hands with three games left slip so alarmingly in Galway last Friday.
The upshot of losing 2-1 at Eamonn Deacy Park is the wait until October 7 for the next possible opportunity to close on promotion.
Those wondering about the delay can be educated by the following explanation. While the FAI have introduced international breaks for the first time, it applies solely to the Premier Division. This weekend’s First Division series is blank due to being a “reserve week”.
Colin Healy’s side are again idle next week arising from operating in a division with an odd number of teams. Second placed Galway are in action that night on September 30 but a defeat at Treaty United won’t be sufficient for John Caulfield’s side to be left in Cork’s wake. Maybe it was a twist of fate for City to be in control of their own destiny on their home patch.
If City beat Wexford at Turners Cross on October 27, and Galway slip up in the interim, promotion will be secure. But the wait, however agonising, will have to be worth the extra-time.
