Athletics Ireland to receive €610K over four years to support high-performance coaching

Kate O'Connor of Ireland celebrates with her father and coach Michael after winning silver in the women's heptathlon during day eight of the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 2025. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

The issue of coach funding has long been a thorny one in Irish athletics, which still lags far behind its international rivals in this area – even while its athletes make up significant ground on the track.

Historically, the sport has relied heavily on the work of unpaid, volunteer coaches to produce world-class performances, but a new support package valued at €610,000 across four years has recently been approved by Sport Ireland to help bridge the gap.

The investment will see Athletics Ireland receive just over €150,000 per year from 2025-2028 to support high-performance coaching.

The news comes amid a backdrop of growing disgruntlement among top coaches over a delay in receiving financial supports this year, while many Irish athletes have long been calling for better supports for their coaches.

One of those is Kate O’Connor, who said shortly after receiving her silver medal in Tokyo last Sunday that leading Irish coaches are “doing it because they love the sport and they love us, not because they’re getting any money from it.

“It’s gotten a lot better,” she added of the changes made in recent years. “But it still needs to get a lot, lot better.” 

The 24-year-old won four major medals for Ireland this year – bronze at the European Indoors, silver at the World Indoors, gold at the World University Games and silver at the World Championships – but those achievements came amid a backdrop of minimal financial support for her father and lead coach, Michael, who’s a teacher at CBS Primary School in Dundalk.

“My Dad took a career break for a couple of years, not getting paid, just to coach me,” she said. “That’s really tough. I was lucky enough that he was in a position to be able to do that. I wasn’t earning enough to be able to pay him enough to fund his life; he just had enough savings to do so. 

"Not everybody is able to do that. He just did that out of love for the sport and love for me.” 

O’Connor said her dad will soon return to work and job share over the coming year, ensuring a steady income while also having the time to coach her on the path to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

The Dundalk athlete is now based in Belfast and, having spent periods training abroad, she sees a difference in how coaching is still viewed and financed in Ireland and elsewhere. 

“When you look at the American girls, it’s just completely different over there,” she said. “Being a coach is an actual job and it’s probably respected a lot more. I think in Ireland it could get a lot better. Definitely, [coaches] should be looked after a lot better.” 

O’Connor has three primary coaches across her various disciplines and has seen the level of commitment required to guide an athlete to global medals.

“It’s a full-time job,” she said. “People don’t maybe realise how much time and effort goes into planning. Sometimes there’s not enough expertise in the country and you’ve got to bring people in from other places and my dad is very good at speaking to people and getting people on board, but you also need money to bring these people in.

“Equipment is another thing, getting me on training camps, getting me to train with these other athletes – it’s a huge expense so, yeah, money does come into it.” 

The multi-annual funding commitment to coaches by Sport Ireland is an attempt to do just that on the build-up to the 2028 Games. 

Athletics Ireland said it is “an unprecedented investment in high-performance coaching and a glowing endorsement of our stated strategic goals of both supporting those coaches working directly with our leading athletes, and the drive to increasingly professionalise high-performance coaching in Irish athletics.” 

Sport Ireland said it is “the most significant Sport Ireland investment in Athletics Ireland coach support ever and is in addition to the high-performance programme, carding and Institute commitments.” 

One of the chief criticisms from the Tokyo Olympic review in 2021 was the lack of support for coaches, and Athletics Ireland highlighted that as part of its High Performance Strategic Plan 2022-2028. 

In 2023, Sport Ireland granted Athletics Ireland an additional investment of €200,000 beyond its core funding to implement the strategy, with €80,000 of that distributed among 10 top-level Irish coaches.

Similar funding was provided in 2024 to assist coaches preparing athletes for the Paris Olympics, but no further commitment was given to coaches through the early part of this year.

The Irish Examiner spoke with multiple top-level Irish coaches this week who received funding over the last two years and each of them confirmed the last payment they received was in September 2024. 

It forced an added financial burden on many throughout this season as they prepared athletes for the Tokyo World Championships.

Sport Ireland said this was due to the previous agreement ending in 2024 and that the proposal for funding through the next cycle was presented to Sport Ireland’s high-performance committee in June, then approved by the board in late July, with the focus since on “developing the formal agreement for the support.” 

O’Connor believes that increased support for Irish coaches would mean results like those the Irish team achieved in Tokyo could become more common.

“Potentially, it’s the reason sometimes we’re not winning as many medals,” she said of the historical lack of coaching investment. “I think if a bit more money was invested in that area, we could see a lot more longevity in athletes’ careers, and maybe more athletes coming through and staying at that level, rather than just having these young athletes that are great and then they fly off to other countries because the facilities are better and the coaching is better.” 

Athletics Ireland said the €610,000 in funding across four years will be “invested to support our dual strategy of supporting those coaches who are already making an invaluable contribution to the ongoing success of Irish athletics on the international stage, while simultaneously investing in the direct employment of coaches.” 

It said it had committed to “investing its own financial resource above and beyond the funds committed by Sport Ireland to place world-class coaching at the centre of everything we do. 

"In this regard Athletics Ireland will shortly be recruiting several coaching roles across the disciplines.” 

Regarding the delay in funding coaches for 2025, Athletics Ireland said it had received confirmation from Sport Ireland that the transfer of funds is “imminent, after which all coach support payments will be made.” 

In the years ahead, it intends to confirm coach funding packages in the fourth quarter of the preceding year.

O’Connor said that increased investment “would bring on the sport, it would bring on the athletes – a little bit of incentive for people.”