Uefa’s Nations League to leave FAI out in cold

The FAI’s scope to bring leading nations to Ireland for lucrative friendlies from 2018 is set to be reduced if, as expected, the new ‘Uefa Nations League’ is ratified today.

Uefa general secretary Gianni Infantino yesterday confirmed that details of a new initiative — effectively a third major international tournament — will be announced today at the association’s congress in Kazakhstan.

Designed with the intention of putting to better use dates across the international calendar traditionally reserved for friendlies, the ‘Uefa Nations League’ will inject a competitive element by dividing nations into tiers depending on their seeding.

That would signal a grim development for the FAI, as Ireland would be bracketed amongst third or fourth-tiered nations for the event to be staged biennially in odd-numbered years in between the European and World Cup finals.

Those larger nations unhappy with the perceived dilution in quality arising from the expansion in the European Championships from 16 to 24 teams look to have gained a measure of compensation through this ‘best against the best’ programme.

“In principle, we’d be quite interested,” said English FA chairman Greg Dyke of the concept, as he stares forlornly at an unattractive set of qualifiers over the next 18 months courtesy of the reformatted Euro campaign.

It is understood that some allowance will be made to facilitate smaller countries securing high-profile fixtures with the big names in European football, and for countries to play friendlies against others from outside of Europe, but those will be the exception. Instead, Irish fans can expect to have similarly-ranked countries like Denmark, Hungary, Sweden and Switzerland visiting Lansdowne Road for matches between the conventional qualifiers. Under the proposals, a promotion/relegation system will operate between the four tiers.

One consolation for the marginalised nations is the introduction of four ‘wildcard’ qualifying slots into the European and World Cups from the Nations League. Specifics on the format of those qualifiers will be revealed today.

“What has triggered this whole discussion is that we have been working to establish a new international calendar,” said Infantino. “We also wanted to bring more structure to the dates when there are friendly matches. There are some countries everyone wants to play against and other teams who struggle to find opponents, so we looked for something new and have come up with the Nations League.”

The commercial ramifications for the FAI would appear to be stark. While TV income for European Championship campaigns is now preordained under the centralised Uefa deal, the FAI relies on generating extra cash from friendlies through selling broadcast rights.

Future ticket sales revenue also seems under threat.

None of the official attendances for the 2011 Carling Nations Cup ties against Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland even reached the 20,000 mark, in stadium that holds 50,000.

Contributing to the cost of redeveloping the stadium has proven a drain on the FAI finances, with the sum still owed standing at €45 million.

FAI chief executive John Delaney admitted last month that the self-declared debt-free deadline of 2020 may not be met.

News of this latest financial blow only adds to the likelihood of that deadline being pushed back.