Brian Kerr: League of Ireland ‘has become beige’

Brian Kerr believes that even a modest increase in the recruitment of foreign players would help brighten up the League of Ireland.

“Our league has become beige in terms of the players that are in it,” he says. “Even compared to 10 or 15 years ago, we don’t have any players coming from outside that change the look of it, they’re few and far between.

“We’ve the same type of player: lads who go to England and come home, or lads who emerge. We’ve no one who is really exciting. You look at the make-up of the teams that have been beating our sides in Europe this year, they’re multi-national teams.

“Now I’m not saying we should end up in a situation where our teams here have loads of foreign players in them, but they should have a sprinkling of non-Irish players who will improve the standard, who would make the teams better, and would also improve our chances of winning matches on a more regular basis in the European rounds, which would also bring in bigger income.”

Former Ireland and St Patrick’s Athletic manager Kerr continues to lend his support to Kieran Lucid’s proposals for an All-Ireland League.

“I believe it would be the right thing for the game here,” he says.

What are we going to do otherwise? Are we going to let the leagues run along the way they are and just hope that they get better in their own right? There is nothing that has happened over the last 20 or 30 years that has had a major impact on the league or made it better.

“Fiddling around with the fixture list and the numbers between the 10 and 12 teams, or whether we play three times or four times, and whether relegation is two or three, that hasn’t had an impact. I would say it’s a similar situation in the north.

“I don’t see any other ideas coming up that are going to make the leagues better. There is little investment, little confidence from sponsors, little interest by politicians and government, and neither of the associations have any money to invest in the league.”

With an All-Ireland structure, Kerr insists: “You would be looking at something new. I mean new in terms of approach, marketing, the type of sponsors, the type of coverage, broadcasters.

“There would be a freshness and a vibrancy to it that would bring people towards it who have been maybe lost in the past.

Institute playing Linfield or UCD playing Rovers or Cork, for instance, surely it’s got to be more attractive to have Linfield v Rovers or Bohs and Cliftonville or Crusaders and Cork. It has to be more attractive, and more attractive to players to play in.