FAI miss out on €10m cash boost as Ireland fail to qualify for Euro2020

Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny following the penalty shootout loss on Thursday night. Failure to qualify was also a blow to the already precarious finances at the FAI. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

As the dust settles on Ireland’s European Championship play-off defeat last night, the FAI are today facing up to the reality of missing out on almost €10m of prize-money.

Next summer in a tournament co-hosted by Dublin, an Irish team won’t be at a European Championship finals for the first time since 2008.

The €15m money grossed from reaching those two tournaments went a long way towards delaying the financial implosion that only became evident after the last regime’s demise.

Led by a new board populated since last year, the FAI have been more transparent about their money troubles. Liabilities by the end of 2019 stood at €63m.

That figure was already rising before the effects of Covid-19 kicked in from March, including the decimation of traditional revenue streams such as ticket sales and coaching courses.

Just a few months after securing a €35m State bailout, the FAI were back in government buildings three weeks ago seeking an extra €20m to merely stand still.

They are about to lose their two main sponsors – both Three and League of Ireland backers SSE Airtricity will end their deals in December.

Uefa’s support, in the form of grants and centralised broadcast deals, had given the FAI another lifeline during their troubled times but they will view enviously from close quarters just how much the 24 participants will be enriched from qualifying for next year’s deferred showpiece.

In overall terms, the cash-rich European governing body have bolstered the price pot from €301m for the 2016 finals to €371m.

All 24 teams will receive a participating fee of €9.25m, with performance bonuses in the group stage of €1.5m for a win and €750,000 from drawing a match.

Had they navigated last night’s semi-final in Slovakia and beaten Northern Ireland in the November 12 final in Belfast, group games in Dublin against Sweden and Poland were looming. The match against top seeds Spain was pencilled in for Bilbao.

Again, gazing into hypothetical scenarios, an extra €2m was on offer to reaching the last-16. That route, as was the case for Ireland four years, is available to for the four best third-placed finishers across the six groups.

Moving into dizzying heights, quarter-finalists bank €3.25m and semi-finalists another €5m.

Instead, the best Ireland will get next summer is providing the opposition for a couple of qualified nations in friendlies.

Covid-19 will likely scupper any notion of a few warm-up matches in America.

Kenny had spoken about the excitement of facing into an unprecedented year of fixtures, encompassing three different competitions.

The first of those, the Euros, is now gone, while the prospects of utilising the backdoor route Kenny raised through the Nations League into the play-offs for the World Cup also appears to be beyond them.

One point from the first pair of fixtures of the campaign mean wins are essential against Wales on Sunday and Finland next Wednesday to rescue their ambitions of topping the group.

To reach the 2022 World Cup in Qatar as one of the 13 European participants, Ireland will indeed have to do something extraordinary.

They are looking at entering the draw in December as third seeds, a precarious situation given only the group winner is guaranteed to qualify. Ten match-days have been allocated into the calendar between March and November 2021.

The runners-up will have to hurdle a new play-off system in March 2022, involving semi-finals and finals.

The three nations to emerge from that channel will join the 10 group winners in heading to south-east Asia in November 2022.