Duff believes Irish players are disrespected by clubs in the UK

Damien Duff adopts his own zero-tolerance policy to any suggestion of a gateway to a snappy exit by handlers.

DISREPECTED: Damien Duff believes that Irish players are not treated with the respect they deserve by UK clubs. Pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

“We’re playing St Pat’s on Friday, by the way,” were Damien Duff’s parting words at the end of a press briefing for a match that didn’t get a mention.

Duff and Shelbourne are a serious combination, their unified endeavours lifting the Reds into European qualification, but the centurion and two-time Premier League winner holds views extending beyond matters on the Tolka Park pitch.

Throw any topic at the Irish legend and he defies his default arms-folded defensive demeanour to explode into life and unspool his emotions.

“Not enough people talk about it – someone needs to speak up,” he decries, knee deep in his list of gripes about the state of the nation’s game.

“People will say ‘ah, here’s Duffer again harking on’ and I’m only a blow-in here 18 months but I’ll still fight tooth and nail for this league.

“I’m not going anywhere anytime soon because I’m going to live in Ireland.

“I’m not just fighting for Shelbourne, it’s the Premier and First Divisions and everything below. Someone needs to do it.” 

Duff has been vocal in his battles against officialdom and the Government for underfunding facilities but the latest source of his ire are agents and ‘disrespectful’ English clubs.

Most of the football fraternity collectively shrugged their shoulders last summer when Bohemians operations director Daniel Lambert pleaded for a collegiate approach in railing against bargain basement buyout clauses.

Losing the country’s finest talent to the UK powerbase is difficult enough without measly recompense compounding the absence. Five-figure transfer fees were rife during the exodus to the English lower tiers and Scotland last summer.

Duff didn’t need to embrace the show of defiance, for he adopts his own zero-tolerance policy to any suggestion of a gateway to a snappy exit by handlers.

He doesn’t believe the tough-love stance with players has lost him any targets, as their best interests underpin it.

Jack Moylan is gearing up to be the next test case. Shels are up to fifth, building on their feat of reaching the FAI Cup final in Duff’s first season, but the attention on his hat-trick hero from Saturday’s mauling of Sligo Rovers in the Showgrounds is leading to a conclusion he’s reconciled himself with. All least any transfer will be brokered on his terms.

“I've been really firm on it because it makes me angry,” said the 44-year-old.

“Any contract we've signed here since I arrived 18 months ago – and there’s been 20 or so – nobody has a clause.

“Any agents that come in and say: 'I want a get-out clause for 30 grand or 40 grand', I say: ‘Well, they can go and do one’.

“It's Catch 22 - calling each other's bluff. Agents might say 'then the player's not signing' so I'll talk to the player then and say 'I ain't trying to keep you here forever'.

“I’m giving them more money in a new contract but no clause in it. That's the way I work.

“Players here will go for what they’re worth. Let's say someone comes in for Player A, they can get him out for 30 or 40 grand but he might be worth 100 or 200. Well, clubs will have to pay.

“In the case of Jack, I'm not saying he loves me but I think he loves it here with Shels.

“There’s interest in him but other factors come into it where he's going to go 'I'm happy to go, it's time'.

“That was like me at Blackburn, comfortable in my natural habitat. That was my club until Chelsea came and you're like 'I don't want to go but fucking time to go'.

“That's the mindset of all of the young players here, for sure.” 

That flow will be going one direction, considering Duff’s view on loan deals from UK clubs.

“If we’re getting a player, their sports scientist rings up asking do we have GPS, those things that go on the players’ backs?,” he explained, wryly. 

“Do they think we’re cavemen over here? That’s the stuff you’re dealing with.

“I think we’re disrespected in terms of what we offer. It’s ‘ah Ireland, why would you loan players to Ireland?’ That’s the UK club mentality.

“Players get coached brilliantly here but it isn’t realised outside of Ireland. That’s disrespectful but we must be doing something right because the English clubs keep coming back trying to get our players on the cheap. Us Paddies were always belittled by many nations.”

Duff doesn’t need to prove his reputation to anybody, but he’ll keep on striving for better when his journey continues against the Saints at a packed Tolka Park on Friday.