FAI wants State to subsidise annual €10m academy plan

WORKING ON IT: LOI Development Manager Will Clarke, left, and FAI Assistant Director of Football Shane Robinson. Pic: Tyler Miller, Sportsfile

The FAI want the Irish football constituency to lobby their politicians during the election cycle to subsidise their €10m per-year academy plan.

Damien Duff has been the prime proponent of the vision, citing the development of teen talent as the priority over the farce that is the elusive search for a senior team manager.

The other fiasco within the FAI surrounding now departed chief executive Jonathan Hill has compromised the justification for funding.

Shamrock Rovers boss Stephen Bradley supplied the uncomfortable truth this week amid the outcry over meagre handouts by noting the state paymasters first require an organisation they can trust to disperse grant aid.

Once the FAI switched the responsibility for producing gems from traditional schoolboy power to League of Ireland clubs – and Brexit rules curbed the flow of emigrants to England until they turned 18 – the inability of that sector to pay for it became apparent.

Few coaching staff, never mind players, are salaried for working within a system that now runs from U14 up to U20.

Current full time academy staff comparison.

Just 10 of the 24 clubs part of that structure have an employee assigned solely to their underage system; Ireland being one of only four countries across Uefa’s 55 members with an average below one per club.

Ripples of excitement were generated by Micheál Martin promising on Newstalk how the Government would step up the plate but that was three years ago.

Will Clarke was recruited to the new role of Academy Development manager in that very same month in 2021.

Yesterday was the latest of his annual updates, a statistical presentation illustrating the widening gap to European peers caused by neglect.

In essence, the scarcity in gametime for Irish-born players across the top five leagues – diminishing from 46,880 minutes to 9,818 over 20 years – will continue to make World Cup qualification a pipedream.

Irish player participation in top five leagues.

Recognising that problem is one thing – as Clarke has laid bare in his yearly wake-up calls – but the quest to repair it is a medium to long-term project.

The worry is how much more ground is lost while the FAI struggle to convince the political classes of their qualification to put taxpayers’ cash to proper use.

Since the FAI submitted their Academy Development Plan to Leinster House last November, the FAI have hindered more than helped themselves.

Visits to committee rooms either side of Christmas were dominated by Hill’s holiday payment blunder and getting back in the door for a hearing is the immediate step.

The begging bowl has long been shaken seeking state support and there appears little appetite to oblige, bar the Labour party’s plea for a betting levy increase.

As a company still immersed in €40m of debt, the €10m estimated to pay for a functioning academy system isn’t even halfway accumulated by the pitiful FAI contribution of €10,500, Uefa solidarity sums of €75,000 and direct expenditure by the clubs.

They’re not demanding for the entire €5.5m deficit to be borne by the exchequer but certainly the vast majority of the largesse.

“I don’t think its crunch time but there’s an opportunity there for football,” Clarke said about the clock ticking towards local and then general elections by wannabe public representatives.

“Between 225,000 registered and 100,000 unregistered players, there’s 350,000 playing on a weekly basis.

“That’s a lot of votes. Football must find its voice now because for too long we’ve been overlooked.

“Because we weren’t organised, we haven’t got a fair share for the contribution football makes in this country.

“There’s definitely an opportunity with the elections coming up, so it’s up to the sport to try organise itself and find its voice.”

Irish fans also like shouting at major events. Euro 2028 hosting will likely bestow a finals ticket regardless of results but inaction, according to Clarke, is not an option if Ireland’s slide to 60 in the Fifa rankings is to be eradicated.

“The figures and data don’t lie,” he stated starkly. “We’re on a certain trajectory at the moment and looking at the level of investment in academy staff against who is qualifying for World Cups and who isn’t, we’re bottom of the table in all key metrics.

“There is no silver bullet here, there’s no ‘ok, you get x amount of money tomorrow and we’re going to see results in 12 or 24 months’. It’s a medium to long term solution of between five and 10 years.” First priority is earning political capital in the next 10 months before the Government term ends.