John Fallon: Stephen Kenny's whining futile when summer season the only LOI show
St Patrick's Athletic manager Stephen Kenny celebrates his side's victory in the UEFA Conference League third qualifying round second leg match against Sabah. Pic: Ehtiram Jabi/Sportsfile
ON THURSDAY week, Monaco's palatial Grimaldi Forum will stage what Uefa unashamedly brand the European club competition season kick-off party.
Felted red carpet cushions the shoes and heels of the 700 guests ushered the short distance from their coaches and courtesy cars to the reception area and into the grand hall for the group stage draws.
There'll hardly be a mention of the three qualifying rounds that come before in July and August, maybe a brief reference to this week's playoffs, for this is where the football is supposed to, really, kick off.
So detached the qualifiers are from the league phase that the latter has been expanded from 24 to 36 teams in all three competitions of the Champions, Europa and Conference Leagues.
Groups are to be increased from four to five teams, games now six rather than eight in volume.
This is where, from commercial and exposure perspectives, the business gets serious and, on this occasion, Ireland will be part of the expansion.
Irrespective of whether they overcome Greek heavyweights PAOK this week and next in their playoffs, Shamrock Rovers will inhabit the lucrative middle third either side of qualifying and the knockouts. Prevail over the two legs and it's the Europa; lose and the Conference awaits.
That guarantees a prize fund reaching €3.87m before ticket revenue against a selection of big guns from October to December.
Read More
This is the fifth time that League of Ireland clubs have progressed beyond the qualifiers – Rovers doing so in 2011 and 2022, Dundalk 2016 and 2020 – but this is the first opportunity of two teams smashing the ceiling in the same year.
St Patrick's Athletic borrow Rovers' home of Tallaght on Thursday for their decider against Basaksehir , the Turkish side from Istanbul who famously beat Manchester United during the Champions League group phase of the 2020 Covid year.
If both end up in the Conference League group phase together, they'll have emerged through contrasting paths and differing attitudes to their domestic peers.
As FAI Cup winners, the Saints received a bye through the first round. They've conquered Vaduz and FK Sabah since and, should they triumph in the playoffs, would be a rare hurdler of the backwaters still in the competition.
Stephen Kenny has been keen to denote his team as underdogs in those successes but the loudest noises he's vented centre on criticism of the governing body.
Essentially, the former Ireland manager – who returned to the LOI in May – contends that their prospects of progression have been hampered by the necessity to fulfil domestic fixtures on the weekend between the two legs.
It's not a new issue. In an effort to aid their first European representatives, the FAI opted to schedule fixtures between the quartet on Monday nights to free up weekends in July. That provision is restricted to the early rounds in order to avoid disrupting the programme for the other six teams in the Premier Division.
Kenny railed against this stance after emerging through the Vaduz victory, adamant the likes of Marc Canham – his previous boss at the FAI – should intervene to ensure their trip to Galway United that weekend was postponed.
That Mark Scanlon, the League director, didn't exercise his right under the Participation Agreement to cull the game was applauded by Galway boss John Caulfield, who dismissed Kenny's moans of travel fatigue as "nonsense."
Caulfield's rebuke was vindicated by Pat's producing another stellar display in Azerbaijan to seal their passage but it hasn't stopped Kenny from prolonging his rant.
Here's what he had to say yesterday about the league game against Dundalk, refixed from Friday to Sunday afternoon due to the European commitments.
"This is one of the biggest games in St Patrick's Athletic's history; the opportunity to get to the group stages of Europe," he began.
"Two games in five-and-a-half days is tight enough but the fact we've actually had a third game inserted into the middle of that against Dundalk in Oriel Park on Sunday is insane, really.
"To expect the players to put in the greatest performance of their lives against Basaksehir in Turkey on Wednesday having already played two games in such a short period is hard to fathom really. We're trying to maximise our performance and to outperform ourselves."
He went on to contrast their schedule with that of Larne, the Northern Ireland team also in the mix for the Conference League, up against Lincoln Red Imps from Gibraltar.
Still, that's comparing apples with oranges. It's not a case of the Northern Ireland Premier League arbitrarily pulling fixtures.
They specify that the agreement of Crusaders, Portadown and Coleraine was obtained to Larne's request for postponements, something neither Galway nor Dundalk were willing to do. Caulfield explained the reasons for their position as the consequential eight-week famine of home ticket revenue. Kenny doesn't blame the clubs for refusing, only the authorities.
Again, there's more than a subtle difference. Northern Ireland align with most of Europe's format of an August to May season, whereas the Republic have been wedded to the summer version for 21 years. It's far easier to reassign fixtures three games in, rather than with nine league games and Cup ties remaining.
These dilemmas come with that territory, a balancing act Rovers didn't whine about when juggling their squad to defend their title two years ago.
Maybe this bonanza will equip the Saints to withstand the demands in the future while indulging Monaco moments.
JUST when Irish swimming begins to ride a rising tide, it may be losing its chief executive to the Football Association of Ireland.
No, Sarah Keane isn't confirmed as Jonathan Hill's successor but the charm offensive appears to be in full flow down the back straight, much to the amusement of some insiders within Abbotstown.
There was hardly a splash to be made when Keane last week admitted she'd been approached by the vacancy, considering she'd navigated the choppy waters of a congested field when the post arose in 2020 following John Delaney's departure.
But the weekend ringing endorsement of the candidate's qualities by John Treacy was deemed significant as the podium beckons.
Formerly a chief executive himself, up to his retirement from Sport Ireland in 2021, he stressed the integrity and collaborative prowess Keane demonstrated in both her Swim Ireland assignment and that of Olympic Federation of Ireland President. She assumed that role in the aftermath of Pat Hickey's demise in 2017, someone she's operated under, along with Delaney, for three years on the organisation's executive.
Sport Ireland, the oversight agency of the state, have a presence on the FAI's interview panel in veteran union official Peter McLoone but the notion of the competition being a straight shootout between Keane and current interim occupier David Courell is wide of the mark. The FAI board received an update on Tuesday night and there's a few ripples left in this one.
FIFA were a long time unfurling a system in 2021 of financially rewarding underage clubs and we're finally seeing Irish clubs receiving their slice of the lucrative transfer market.
Those rules were designed to compensate nursery clubs for training and developing the youngsters between the ages of 12-23 when that player was sold on in a cross-border move.
That mechanism, whereby 5% of the fee is distributed to the feeder clubs, was invoked recently arising out of Jake O'Brien's €22m switch from Lyon to Everton. Youghal United, Lakewood and, primarily, Cork City, shared that €1m.
IT was against the backdrop of these statutes, and the compensation due to juvenile clubs regardless of future transfers, that the sell-on clause phenomenon ensued. Clubs are free to broker their own agreements to supersede the Fifa entitlements.
Among the high-profile Irishmen to trigger a bonanza in recent years from their transfers were Matt Doherty, Nathan Collins and Sinclair Armstrong, banking hefty cuts for Bohemians, Cherry Orchard and Shamrock Rovers respectively. Likewise, Adam Idah's €8.5m transfer to Celtic earns College Corinthians a windfall, though the club insist it's below than the €807,000 reported last week.
Yet the largest bounties are still to come. Ringmahon Rangers stand to gross 15% of whatever Liverpool receive for Caoimhin Kelleher, the same percentage Bohemians and St Kevin's would share between them if – and likely when – a blockbuster amount is forked out for Evan Ferguson.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
