Ciarán Medlar was one of only three people Republic of Ireland international Robbie Keane thanked, besides family, in his 2018 retirement statement. A quiet, valued influence among professional Irish athletes, Medlar is a tax partner at BDO, where he heads up the Sports Advisory Unit.
Shamrock Rovers named him chairman of the board in October 2020 as “an agreed follow-up item to the recent investment by Mr Dermot Desmond in the company”.
Since 2016 Rovers have shown how a modern League of Ireland club can be run, via sustained investment in their academy happening alongside three successive titles under Stephen Bradley and finally, this season, a women’s side.
What motivated you to join the Rovers board? “The genesis goes back quite a while and credit is due to a lot of people who were there before me. Like the members club directors and Ray Wilson.
“The move to Tallaght in 2009 gave the club a huge boost and a fantastic catchment area to grow the base. It has started to bear fruit. Shane Robinson, as head of academy, and Stephen as head coach since 2016 have been phenomenal, each striving to have the best structures in place for players to come through.
“In 2019, to help accelerate that, Dermot Desmond invested in the club. As part of that, they wanted to bring in somebody as chair.”
What’s Desmond’s specific role in the club? “He came in to accelerate plans that were in place for quite some years. He invested in these plans to facilitate us getting there quicker.
“Covid, in a bizarre way, has helped us capture a bigger audience.”
How so? “Well, during Covid, people didn’t travel. They were able to go to local games before they travel again. The quality of the games has increased in the last number of years, and not just Rovers.
“People liked what that saw and they liked going to live games and events again. We’ve sold 4,000 season tickets and other clubs are hitting record sales, so the interest is there in our league. The quality has got better because, post-Brexit, players are staying longer in Ireland and actually getting to a higher level before they move on.
“We are on a journey here, we are not there yet clearly. South Dublin County Council have been brilliant partners, with the extra stand completed this summer to bring capacity up to 10,000.”
Rovers have long-term leases with Tallaght stadium and their Roadstone training facility; the council-owned stadium being an established model across European sport.
“The interest is there but a lot of clubs are turning people away because the stadiums are full. That’s the real challenge ahead, to get the infrastructure right and in fairness, it is high on the FAI agenda.”
FAI chairman Roy Barrett recently suggested that the Irish Government increase the betting levy in order to modernise football facilities and plant the seeds of a football industry.
“I think there is Government interest in the product. When you see men’s and women’s teams coming through and competing at international level, adjusting the betting levy makes sense considering what the levy is being spent on and without damaging other sports.”
This season Rovers ended its shirt sponsor deal with a betting company.
“Football needs to look after itself and fight its own corner but what we have here in Ireland, it is not like the football fans are different from the GAA and rugby fans. They are the same people. They just go to different games. Most of us cross a lot of different sports so it is about trying to get those people to come to the games.
“To do that you have to have better infrastructure. There is definitely the interest there to justify the spending of the money. The betting levy is one obvious way to do it.”
Rovers and Derry City in particular are ploughing on with or without government support.
“We qualified to the group stages of the Europa Conference League last year. That’s where League of Ireland clubs want to be, and not just one club. We want a couple of clubs there every year.”
There is a cautionary tale in Bulgarian football. Ludogorets, who knocked Rovers out of the Champions League last season despite losing 2-1 in Tallaght, enhanced their investment model so rapidly that they have won the league title 11 straight years as traditional Sofia giants CSKA and Levski are unable to keep pace.
“Every club want to win the league every year but you want to have it competitive, you want the whole thing to rise together, otherwise our domestic product, which is the core of our business, becomes weakened.”
Last season Bradley prioritised securing league points to the detriment of making an impact in the ECL group stages — the record against Norwegian, Belgium and Swedish opposition was two draws and four defeats.
“As the players develop and get used to playing in Europe, over time, the next level is getting out of the group,” said Medlar. “And I don’t think that is that far away. There is an interesting foreign influx into the league this year. Some on loan, but that’s a new dynamic we have not seen before.”
Last year Rovers earned €3.9 million in European prize money.
“Everything goes back into the club. There is a huge investment in players developing on and off the pitch in case football does not work out for them. Other sports do that as a matter of course so we have a strong education plan in tandem with our academy that allows players train as semi-professional and get their Leaving Cert.”
Gavin Bazunu is, to date, the ideal Rovers product; educated by the club, Bazunu broke into the first team as a teenager before Manchester City and this season Southampton turned him into a Premier League goalkeeper. By adding transfer fees and bonuses for international caps, Rovers banked more than €3 million for unearthing and nurturing the 21-year-old.
“The ideal model is for us to create the best talent and keep them as long as possible so they play for the first team but football does not work like that. If someone comes through, a breakthrough star, you want to make sure the investment made into the player gives him the best chance to proceed in his career but also the club is rewarded. That’s what we try to do.
“The UK market has changed, players are going a bit later, that is another stream of income. League of Ireland clubs have realised the value of our players is better than what we had in the past. Everyone is making sure we are not selling players too cheaply. Ideally, we keep the players longer to make us more competitive in Europe.”
