It took 30 years for Irish football to slide from the heights of a World Cup quarter-final to the FAI needing a Government bailout in 2020.
The game in Ireland has reached another critical juncture – the association will either steer the ship to safety or this period in the international wilderness, far away from big tournaments, will continue.
That, in a nutshell, is the belief of the sport’s key stakeholders and there is widespread agreement on the remedy: State-supported club academies.
Irish football, you see, has a talent identification problem. Success at under-17 level has not translated into stronger under-21 or senior squads.
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Croatia, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Czechia and Poland do not have a talent identification problem because, while the FAI was being mismanaged for decades, they established football industries that prioritise player development.
Without fully professional academies, Ireland will continue to produce players like Evan Ferguson and Mason Melia, who were able for the men’s game at 15. But it’s the children not physically ready to compete with adults who are slipping through the net at an alarming rate.
Five years on since the bailout, the FAI are asking the Government for €8 million annually over 11 years to pull their senior teams back from the brink.
However, feedback from League of Ireland clubs to the latest FAI briefing on academy funding shows that a problematic disconnect still exists.
“In the past, if you look at 16- to 18-year-olds, we’d have roughly 90 to 100 players at UK clubs pre-Brexit,” said FAI academy manager Will Clarke. “At the moment, in full-time environments here in Ireland across those age groups, we have nine on professional contracts, with a handful of players abroad. No more than 20 players in full-time environments, compared to 100 five years ago.”
According to two clubs, that statement is inaccurate. St Patrick’s Athletic and Shamrock Rovers have 19 boys between them aged 16 to 18 on “professional full-time” contracts, with many of them earning about €300 a week.
A third club explained that there is nuance around what constitutes a “full-time professional” contract. Technically, the third club have nine teenagers signed to professional deals, but only two of them are full-time, and that’s because they train with the first team.
No academy in Ireland operates on a full-time basis. The FAI’s Government-funded audit is about to stress-test all 26 set-ups to determine how funding would be distributed.
Talks are ongoing with the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael Coalition to repeat Charlie McCreevy’s bright idea from 2001 when the horse and greyhound racing fund was created to help sustain an equine industry in Ireland.
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The racing fund received €99.1 million in 2025 with Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue defending the €79.28 million for horses and €19.82 million for greyhounds despite “the dogs” being phased out of existence in the USA, Wales and New Zealand due to animal welfare concerns.
In 2024, greyhound fatalities in Ireland increased by 50 per cent to 202 deaths with a further 187 injuries.
“Fifteen per cent of the funding is ring-fenced for welfare and rehoming [dogs] and there has been some great progress made in relation to that,” said Mr McConalogue when announcing a €4.1 million increase.
Clarke revealed that the rival fund has not come up in discussions with new Minister of State for Sport … Charlie McConalogue.
“That fund is none of our business,” he said. “Football is completely different to any other sport in the country.”
The proposal does not seek an indefinite flow of public money with the initial €8 million tapered down and ended by the late 2030s.
Thereafter, clubs will need to generate money from the sale of young players.
Though Clarke retains good relations with the clubs, any plan emerging from Abbotstown is treated with suspicion.
The Premier Division clubs, for example, united in opposition to the recent FAI proposal to extend coaching hours for elite male and woman teenagers, citing poor communication.
An academy executive will soon be appointed to oversee the audit, with an August 15th deadline so the Government can include the fund in the 2026 budget.
Alternatively, the clubs will continue to rely on private investment and move further away from FAI control.
UP NEXT: Shelbourne versus Bohemians should be headlined by former Premier League strikers Mipo Odubeko and Lys Mousset, but the pair have only managed one goal between them in the opening eight games of the season.
Mousset lost his place in the Bohs line-up to Colm Whelan after three rounds, while Odubeko was benched for last Friday’s 0-0 draw with St Pat’s.
Maybe the Virgin Media cameras will spark a revival in fortunes for them at a sold-out Tolka Park, where Shels have warned fans to “exercise caution” as fake tickets are being offered on social media.
