Originally Posted by
Alan Smith
The dust had barely settled after Ireland’s hammering of Gibraltar when John Delaney, the FAI chief executive, appeared on RTE’s prime time Saturday chat show. With his shirt collar undone and in giddy mood, Delaney was introducing his new girlfriend to the nation.
This was the leader of the country’s football association delving into the world of celebrity but nobody was surprised. He was recently the subject of a Partridgean online documentary called “John the Baptist” (because he has resurrected Irish football, apparently), and last year Sky ran a soft feature on him in which he claimed he could earn three times his salary of €360,000 elsewhere. Delaney remains at the head of Irish football as a “labour of love”. He has not given an interview to a football journalist since the aftermath of Euro 2012.
Delaney had been earning more than €430,000-a-year before taking pay cuts in 2010 and 2011, while many of the association’s workers on the ground were made redundant. In July, he agreed a new contract to take him up to 2019. There are incessant murmurs of discontent within the domestic game when it comes to the CEO. He is an expert in dealing with the convoluted politics of grassroots football and retains plenty of support from smaller clubs who have benefited from FAI investment – but his relationship with the League of Ireland is fraught.
Recently, he described the league as a “difficult child”. However this season’s total prize pool of €241,500 is eclipsed by Delaney’s annual income by more than the €100,000 the winners will receive when the season concludes in a fortnight. Little wonder there is a long history of financial problems, with the association often accused of neglecting its own clubs.
But it cannot be ignored that there is a long-standing image problem when it comes to the League of Ireland which runs far deeper than misplaced priorities. English football has been more alluring for the average Ireland fan for decades; apart from a hardcore support base, the domestic game commands little interest. It does not help that the clubs stumble from farce to farce, struggling to stay afloat.
There are sporadic success stories: Limerick have restructured and built solid foundations with a return to their original home at Markets Field in the pipeline next season, courtesy of substantial funding from the horse racing magnate JP McManus. Cork City’s return from the brink of extinction, when the club was saved by a supporters’ trust but subsequently relegated in 2009, could become a fairy tale if they can overhaul Dundalk with two games left in the season. They face each other on the final day – it should be an event which requires no promotion.
And for all its existential crises, the impact the league has on the international team is constantly understated. Five of the starting XI which faced Gibraltar honed their trade on home soil. The squad, which has travelled to Germany before Tuesday’s meeting, contains nine former League of Ireland players.
Among that group is Shane Long, who joined Reading from Cork for around £30,000 as part of the deal for Kevin Doyle in 2005. His combined career transfer fees passed £30m with a move to Southampton this summer. The first choice goalkeeper, David Forde, disenchanted following a failed spell at West Ham, was about to quit the game before the League of Ireland gave him a second chance. And that’s before Seamus Coleman at Sligo Rovers is mentioned.
Yet the league’s struggle to be respected is neatly encapsulated by a line in Roy Keane’s book in which he discusses how he treated Cork players harshly when in charge of Ipswich, memorably telling Colin Healy, who had been lined up to replace Keane at the 2002 World Cup and was signed by the current Ireland assistant manager from Cork City, that “he was moving his feet like a League of Ireland player”. Keane, lest we forget, cut his teeth at Cobh Ramblers, and still goes along to Cork City games when home. Healy was back at City again two years after joining Ipswich, where he is enjoying the footballing equivalent of an Indian summer.
Another pair of former international midfielders, Keith Fahey and Stephen McPhail, returned home this season, joining St Patrick’s Athletic and Shamrock Rovers respectively. The league is as much a retirement home for players past their peak as it is an avenue for youngsters to create an opportunity to move on to something better.
But there is a dearth of quality available to Martin O’Neill, confirmed by the addition of Brian Lenihan to the squad last week. Two months ago, the 20-year-old right-back was playing in the League of Ireland and has yet to make an appearance for Hull since joining for less than £200,000. Steve Bruce said he was a player for the future and was likely to spend time with the Under-21s on Humberside, though he has since impressed when training with the first team squad.
O’Neill was flummoxed when asked about Lenihan’s key attributes after announcing his inclusion – suggesting the manager was not too familiar with a player whose rate of development means he is capable of following in Coleman’s footsteps. It later emerged that some of Lenihan’s new team-mates at Hull had dropped his name in when the original squad convened in Dublin at the beginning of last week.
Yet the Republic of Ireland’s problems extend far beyond a lack of quality. Interest has dwindled alongside rugby union’s surge in popularity over the past decade, and Gaelic football and hurling remain the true love for the majority of Irish sports fans. Euro 2012 provided a short boost but that soon evaporated following the mess which unfolded on the pitch.
The FAI said more than 35,000 were at the Aviva on Saturday despite swathes of empty seats around the ground. The stadium, which replaced the decrepit Lansdowne Road, remains a financial burden, even though Delaney insists the FAI will be debt free by 2020. But interest in the team is so low that it is desperately struggling to fill seats – to such an extent that Delaney gave a free ticket to everybody in the audience on the Saturday Night Show for next month’s game against the USA. It’s just a pity he’s not as keen to promote the country’s clubs.
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