Originally Posted by
pineapple stu
I saw that alright - it was quite interesting. Ireland having by far the most international transfers of U18s - not per capita, but by number - was an indictment of the current setup I thought (albeit that I know the underage leagues have been set up to try address that problem)
188 U18s leaving Ireland in the ten years, compared with 118 French (and 118 NI players), 113 English, 48 Finnish, 28 Slovakians, 21 Croats.
It's such a drain on the league when you consider they could stay a couple more years, get some first-team football (and a Leaving Cert) and then move across for nice 6-figure sums like Scales/Bazunu.
€18.5m in transfer fees received in the period sounds quite high to be honest - yet it's nothing compared to similar-sized countries like Denmark (531m), Croatia (528m), Norway (284m) or Slovenia (96m). Imagine if we could get that transfer fee income up to €50m over 10 years? An extra €3m/year coming into Irish football - direct to the clubs, not to pay off Delaney's debts - would achieve a lot.