League of Ireland record transfer

**Charlie Darwin** · 13/08/2011, 1:44 AM

With McClean going to Sunderland, I got wondering, what's the highest fee paid to a LOI club for a player?

I think in absolute terms it's the 500,000 pounds Sunderland paid for Roy O'Donovan, but is there a relatively higher fee paid at an earlier date?

**Lim till i die** · 13/08/2011, 2:05 AM

If memory serves Des Kennedy moved from Janesboro to Limerick for six big bottles of Red Lemonade.

Take inflation into account, can't be too far off.

**Dodge** · 13/08/2011, 9:48 AM

I'd say O'Donovan is easily the highest, even taking inflation into account (for some reason I thought it was €700k too)

**bluemovie** · 13/08/2011, 2:54 PM

Not saying this is the biggest, but in relative terms, Waterford's biggest sale was probably Alfie Hale to Aston Villa for £4500 in 1960 - the same year that Man City broke the British transfer record paying £55000 for Denis Law. On a similar proportion to the current record, that'd be like paying £5 million for Alfie

Probably other bigger ones "in relative terms"?

**nigel-harps1954** · 13/08/2011, 3:36 PM

In 1972 Lincoln City bought Brendan Bradley for £6,000.

**freewheel30** · 30/08/2011, 2:56 PM

From what I've seen / been able to find out, some of the other big ones would be

1931 - Paddy Moore (Shams) / Joe O'Reilly (Brideville) / Jimmy Daly (Shams) to Aberdeen for combined fee of £1,000
1936 - Jackie Carey, St. James's Gate to Man U for £250
1938 - Timothy Jim O'Keeffe, Cork FC to Hibernian for £400
1947 - Peter Corr, Dundalk to Preston for £1,250
1952 - Peter McParland, Dundalk to Aston Villa for £3,880
1960 - Tony Dunne, Shels to Man U for £5,000
1964 - Pat Dunne, Shams to Man U for £10,500
1969 - Paddy Mulligan, Shams to Chelsea for £17,500
1973 - Mick Martin, Bohs to Man U for £20,000
1973 - Miah Dennehy, Cork Hibs to Notts For for £20,000
1973 - Ray O'Brien, Shels to Man U for £40,000
1982 - Pierce O'Leary, Shams to Vancouver for £150,000 (both clubs managed by Giles

)

Phew! There might be a few others along the way, so can't be in any way certain that this is the definitive "progression" of the LOI's transfer record, but interesting to compare it to these anyway

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progres...fer_fee_record
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_f...ransfer_record

**peadar1987** · 30/08/2011, 3:22 PM

1964 - Pat Dunne, Shams to Man U for £10,500

That would be a fairly healthy transfer fee for plenty of LOI clubs even 50 years later! :S

**freewheel30** · 31/08/2011, 8:13 AM

I think that's all Cobh got for Roy Keane, but they would probably have been glad of it

Actually, one to add

1977 - Gerry Ryan, Bohs to Derby for £50,000

Incidentally, the source for a good bit of this :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Iri...4776796&sr=8-1

Thought with the Rovers situation now it mightn't be long before the first million euro / pound LOI footballer, but if the Enda Stevens rumour is anything to go by it could be a while off yet.

**avvenalaf** · 31/08/2011, 12:34 PM

Seanie Connor - Sligo Rovers to Bohs - 500k
(well it cost them the guts of that in the end)

**freewheel30** · 08/09/2011, 3:45 PM

Just wanted to add a couple of points on this. It's rare to see a fee stated as having been in Irish punts or in pounds sterling. Alfie Hale's fee in 1960 was (I've now seen) £4,500 sterling, whereas Tony Dunne was sold for IR£5,000, so perhaps Hale was a more expensive player at that time, depending on exchange rates.

Also, in those days, a club would seemingly be offered a fee by the interested party, and then inform the player. The player might then lobby to receive a portion of the offered money, to help convince him to actually make the move. As an example, Preston offered Shamrock Rovers £8,000 sterling for Ronnie Nolan sometime in the 1950s, but with Nolan being quite settled in Dublin (and the "maximum wage" still in place in British football), he sought 2,000 of the 8,000 pounds from Shamrock Rovers. This led to the move falling through. The Peter Corr move also saw £2,500 being paid, with the player and club ending up splitting the revenue evenly between them.

I've been profiling one or two of the players from the league's past here, by the way, for anyone who might be interested.

**monsexile** · 08/09/2011, 3:50 PM

Good effort on the site - look forward to seeing more.

**CuanaD** · 08/09/2011, 4:19 PM

Originally Posted by freewheel30

Just wanted to add a couple of points on this. It's rare to see a fee stated as having been in Irish punts or in pounds sterling. Alfie Hale's fee in 1960 was (I've now seen) £4,500 sterling, whereas Tony Dunne was sold for IR£5,000, so perhaps Hale was a more expensive player at that time, depending on exchange rates.

The Irish & sterling pounds were linked (until the 80's as far as I remember) so 1 pound was the same in each at the time.

**pineapple stu** · 09/09/2011, 7:53 AM

Yeah; you could spend English coins here (certainly up to the 10ps until we changed out design, and I think the 50ps as well), though you couldn't spend Irish money over beyond. Was it not around 73 that we broke the link though?

Either way, your point certainly holds for 1960.

**Nesta99** · 09/09/2011, 10:06 AM

72/73 or whenever we joined the EEC I think

£1000stg in 1930 is the rough equivalent of 35k today, 1960 is about 15k, 1975 - 6k.

So some top money payed. Work in the purchasing power too...

**marinobohs** · 09/09/2011, 10:17 AM

Originally Posted by CuanaD

The Irish & sterling pounds were linked (until the 80's as far as I remember) so 1 pound was the same in each at the time.

Think it was 79/80 we broke the link with sterling. Until then you are perfectly correct that pound/punt were same value. Sterling currency was accepted here at face value pretty much every where although Irish notes/coins were not generally accepted in UK (similar arrangement now with Northern Ireland banknotes).
For the purpose of transfer fees any fee prior to us breaking the link was the same in Irish or Sterling so therefore no difference would be recorded.