Birmingham have made the following announcement about their academy: https://bcfc.com/news/articles/2020/...cademy-update/
Brexit is part of the decision
Additionally, the country’s decision to leave the European Union and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has forced the Club to revaluate our approach to player recruitment and youth development.
'I think we are in a bit of trouble' - Fears for the futures of top Irish talent if Brexit ruling is introduced: https://www.the42.ie/irish-football-...07749-Dec2020/
The flip side is there was an article in When Saturday Comes this month about youth development at European leagues, and it noted that players who left their home country at 16 generally performed worse than those who waited until 21/22 before joining a foreign league.
Football in Ireland needs to recognise that this is the point of the LoI. And in fairness, the article recognises that to an extent. I think if the senior side goes backwards, Brexit is at most an indirect cause. The main cause will be our complete failure to develop a sustainable domestic league.
We only have ourselves to blame for not having forged links with European football for the past 100 years. If the UK is the only market that's interested in our under-18 players then maybe the schoolboy clubs should ask themselves what they've failed to do.
In fairness, for most of that time the idea of schoolboy clubs forging links with mainland European clubs would have been utterly ridiculous.
We do, however, have only ourselves to blame for not investing in our senior structure, for letting schoolboy clubs get as much say as they do, and for having the entire structure of Irish football being so utterly disorganised as to even have such separate clubs in schoolboy and senior football.
I've mentioned it before, but a great example of this is the Croatian team that went all the way to the World Cup final - all but two played at least a season or two in the Croatian League, generally leaving in their early 20s - and the Croatian League isn't huge - it's average attendance is only about 5-700 higher than the LOI, albeit with a couple of big clubs with higher attendancesOriginally Posted by pineapple stu
Last edited by samhaydenjr; 24/12/2020 at 2:28 AM.
Yep. And that's far from unusual. I've said before that we made a big deal about 8 of the Euro 2016 squad starting their senior careers domestically - but that was one of the worst rates of any squad in the tournament (only the North were lower). Most squads had at least 15 such players. Iceland had around 20 I think
The difference in many other countries is not attendances, it's finances and financial supports.
Reports that SSE Airtricity are renewing their title sponsorship of the league for 2021, a reported €340k for the season.
Therein lies a large part of the problem. A hugely underfinanced league.
The League needs a sugar mommy / daddy.
The below shows what I think are some work being done at the top level of the FAI. Below all that Videogate stuff, looks like the FAI are introducing a new ticketing scheme - will this see a reduction in prices for certain parts of the stadium or improvements in season ticketing?
Barrett also declared himself satisfied with the Covid payments to the organisation, I think it's good that he is building good relationships with Government and this is part of that.
Finally, he made no comment about potential legal action against Delaney. What is going to happen there?
On an aside, is there any way to watch games on tactical cam, even PL ones?
https://www.the42.ie/fai-videogate-5314665-Jan2021/
You would think the 42 would look for quotes from more clubs then St Kevins and St Josephs (Bray) , the two biggest child sellers on the country
If I win Euromillions I'll buy the LOI, give each club EUR 2 million minimum for ground improvements. I'll buy myself onto the FAI Board maybe with EUR 30 million, buy Dalymount and turn it into a 30,000 all seater, and I should still have plenty left over for the family.
A discussion on the future of Irish football and the approach to grassroots football on Newstalk
I cant see tweets in foot.ie, is it a tweet? What did it say?
I'm a bloke,I'm an ocker
And I really love your knockers,I'm a labourer by day,
I **** up all me pay,Watching footy on TV,
Just feed me more VB,Just pour my beer,And get my smokes, And go away
"The FAI presentation yesterday included some comparisons with Cat 3 academies in UK (Fleetwood, Rochdale etc) which show how ill equipped LOI academies are for players in 16-18 age bracket in particular. Severe dearth of paid coaches and average training time pales in comparison"
You can't spell failure without FAI
The idea that the new restrictions on Irish players moving to the UK at 16 and 17 because of Brexit are somehow a positive thing has been well and truly debunked there. Ireland has nothing close to the setup required. This means that many young players' options are now either to move to an EU country and try to deal with the associated language and cultural barriers, or stay in Ireland and be developed through a substandard system until they're 18. Not good.
The point of the presentation was to secure funding to improve our academy structures.
Does anyone believe that with adequate resources / trainers available here our 15 or 16 year old kids would not be better off staying and completing their education here rather than going to the UK with a 95% to 99% chance of failure and having a ruined education and all the negatives of being branded a failure.
Are Irish coaches genetically inferior to coaches in the UK if given the same resources?
I'm not sure we're in a good position to ask for money, nor do we have the structures in place to make good use of it even if we get it. The lack of a pyramid here is old news, but probably more of an impediment than ever.
I think Eirambler makes a good point though: young players will have much better outcomes in life if we can only approximately match the level of coaching they'd get in the UK. The UCD players often leave us with a degree. That's a safety net that's far more necessary than it was a generation ago, and one that should really become a standard for us.
You can't spell failure without FAI
The Government have indicated a willingness to invest in the Academy Structures provided it is ringfenced for this so the FAI are rightly looking to get the money to put structures in place.
Its unfair to say we dont have structures in place to make good use of the money when we have never had it to spend.
If someone suggested they were sending their 15 year old away to become an apprentice electrician in England you would think they were nuts, that's what we are doing with our footballing kids.
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