I think both should happen: The domestic system needs to be strengthened, and players should consider the continent as an option. Of course the continent is slightly further away and people are communicating in strange languages over there, but the narrow focus on the UK as more or less the only perceived option abroad isn't really helpful in my opinion.Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I love the nuggets of info you can pick up on foot.ie
Joking aside, I agree with your point. The questions are: would continental clubs now broaden their scouting to Ireland knowing that they are no longer second-favoured option to go abroad? And will schoolboy clubs broaden their networks abroad?
And of course if better players stay at home and improve competition domestically that is presumably a good thing too, on several fronts.
Your part in bold is the double-edged sword that really concerns me.
Football governance is toxic right now, across all the intersections.
- Public & football (the bail-out)
- Schoolboys & FAI/Dokter
- Schoolboys & LoI
- FAI & everyone
This is the opportunity, with the pariah that's been breathing down our necks since year dot, now removed, with some quality and targetted investment in football (and sport generally), there could be a transformation in the sport on the island.
Btw, are there wider implications for a United Irish league now as a result of this?
Here they come! It’s the charge of the “Thanks” Brigade!
I have a friend of mine who lives in Poland. His kid is a very decent footballer and totally football obsessed. He plays in the academy of one of the top division sides in Poland but he's 8. Real Madrid and Malaga have offered to bring the family across. Malaga, they're considering because they have family friends there, so the move would be a bit easier - and Real Madrid, because it's hard to turn down Real. I guess for the family, there's also a sense that a move to Spain from Poland could be appealing. Not sure if there have been any other enquiries from other teams but he went on trial multiple times with both teams before covid. I think he initially played against Malaga in a tournament and then while on trial for Malaga, played against Madrid.
I know it's only anecdotal but I can't imagine it's that rare, considering one of my better friends' family has been offered the chance.
Well I chose Korea as an example outside the EU, where it should be a lot harder logistically to move from. Still, it's an interesting anecdote all the same alright. Like, it definitely happens and I'm not entirely sure FIFA having a directive in place against it would stop it.
The FIFA document geysir quoted says an exemption is granted if -
That's fairly get-around-able.The player’s parents move to the country in which the new club is located for reasons not linked to football
In terms of my "uncommon" comment, I guess it's more how many of the 16-year-olds going from Ireland to England these days would be worth bringing the family with them for? I'd imagine at the very least, while it would still leave the door open to U-18 transfers, it would reduce them. Which I think is a good thing btw, if the game here can step up.
(I think the idea of moving half way across the continent because your 8-year-old is half-decent at football is a bit mental btw, and the general FIFA aim is admirable)
Last edited by pineapple stu; 03/12/2020 at 1:49 PM.
I don't disagree with you - it's totally mad. But the father is from brazil and probably of the opinion he'd prefer life in Spain to Poland anyway, away from the relative cold and his spanish would be a lot better than his basic polish, so for him, it seems great but the mother is from poland and would probably prefer to stay there. Sometimes, I suppose that gets to the heart of the matter. Poland is a fairly developed country but the thought of going to Spain, Germany, France, Italy, England and building a life there (quality of education, average wage, standard of living) is nonetheless attractive, so there's an intersection between footballing and non-footballing reasons. (They live less than half an hour from the german border, so i suppose if it was purely about football, there'd be clubs a lot closer to home.
The kid speaks Polish, Portuguese, English and Spanish - which i find incredibly impressive.
If the kid ends up being the next Lewandowski, it'll be a real case of what if. He was supposed to have been born in the Coombe, with the couple having lived in ireland for 4 years before his birth. The mother had a check up in the coombe where two of the maternity nurses made comments about 'eastern european women being spongers' etc. So she decided to go home for the birth instead - moving back to ireland after a month, meaning he doesn't have an irish passport. They continued to live here for 3 more years before decided to move to her hometown...
People just suck sometimes, don't they?
humanity will break your heart...
Genuinely, i've been so disappointed with what i've seen at junior and schoolboy level. The DDSL and the LSL both smelt blood and did things that were totally self-interest based and harming to football in the country. Their actions over the past 18 months have showed me that the Delaney era was sorta like Saddam's regime. As appalling as Delaney was, the vacuum of power left when he fell made things much much worse.
The DDSL's decision to have u12s playing 11v11 is one example of this. the ultimately rowed back on it: "The Dublin and District Schoolboys/Schoolgirls League now welcomes the opportunity to be involved in the review of grassroots plan and the option to provide the relevant input for the betterment of schoolboy football." it was just a power play. but it's obvious they were prepared to hinder the progress of young footballers purely to better their own situation.
same is the case for calendar football - there are huge issue with participation numbers. aligning the professional, junior and schoolboy calendars makes total sense. we were within a year of that happening before the fallout occurred. there's obvious advantages to professional game going that way (best weather for spectators, less clashes with premier league, easier to qualify for europe due to being mid-season). The basic concepts apply right across the board for juinor and schoolboy. The best months for playing football: generally most of May, June, July and some of August are the months when we're not playing football. Schoolboy football had issues with the transition from traditional to calendar but that was down to taking too long a summer break and to inflexibility of fixture secretaries and it got better over time. the counter arguments are that there are kids on holidays during the summer - but that's where you need flexible fixture secretaries. and the other one is that dual players play GAA during the summer. but frankly GAA has become an 10/11 month season with training and allowing our season to be dictated to by another sport is wrong...
Then there were problems with transitioning youth footballers when they stopped playing youth football. I played with a footballer who would have played with the likes of afolabi, mcauley etc. growing up. he was playing for the best schoolboy side in the country and when his last season ended he didn't sign for anyone. teams were already mid-season. it drifted. he eventually got back into the game but the 7 month gap meant that he was very nearly lost. the overall number of drop offs from schoolboy to junior football is much much higher than it should be.
then at junior level, participation is falling exponentially year on year. go to the league websites and look at the number of divisions and teams year by year, it's insane. the lsl did a big push to take teams with good facilities from other leagues, but even then, they only covered their losses if even. it follows the same pattern. teams start out fine in late august and september and october, then in october games start to get called off with more and more frequency into november. teams train twice a week, then on friday afternoon, the game is called off. players lose the rhythm of playing and it all gets disjointed. then you've got a one month break - 6 week around christmas time. you lose players coming back from that. then after that, you've still got games called off in january and february and when games are played, it's cold, miserable, wet and windy. every year around that time, countless teams fold. i did some analysis on it a few years ago (2 i think) and outside the top division in each league, 30% of games were walkovers.
it's a totally broken and dysfunctional system - and all the players' surveys have backed it up – and LSL basically just said they were refusing to engage with the amateur review before the most transformative reform could take place. then the toothless FAI caved...
it'd drive you to drink...
There's an opportunity post-covid to reform the way in which football at every level operates but i would be less optimistic than ever that it will happen...
genuinely, sports like cricket with almost no participation are able to create fantastic pathways to the highest level and elite development programmes and virtually everything that happens with football here is a ****show
You're absolutely right to compare JD to Saddam in the context you mention (post-regime chaos), but that just shows how totally messed up the underlying structure is. And your last paragraph is linked to that: sports like cricket develop pathways because their sports are so small they are easier to organise and easier to stop a myriad of vested interests gaining and competing for power and resources.
This won't help player development; https://www.fai.ie/domestic/news/und...nment-guidance
Facebook conspiracy suggests it might have been influenced by the DDSLs of the world not being happy that elite could continue but they couldn't.
Tallaght Stadium Regular
Aidan Fitzmaurice asking the same questions in the Independent: https://www.independent.ie/sport/soc...-39824268.html
Huge opportunity that, with my pessimistic hat on, will be squandered because of John Delaney and the debt he put the FAI in as well as the customary infighting we are too used to.
If we can get around that, and find investment for academies and cohesion between the underage clubs, we might be looking at having a proper pathway for our kids to play ball through the highest levels and a boost for the LoI and national side as well.
Huge hurdles to overcome but the prize would be bigger.
I thought this was really interesting by Klopp. More a general point about developing talent.
https://www.theguardian.com/football...t-jurgen-klopp
His argument is England right now are among the best in the world at producing young talent. And he says that the reason they are so successful is because the youngsters are playing in academies with the best young players around. Training in that elite environment breeds quality and by diluting the talent of the worst players, it effects what the best players will become. Maybe it’s part of the reason for our own little golden generation.
Senior opportunities to play are almost a secondary situation. Lack of opportunities is what leads a Sancho type player to move to Germany. But honestly, in recent years premier league clubs have gotten much better at integrating talented academy youngsters.
Interestingly, thinking about the young players who have played this season at Liverpool: Kelleher, N Williams, Phillips, R Williams, Jones and Elliott- apart from Kelleher, they’re all from the UK. Yet in recent years, their reserves has had really good players from Netherlands, france, Portugal who were sold after a few years at the club.
It’ll be interesting to see going forward whether the likes of Ferguson, Zeffi, Sinclair etc. stay in ireland till 18 or whether they move to Germany, France, Italy, etc etc.
Is there anything more about Zefi's proposed move to Inter?
The one big advantage of staying in Ireland until they are u18 is it can give the players more oppertunities for first team football, can help with their maturity which will be needed in the English system which can be ruthless, worked wonders for Bazunu who likely would never have gone to City until he started getting first team oppertunities at Rovers, he was being linked to Brighton and Newcastle until it became noted that he was starting for Rovers at 16 and all of a sudden he started being linked to City,Spurs,Chelsea etc.
I'd say another big advantage is that the guys will at least get a Leaving Cert too. Not everything's about football.
ontheotherhand's post captures the way I view it spot on.
(Also - welcome, new poster!)
I'm not sure if this is a good thing. Given the lack of cash available to the FAI and Irish football where is the money going to come to fund all these youth academies? They require huge investment. And we also have to fund skills / grass root development (for all players not just elite) from 6 to 13 / 14 year old (Pre academy) where players primarily develop their technique (According to Wenger anyway)
True there is no guaranteed path to success (Irish youth club > English academy > English club 1st team PL / Championship level) OR
Irish Youth club > Irish based academy > LOI > moved abroad (to mainly English based clubs)
Both the above paths have worked to an extent in the past so I don't think its good to throw all eggs in one basket. Unless I'm missing something
I believe Most funding should be going to developing skills and technique for 6 -13 years olds.
A key issue for me is that the number of Irish players going to English academies has been in decline for years - specifically since the Premier League started signing players from all around the world.
We can't continue to let another country be responsible for our player pathway. It's a large part of why we've been in decline at international level.
Most other countries in Europe have their players come through their domestic league, even if it's a weak league in a country of a similar population to us. We have to start catching up. If we have "one basket", it's the English youth structure to be honest. The underfunded LoI has been very poor in terms of developing players (compared to other leagues)
You're right that financially it's tough, and politically it may be even tougher. But it needs to happen I think, so any spur towards helping us in the right direction should be welcomed as an opportunity, not a risk.
Even if the moves to England were to continue, your point is irrelvant to the issue anyway, seeing as kids can't leave Ireland until they're 16.
Football in Ireland needs a hell of a lot of investment, it has done for a long time, and this should be the kick up the backside that pushes it.
Dermot Desmond and co already putting a push on Shamrock Rovers academy. They'll inevitably be the first club to go down a proper full time academy road here.
Most LOI clubs are putting in a big effort. I can only speak from experience in that regard, I know that the lads in underage at Finn Harps put in a huge effort, and there's development sides at 14's and 16's alongside the 'elite' national league sides at 13, 15, 17 and 19.
It won't happen overnight, but if the huge change that has happened with underage structures in Ireland continues to develop further in the next ten years, we're on the right track, at least.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
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