Something special has been brewing in Irish football. Though the top-flight club of Ireland Shamrock Rovers F.C. are out of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Conference League (the third tier of continental club football in Europe) after penalty heartbreak against the top-notch club of Norway Molde FK (held at the 10,500-capacity Tallaght Stadium in Dublin, Ireland, on February 20th) but the League of Ireland is attracting humongous crowd.
And for the crème de la crème League of Ireland players the going has never been so good. The League of Ireland clubs are thriving after COVID and Brexit.
‘The Guardian’ stated that on February 16th, the League of Ireland’s attendance record was smashed as more than 33,000 people watched the Bohemians F.C. match their pitch wits with Shamrock Rovers F.C. at the 51,700-capacity Aviva Stadium in Dublin.
Nyon (Switzerland)-based the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach football in Europe and the transcontinental countries of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan as well as the West Asian countries of Cyprus, Armenia and Israel. The UEFA consists of 55 national association members. Since 2022, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the FIFA and the UEFA suspended all Russian national teams and clubs from any FIFA and UEFA competitions.
Dublin (Ireland)-based the League of Ireland consists of professional football clubs in the Republic of Ireland and Derry City in Northern Ireland (UK). It is one of the two governing bodies responsible for organizing association football in the Republic of Ireland along with the Football Association of Ireland.
In January, Mason Melia, a teenage St Patrick’s Athletic FC (a professional Irish association football club) striker was signed by the Premier League team Tottenham Hotspur F.C. (UK) for an upfront fee of €1.8m (£1.5m) tripling the transfer-fee record from the League of Ireland (Liam Scales’s €600,000 move to the Celtic F.C. [a professional football club in Glasgow, Scotland] in 2021).
‘The Guardian’ further stated that just what is going on? Why is it now that the League of Ireland teams are going deep into European competition, or the domestic games are becoming so well-attended? Why are clubs now able to demand record fees?
Melia’s fee is an exceptional one – mostly because he is an exceptional player – but also due to a confluence of other factors. The biggest reason is Brexit (withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union) which means the Irish players cannot sign for the English clubs until they are 18 years of age (despite already committing to the Spurs Melia will remain at St Patrick’s until January 2026 past his 18th birthday).
The Irish footballer Evan Ferguson’s move to the Premier League team Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. (UK) in 2021 is the last example of a player younger than 18 moving from the League of Ireland to England in the records.
Traditionally, exceptional young Irish players such as Ferguson, Damien Duff and Robbie Keane would be snapped up on the cheap by the British clubs before or on their 16th birthday often with just a compensation fee to be paid. Brexit means this is not possible so the 16-year-olds are signing professional deals with their League of Ireland clubs meaning the British clubs are now having to pay much larger sums to bring talent across the Irish Sea. At 16, Melia signed a three-year professional deal at St Patrick’s last year and less than six months later Tottenham paid up.
Owing to Ireland’s membership of the EU the Irish players can move abroad to a club on the continental mainland at 16 and clubs across Europe are starting to realize that they can now steal a march on their British counterparts.
Commented Clive Clarke, Melia’s agent and uncle, “They never really looked in Ireland previously because the best young talent were going over to the United Kingdom for next to nothing. But that has changed. Mason is a unique talent in that there are not many center-forwards of his caliber in Europe. There must have been nearly 100 phone calls from clubs all over Europe inquiring about his availability from the six months before he was 15.”
The ability to sign top young professional talent in the League of Ireland has been beneficial all around with the enhanced quality of football helping to drive the considerable rise in attendances. The record Aviva Stadium crowd of 33,208 might be something of an anomaly – with the Bohemians renting the national stadium for a one-off game – but are symptomatic of a larger trend.
Observed John Martin, Shamrock Rovers Chief Executive, “After the pandemic I think people wanted to get out there and experience something. The English Premier League (the top of the English football league system) in Ireland is huge but there’s now a disconnect with the finances. Watching it is expensive, on TV or traveling to the UK – it’s less accessible for people with the cost of travel, tickets and hotels. So, I think that’s led a lot of people to turn to the domestic game and experience something and be part of something. And that’s just grown and grown. So there’s been more revenue and there’s been a perfect mix of factors that has led us to this point.”
When the Rovers’ Tallaght Stadium was built in 2009 attendances averaged between 2,000 and 3,000. Now, averages stand around 7,000.
Rovers’ winning goal in the first leg in Norway came from the 16-year-old Michael Noonan who became the youngest scorer in the UEFA competitions since 1991. Rovers convinced the striker to sign a two-year professional contract in January with no release clause which means they should be well compensated should any further interest arise – the Premier League team Manchester City F.C. are reportedly one of a number of clubs tracking the teenager.
Maintained Martin, “Michael could have signed for any club in Europe and that’s not an exaggeration. His decision to sign professionally for Rovers at 16 is an endorsement that Michael sees a pathway here. Playing senior football in Ireland and in European competition will enable him to get the right move to England or Scotland down the line. Because that is his preference.”
Issues do remain in Irish football. Broadcasting revenue is well short of what it should be. The Academy football is still underdeveloped. The Irish professional football club Shelbourne F.C.’s prize money for winning the top flight last season (€125,000) was less than what Shamrock Rovers received for drawing 1-1 with the APOEL FC of Cyprus (€135,000) in the Europa Conference League in October last year. The Football Association of Ireland is still debt-ridden after the John Delaney (former Chief Executive Officer [CEO]) years and according to Martin, “doesn’t give financial support to the clubs in any way, shape, or form. The FAI has 350 employees and a wage bill of €17m which is out of kilter with nearly every single football association in Europe”.
Despite all that, this is a hugely exciting time for the League of Ireland clubs. The elite young talent is thriving, transfer fees are finally starting to roll in and the fans are flocking to watch their sides compete domestically and in Europe. It is not a brief moment in the sun for Irish football, it’s a watershed.
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