If Niamh Farrelly even heard the news about American billionaire Kyle Krause buying a 90 per cent stake in Italian club Parma back towards the tail end of 2020, she’d have been forgiven for doubting that this development would ever have any impact on her own particular life.
At the time, she was busy helping Peamount United win the National League, a few months before signing her first professional contract with Glasgow City.
Krause, meanwhile, was vowing to rebuild Parma after a calamitous few years that saw the club go bankrupt and the men’s team drop down to Serie D.
As a member of the family that owns the Kum & Go chain of petrol stations and convenience stores in America’s midwest, he wasn’t short of loot, and unusually enough for an owner of an Italian club at the time, was intent on investing in the women’s side of the operation too.
Come this summer, Farrelly found herself a beneficiary of that ambition, hearing about it first hand when she and her new Parma team-mates had dinner with Krause in Val di Pejo, in the mountains of northern Italy, where the squad were preparing for the new season.
“He talked about how he looks at it from an American perspective where women’s football is so big and so successful. He wants the same in Italy and is making sure the club is getting behind the women’s team. We have great facilities, we get what the men get, there’s real ambition here. It’s brilliant.”
It was towards the end of last season that Farrelly, after 18 months in Glasgow, decided she wanted to move on. “I loved my time there, the club was very good to me, but I just kind of had itchy feet, I decided I’d like to challenge myself elsewhere. I always wanted to go somewhere with a different language, a different culture, to gain experience both on and off the pitch. And then one day I got a text from my agent saying he was chatting to Parma – and it just went from there.”
The timing couldn’t have been better. This season will see the women’s Serie A go professional for the first time with the old salary cap of €30,000 now removed, allowing clubs to offer more attractive wages and ultimately compete for the signing of the game’s bigger names who, until now, have been drawn largely to England, France, Germany and Spain.
Parma’s women, though, were due to play in Serie C in the new campaign, having won promotion from Serie D last time around, but Krause displayed his ambition for them again when he purchased Empoli’s Serie A licence this summer, meaning Parma now take their place in the top flight, with Empoli choosing to turn its focus to youth football.
“This opportunity presented itself to us to make the leap, and when an opportunity presents itself it must be seized,” said Krause. “If we look around, the growth of women’s football is evident. Why not offer girls the same opportunities that are offered to their male colleagues to play at a high level?”
Jumping from Serie D to Serie A in the space of 12 months meant Parma had to bring in a raft of new players to allow them to compete at that level, so they were on a recruiting drive. While injuries have played a major part in Farrelly winning just four senior caps so far, as an international and a title winner with Glasgow City, as well being versatile enough to play in defence or midfield, she fit the bill for the calibre of players the club was seeking. Apart from plenty of homegrown talent, she now has team-mates from Portugal, Sweden, England, Finland and Lithuania.
“The team has changed completely, it’s a whole new squad,” says the 23 year old, a sports science graduate from DCU. “The majority of the players have already played in Serie A, so there’s plenty of experience there which will be important for us. I’d like to think we’ll be ambitious with this new squad, but we have to get to know each other on and off the pitch. Staying up would be the main goal and then push on from there, see how far we can go.”
“It’s an exciting time to be coming to Italy with the league going professional and Parma in Serie A, it’s a brilliant challenge for me. The football here is that bit more technical, which is something I’ll have to get used to, but I think as a young player there’s no harm in getting out of your comfort zone and trying something new.”
Farrelly, a former captain of the Irish under-19 team and player of the year at that level in 2018, sought the advice of Republic of Ireland manager Vera Pauw before agreeing to the move, Pauw herself having played in Italy during her career. “I just told her I’d like to go and challenge myself elsewhere and she was supportive of that, so it was really good to have her backing and to have someone to chat to about it.”
“When I started playing football, the only thing I wanted to do was play for Ireland, that was all that was in my head. At that stage, to think girls could go and play professionally was too wild of a dream, the platform wasn’t there. So to be playing professionally now in Italy is just deadly.”
“And it’s obviously a really nice place to live – the food is good, the people are really nice, I’ve got my apartment here now, I’m nearly settled.”
The language barrier?
“Funnily enough, I did Italian for my Leaving Cert, so I’m not that bad. I had quite an interest in it when I was in school, it was probably one of my best subjects. I understand a lot, although I’ve forgotten loads, but when you’re in among it every day you have to talk it, so hopefully in a few months I’ll be flying at it.”
The first challenge for Farrelly and her new team-mates comes on Sunday evening when they open their Serie A campaign away to Inter Milan, who finished fifth last season.
“Even just saying the name Inter Milan is class,” she laughs. “And Juventus, AC Milan, Roma, Napoli, all those huge clubs, playing against teams like that ... ah, you’d be buzzing. It’s so exciting, hopefully I can really improve my game here and, ultimately, improve myself for the national team. I’ll always represent my clubs with pride but, at the end of the day, what I want more than anything is to play for Ireland.”
