FAI seeks access to corporate tax windfall to modernise all League of Ireland grounds

The FAI met Government officials on Tuesday to discuss a multifaceted funding scheme to modernise soccer facilities in Ireland.

Topics of conversation included the €250 million investment needed to transform all 20 League of Ireland grounds.

A total of €863 million is the figure required to make Irish football comparable to rival nations, with €426.4 million earmarked for grassroots and €370 million for stadiums and academy centres, and a further €47 million needed to bring facilities at the National Sports Campus on par with the IRFU and the GAA.

The association is confident that a portion of the €2.5 billion additional corporate tax collected by the Irish Government this year can be redistributed to soccer.

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The FAI’s ‘Facility Investment Vision and Strategy’ document states that this must begin with an upgrade of stadiums, clubhouses and pitches around the country. The document, to be published on Thursday, intends to explain how €816 million will be generated and spread over 15 years.

The report will state that 10 League of Ireland football stadiums would be turned into 20,000 capacity venues with the other 10 holding at least 6,000 supporters. €26 million would also go into the national football centre in Abbotstown.

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Support from the current Government is being sought via the FAI’s outgoing chairman Roy Barrett and Robert Watt, the current secretary general of the Department of Health, who since 2020 has sat as one of four independent directors on the association’s revamped board.

“While the level of Government capital funding being suggested for soccer alone is ambitious, in the context of the total funding available in recent years, the Government is strongly committed to sustained investment in the necessary facilities for all sports,” said Thomas Byrne, the Minister for state for sport and physical education, following Tuesday’s meeting with senior leaders of the FAI.

“In the longer term, the appropriate level of sustained investment needed to meet the needs of a growing population and to support increased levels of participation by people of all ages and at all levels is a matter for careful consideration. In this regard, my Department operates two grant Programmes, the Sports Capital and Equipment Programme and the Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund.”

As reported by The Irish Examiner, up to 80 per cent of funding must come via successive governments, split into three five-year phases until 2038.

The FAI request that the government review a betting levy of two per cent, from gambling across all sports, going directly into the horse and greyhound racing fund remains apart of this ambitious plan despite An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s recent suggestion that it pits “sport against the equestrian industry.”

“I should note that a number of FAI-supported projects received funding under the first set of Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund allocations, announced in 2020,” added Minister Byrne. “In relation to the possibility of re-opening the Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund for new applications from the FAI and other National Governing Bodies of Sport, there is ongoing engagement with the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform in this regard.”

The FAI seek €517 million from Government, which breaks down as €34.5 million a year coming out of the Sports Capital and Equipment programme, the Large Scale Sport Infrastructure programme, the Share Island Fund, the Brexit Adjustment Reserve and an altered distribution of the betting levy.

The association also intends to create a stand-alone foundation that would attract private funding via donations and philanthropy.