The Football Association of Ireland expects clarity from the Government by December on their request for €10 million annually to help fund the club academy system.
Marc Canham, the association’s chief football officer, intends to create a three-tier structure across 24 academies by 2026. The exact details have yet to be relayed to League of Ireland clubs.
During a briefing at the Aviva Stadium on Wednesday afternoon, Canham conceded that this key element of his Football Pathways Plan cannot be fully implemented without Government support.
“From our conversations with Government on that specific item, we’ll have a good understanding of where we are by the end of the year,” he said.
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“On League of Ireland academies, there are different ways you can look at it. We believe around €10 million per annum would absolutely transform player development and academies in this country.
“Will we get all of that? Not sure. But we presented different ways you can do that.
“We think around €10 million would help us catch up [with similar sized European countries]. Lesser money would mean that we might not go at the rate we want to go.
“The academy proposal is a multimillion euro investment that we do need, and the Government is the primary source to be able to implement it.”
However, 10 days after the FAI interim chief executive David Courell indicated that academy funding would come from three strands – the Brexit Adjustment Fund, an increase in the betting levy, and profits from hosting Euro 2028 – Canham was forced to rule out the main option.
“We are happy to accept we may have missed an opportunity there as an Association on that specific [Brexit] fund,” he said.
The European Union put €1.1 billion into the Brexit Adjustment Fund in 2021, but the FAI only sought access to it earlier this year.
“All the negotiations on the Brexit Adjustment Reserve concluded some time ago,” revealed Paschal Donohoe, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform at the announcement of €230 million in facilities grants on Wednesday, of which soccer clubs received €45.8 million.
An increase in the betting levy from two to three per cent would create €50 million for Irish sport, with football seeking €30 million. But this remains at discussion level across several Government departments, including Sport and Finance.
The FAI previously spoke about the €10 million, on top of the €5.8 million grant it currently receives, as a short-term method of funding to help kick-start a football industry in Ireland.
Now, Canham is seeking that sum on an annual basis “forever”.
“We might have to be cognisant that the Government might not be the sole funders of that, whatever the figure is forever.
“We have to make sure that Irish football – the Association and the clubs – contribute to that and cannot just purely be funded by Government.
“But that is what you would need to broadly run a tiered academy system that produces players.”
If the funding is made available, the FAI would decide which of the 20 League of Ireland clubs and four regional academies – Klub Kildare, Carlow Kilkenny (CK United), Cavan/Monaghan and Mayo – are most deserving of the money.
“We would create a system that holds clubs to account essentially,” Canham continued. “So, they wouldn’t be able to avail of that funding without meeting the criteria we set out.
“The conversations we’ve had with the Minister [Thomas Byrne] and other people [in Government] are really positive. They are motivated by the fact we are proposing an audit assessment system, that clubs have to make sure that money – whatever amount it is – is ring-fenced specifically for youth development.
“[The FAI] would oversee that system, we would run it, and accredit clubs with academy licences.”
On the “green line” plan, a separate Canham idea to have every Ireland team from under-15 playing a “recognisable style” of football, a technical group has been formed that includes men’s head coach Heimir Hallgrímsson and women’s head coach Eileen Gleeson.
“This is very much an FAI plan for the future,” said Canham. “Use the England game as an example. We got beat and didn’t play particularly well. It was quite stark the difference between the teams.
“Look at the England starting XI. Seven were in primary school in 2010. The reason for saying that is in the 2009/10 season, English football went through a massive change in their academy system.”
During this period, Canham helped to implement the English FA’s Elite Player Performance Plan at the Bristol City academy before being “heavily involved in implementation” as a Premier League employee.
“There were massive reforms in how players were developed. Seven of the 11 would have accessed coaching from full-time coaches three nights a week and played once or twice at the weekend. This continued all the way through their pathway.
“What you saw on that pitch,” said Canham, nodding to the Lansdowne grass from the FAI president’s box, “it was not an overnight thing.
“It was 15 years of development. The point I’m trying to make is that this takes time. Some of the older players who played against [Ireland] would still have benefited from that system but not as much as the nine- or 10-year-olds.
“Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham and Cole Palmer were not even in that England squad.”
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