On a slow Saturday morning at the Bohemian FC office above Phibsboro shopping centre, the former FAI chairman Roy Barrett joined the club’s chief operating officer Daniel Lambert, chairman Matt Devaney and The Irish Times to discuss plans for the immediate future and beyond.
Bohs are braced to leave Dalymount Park when the stadium undergoes a rebuild from 2026. There is no guaranteed date of return and a temporary home has yet to be secured.
Dublin rivals benefit from investors such as Neil Doyle at Shelbourne and Dermot Desmond at Shamrock Rovers. Shels just won the league and Rovers are flying high in Europe while St Patrick’s Athletic owner Garrett Kelleher has empowered former Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny to bring silverware south of the river Liffey.
That could be where Bohemians are headed. Or they might bury recent differences with Shelbourne, over a joint share of Dalymount, by using Tolka Park for two or three seasons.
Tallaght is too far away and talk of renting Parnell Park, Dublin’s GAA ground, or Morton Stadium in Santry are non-runners.
Bohs are about to test the growing popularity of the League of Ireland by opening the season against Rovers at the Aviva Stadium on Sunday, February 16th, at 2pm.
“Liverpool v Wolves is at 4pm,” said Lambert. “But I’d like to see 35,000 at the Aviva.”
“I agree with Daniel,” said Barrett, the Goodbody Stockbrokers managing director until 2021, who is advising the club, with the possibility of joining as one of two independent directors when the 2,500 membership next convenes.
“25,000 would be really good,” Devaney cautioned, “but I’ve stopped doubting Dan’s projections after a few things over the years.”
Devaney is referring to Lambert spearheading commercial successes such as shirt sales through partnerships with the Bob Marley Foundation, Dublin Bus and DC Fontaines, as well as last year’s hosting of the Palestine women’s team at Dalymount.
Members were warned at last year’s AGM of a stark financial reality once they leave Dalymount. Renovations are conservatively estimated to cost €40 million over two years, and while Government funding of €24.7 million has already been allocated, more will be needed from the State.
With more than 20,000 tickets already sold for this Lansdowne Road experiment, Bohs will turn a profit that goes into the war chest for nomadic days ahead. It is suggested that Shels might share Tolka Park or St Pat’s would allow the use of Richmond Park with the Aviva reserved for Dublin derbies.
Devaney: “The Aviva will be cost prohibitive. We are still a little bit away from having a permanent home.”
Lambert: “The Aviva won’t always work because of the dates. We were very lucky to get February 16th in between the Six Nations.
“I think some clubs in the league will start to move Dublin derbies. The problem is you are giving up home advantage. But big derbies, people can’t get into them, that’s the new reality.”
How about one or two Dublin derbies at the Aviva?
Lambert: “This game will tell a lot. There has never been a league game in the Aviva Stadium so there is a novelty factor around it. That we are going to have similar numbers [to the old days] is a really good moment for Irish football.”
Devaney: “And yes, we are trying to make a few quid out of this to future-proof the club when we are out of Dalymount. But part of the thinking is ‘let’s see what the appetite really is'.”
Lambert: “There was an opportunity cost. We make a lot of money on merchandise from Bohs-Rovers. We had to chat to our food vendors. Our members can avail of a refund [the price of a home game at Dalymount], but it would appear a lot won’t. That’s what a members’ club is all about.”
What lessons can Bohs, and your 3,200 season ticket holders, take from Leinster (13,000) moving out of the RDS, during the €50 million renovation of the Anglesea Stand, to the Aviva and Croke Park?
Lambert: “The average ticket prices for Leinster Rugby are higher than the League of Ireland.”
(The same seats at the Aviva were €25-€55 for Leinster v Stormers and €15-€27 for Bohs v Rovers.)
“We have spoken to the RDS as well but the financial model for Bohs to play there requires a tripling of prices. That wouldn’t be acceptable, nor should it be.
“There is no obvious move. There is huge goodwill but going to any other ground presents that club with a lot of problems, like gardaí and pitch care. People are going to have to do us a favour that we might reciprocate in the near future at the new Dalymount. Either Tolka or Richmond will renovate next.”
Roy, why did you get involved with Bohemians?
Roy Barrett: “I have such a respect and regard for Bohs as a member-owned club. By buying 11 acres out in the Oscar Traynor centre, we have an opportunity to create what is badly needed in Ireland – an international class academy. We are going to get funding to meet the funding that we have. That appeals to me.”
Private investment?
Barrett: “Not solely. For the first time ever we have a programme for government that specifically mentions football academies. That is cold money.”
An international class academy provides education to teenagers on-site, can Bohs do this?
Lambert: “Yes, or a partner school in walking distance. I visited St Michael’s College, to approach a player with [director of football] Pat Fenlon, and we saw their facilities and the pictures of rugby internationals on the wall. These kids were coming into the gym at 7am, then into class and then a lunchtime session. For some students it was a school, for others it was a rugby academy.”
Several Leinster schools have done this since the 1990s ...
Barrett: “Ireland is probably the best of any country in the world in terms of rugby academies and education. We can do that in football but it is going to be through club academies.”
Devaney: “There are other mechanisms out there for funding, be that the Department of Education or Department Social Integration. Rovers have gone down the route of a childcare model to get funding.”
Does it cost €500,000 to run an Academy?
Devaney: “That’s how much it costs now.”
Barrett: “Presumably, Government have put it into their policy document for a reason. Presumably, there is a reckoning post-Brexit. We used to export the talent to the UK at 14 or 15. We cannot do that now until they are 18. That creates a responsibility but also an opportunity to provide them with the same facility and coaching as if they went abroad.
“This is an opportunity to develop and employ our own, and in fairness to the government in the past they have good track records of supporting industries.”
Greyhound racing is going out of business in New Zealand ...
Barrett: “It’s been banned there. We can do something really good for a country that can now afford it. If we are putting €20 million a year into greyhound racing, why can’t we put €20 million into academies to develop the next generation?
“Let’s assume they are going to do it. Let’s do it right. Let’s put the proper facilities in place.”
Is that your role, Roy, to talk to Government and assist with academy fundraising?
Lambert: “Roy has a wealth of life and business experience. We want to have people in the room who can look at critical decisions from a new perspective.”
Devaney: “Two years ago we recognised that the Bohs model has served us brilliantly. It got us out of [€6.7 million debt] in 2013, and after the growth we have experienced in the last few years we know that model needs to be finessed.
“We needed some independent oversight. We are all invested as Bohs directors because we are fans or members. We decided to bring in someone who can add contacts, networking and governance know-how.”
Can Bohs count on its commercial revenue, which rose by 3,000 per cent between 2014 and 2022, to be sustainable?
Lambert: “Yes. We don’t want to give anything away.
“If world football is this whole table, the League of Ireland is a tiny part of it. The ‘refugees welcome’ jersey is for a global market. Inviting the Palestinian team here, I think, was the best thing we could have ever done. That game was not done for financial reasons, it was the right thing to do. But we connected with people globally in a core football way. People in the US know about Bohs. They might not know who won the league.”
Bohs and Sligo Rovers are the only members-owned clubs in the Premier Division; can you reduce the first-team budget in 2025 and remain competitive?
Barrett: “The interesting thing about the Aviva game is there is real interest from a corporate sponsorship perspective. There is a path to commercial sustainability and no shortage of good ideas from Daniel and the team.”
Devaney: “If we flipped to the private model, it would kill the club as overnight we’d lose everything that has a global football audience tied into Bohs.”
Lambert: “Next year, our match day income will be less than 50 per cent of what it is. We had a bad season [in 2024] but there was no drop off in the number who wanted to come to Dalymount.
“We have to be careful in the next couple of years. We have all the building blocks in place to be a very successful football club. We just can’t move too quickly with all our plans and that is frustrating.
“Garret Kelleher has been involved with St Pat’s for a very long time and put in a lot of money. That is a really good football club owner. It is not our model.
“If they are richer than us, we have to be smarter than them.”
Bohs manager Alan Reynolds recently stated that “we can’t compete with some clubs” in the transfer market?
Devaney: “We have had to walk away from players in the last few weeks because in the coming years out of Dalymount, we cannot incur losses. Other clubs came in and blew us out of the water.”
Lambert: “We nearly lost Dalymount a few years ago. The board made a decision to invest in long-term projects to benefit the football club. Other boards made a decision to get a European place.
“We invested a lot of money in the Oscar Traynor for the academy. Fast forward to 2030 and we have 8,000 at Dalymount every week and we’ve built our merchandise to €5 million and our academy is developed. All that is totally in reach.
“If in this little moment we go for X player and are stuck for cash, it is a crazy reckless thing to do. It would upset years and years of careful planning.”
In fairness, Dawson Devoy and Ross Tierney did not come cheap?
Devaney: “We can still attract really good players. Let’s go for a few high-profile players and supplement the first team with our academy.”
Barrett: “The stadium will give the club significant commercial opportunities.”
Can Dalymount be completed by the end of 2028?
Barrett: “I wouldn’t bank on it.”
“But we do have the stadium to look forward to. From an academy perspective we have a facility that is operational. If we can find the investment, we can develop something unique here.”
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