Heavily in debt, the Football Association of Ireland is scrambling for ways to pay for badly needed improvements to the player development system
'The big ask of Government is to recognise that academies are the engine room for our future international teams,' said FAI interim chief executive David Courell. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/InphoAdjustment Fund to help build a sustainable club academy system in Ireland is “unrealistic”, a Government source has told The Irish Times.
It is eight years since the Martin O’Neill-managed side competed at Euro 2016. Since then, Ireland have plummeted down the Fifa rankings to 58th. “It is typical of the Delaney era that nobody considered this,” said a Government source. “The FAI have come very late to the table, it’s not 100 per cent out of the question but most of that money was spent years ago.”
“I can assure you we will look to benefit all academies,” said Courell. “How we then go about allocating the funding, it will be a tiered investment system across a three-tier academy structure. Tier-one academies would have to provide on-site access to the Leaving Cert curriculum or a partnership with nearby secondary schools, similar to the arrangement between Shamrock Rovers and Ashfield College.
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