The League of Ireland will not be increasing prize money for the 2025 season despite a significant increase in overall funding from UEFA and new commercial partnerships.
The League of Ireland will not see an increase in prize money for the 2025 season, despite a new four-year television deal with Virgin Media and a commercial partnership with Rockshore. The winning team in the Premier Division will continue to receive €125,000, while the FAI Cup winners will receive €32,000, plus a share of the Aviva Stadium gate.
League of Ireland director Mark Scanlon confirmed today that this decision was made to maintain prize money at current levels and reassess ahead of 2026. This choice stems partly from the fact that almost €4 million will be entering the Irish game from UEFA. The league is experiencing unprecedented growth, including increasing attendances, record season ticket sales for clubs, a 42% increase in television audiences, and a 140% increase in the number of LOI TV subscriptions compared to the same time last year. Clubs that participated in the Premier Division in 2024 are also set to receive their increased share of renegotiated UEFA Solidarity Payments next month. Shamrock Rovers, having reached the group stages of the UEFA Conference League, will not be entitled to these funds. For the 2024/25 cycle, €288,000 will be distributed to each top-flight club in February, with €45,000 going to each First Division side. Dundalk, relegated to the second tier for the upcoming campaign, will receive the larger amount. As things stand, with Rovers set to face Molde in the Conference League play-off next month, it's estimated that a minimum of an extra €700,000 will be spread among the other nine Premier Division clubs. This amount will increase should the Hoops progress further, with the final total only being calculated once the competition concludes in June. Clubs will then receive a further cash injection the following month. It is only new regulations set out by UEFA that dictate the discrepancy between payments to Premier and First Division clubs. The National League Committee voted to ensure that those in the second tier received the maximum 15% share. Under the terms of these Solidarity Payments, clubs cannot use the money for first-team wages or transfers but instead towards the overall infrastructure sustainability of the club – such as academy costs and training facilities. 'There is big money that comes in from UEFA club competitions. The positive from our side of it is, we had €1.45 million, it’s going to be over €3.7m this year. It’s more money coming into Irish football which is a positive,' Scanlon said, before explaining the reasoning behind keeping prize money at current levels. 'You’re focusing on the prize fund part as opposed to a 205% increase in the funding towards the clubs. We don’t just put it into prize money. If we just put it into prize money, then all of a sudden we’re taking away any criteria that we have and it can just be spent on wages and not sustainable. 'Our focus is trying to put it into areas that is... incremental increase in prize money that’s in a sustainable way. We don’t want to get it to a stage where we put all of the money because we had it for one particular year into a prize fund, the clubs expect to play for that level and it’s not sustainable afterwards. We want to ensure that some of the funding that is distributed is spent in specific areas. That’s why it’s the overall increase of funding to the clubs that’s the important figure as opposed to just prize money. 'Everything that we’ve have brough additionally in terms of broadcast and commercial we will make sure it gets spent back in the clubs. Do we have any plans to increase it? Yes, we do. We’d love to get additional commercial partners in and we want to increase the funding at all levels across to clubs but that is going to take time and hard work. 'We’ve done a lot of that over the last few years. There is real positivity around the league right now and we will try to utilise that to bring in more partners and more funding into the league. When we do that it will go directly back to the clubs.' With relation to academy funding, and their stated wish for an €8 million commitment per year from Government to 'transform' the industry, Scanlon said he hopes to meet with officials in Leinster House within the next two weeks. Last September, chief football officer Marc Canham insisted that the picture would be clearer before the end of 2024 on the academy funding issue. 'Before the end of the year we’ll know where we are. I don’t know what an announcement will look like but, certainly based on our conversation with the Government on that specific item, we’ll have a good understanding of where we are by the end of the year,’ he said. Scanlon was adamant that talks had been 'positive' and that the FAI were 'really encouraged' by references to LOI academies in party manifestos
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