Irish government told they’ve failed Irish football as they’re urged to invest

Simon Harris has been given enormous credit for the energy he has brought to the role as Taoiseach. As a leader, he is seen to be getting things done. But is he getting anything done for our Beautiful Game?

Sport is now a defining issue in terms of the opportunities he provides for young girls and boys. Football is our country’s biggest game. Yet has the Taoiseach been to any games since he assumed office? Has he attended any meetings with the FAI? It is simply not good enough.

And when you look at the history of our football, and compare it to a country like Greece, it makes you sad. Then angry. Greece has a population of 10 million people. The island of Ireland has a population of seven million. We should be similar in terms of our club’s results. But we aren’t.

On Wednesday, Olympiakos won the Europa Conference League. This is a big deal. Yet Greece has a history. In 1971, Panathinaikos reached the European Cup final, while also reaching two European Cup semi-finals.

AEK Athens also reached a UEFA Cup semi-final, while who can ever forget what Greece achieved in Euro 2004 when they won the competition outright? Three years earlier their manager, Otto Rehaggel, was outsmarted by one of our own, Roddy Collins, in a UEFA Cup tie. That result showed we can live with the best.

Yet comparisons between our league and Greece’s need context. In the top division of Greek football, there are eight stadiums with capacities of over 20,000. In Ireland, only one ground, Tallaght Stadium, has a 10,000 capacity.

Even so, the Greek government are keen to help two of their clubs, Panathinaikos and PAOK, to build new stadiums with capacities in excess of 40,000. Meanwhile, we are still waiting for Dalymount Park to be rebuilt. And when it is, it will have a capacity of 8,000. That – when you consider the history of the place – is embarrassing.

And shame on our government for not showing either the interest or the ambition to build something bigger and better. What about the FAI, though?

This week – Olympiakos winning a competition designed for countries like Ireland and Greece – highlighted what small countries and small federations can achieve. For this to happen, you need to have ambition, vision too. We have to want to become a Greece. We have to want our clubs to become bigger, our stadiums better.

Yet when I make the comparison between Ireland and Greece, so many FAI officials will quietly say: ‘Pat, you don’t know what you are talking about. The situation is different. Greece have more of a tradition.’ But why is that? Is it because the Greeks have got so many things right? Or is it because an attitude exists here where so many politicians choose to support an English team first rather than an Irish one?

Perhaps we should not be surprised when we hear little or nothing about how to rectify the decades of FAI neglect for its top professional leagues. Blame successive Irish governments too for neglecting to invest in our league, in our young people, in our football industry. This week shows how irrelevant we are in our search for glory in Europe’s third tier competition. It is simply not good enough.

But will there be phone calls this week reflecting on our dismal reality? Will there be calls for investment in our facilities? Or will there be, as usual, just a return by our FAI administrators to Dail Eireann with a begging bowl, to a parliament where so many politicians insult ‘the foreign game’?

If, at some stage, this government invests a few million in our academies, they will milk the applause. But that milk already tastes sour because it is not a few million that Irish football needs, it is a few hundred million. But we won’t get it. Government is not interested. And that makes me hopping mad.

I know our teams will do well in Europe this summer. There will be heady nights, barnstorming wins. But months and months from now, when the final of these European competitions are taking place, no Irish team will be present. The only Irish representatives we will see in the stadiums for those big days will be politicians and FAI officials, shamelessly accepting the freebies, when really they should be digging the foundations for Irish football’s future.

That is why we need a change of mentality inside FAI HQ and inside Leinster House. We need them to believe in Irish football’s future. All we have seen for the last 50 years is one Greek Tragedy after the next.

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