Funding Is Welcome, but Standards Must Lead the Way

The announcement of €3 million in government funding for League of Ireland academies is a welcome sign of progress, and a recognition that the domestic game in Ireland needs professional structures to thrive. Much of this money will go toward creating full-time positions, academy directors, heads of coaching, administrators, but money and job titles alone will not transform Irish football. Real progress will depend on whether the right people, with the right motivations, fill those roles.

Coaches, no matter how qualified, cannot improve player development in isolation. Development begins and ends with the players themselves. When clubs set higher standards in their environments, players either rise to meet them or fall away. That process, of setting the bar and watching who can reach it, is where true development begins. Only then can coaches see where their time is best spent, and only then can Irish football truly move forward.

Speaking from Experience

What makes this piece different is that it comes from someone who has spent the past three years in the League of Ireland trenches, working directly with young footballers. Paid barely enough to cover some of the petrol cost for a few trips, I still gave four, sometimes five, days a week to the game. That is before counting the endless one to one sessions, the late nights spent on video analysis, and the countless other hours poured into player development. On average, it was easily the equivalent of a full time job, for fifty euro a week. I have seen enough, and experienced enough, to feel justified in offering a word of warning about this funding.

Full time jobs for the right people cannot be stressed enough. It is uncomfortable to say, and some will not like hearing it, but there are people within LOI academy football motivated purely by the money attached to their role. In my experience, those people are box tickers. They do just enough, and rarely go above and beyond in the name of player development. Right now, Irish football does not need more box tickers, it needs driven, self motivated people who see their work as a mission, not a pay cheque.

But returning to the original point of this piece, where there is funding, there must also be an opportunity, and a responsibility, to raise standards. Not just to fill full time job statistics, but to hold those positions accountable for improving the game’s daily realities.

And what standards are we talking about? Often, the very basics. This year, I watched what was called an elite academy game played with one referee, on a poor surface, and with two different branded match balls, neither of which looked remotely like proper match balls. Nearly twenty minutes of this particular game were lost as kids scrambled through bushes trying to retrieve the few balls available when the ball left play. That is the level we are talking about with some clubs.

Could funding not be tied to basic expectations, such as requiring clubs to provide proper venues, or ensuring three officials are present at every academy game? Some might question the impact on development, but it absolutely matters. The difference between one official and three changes the entire cognitive dynamic of defending.

In another instance, our team could not even obtain footage of a match from our opposition because, we were told, the Veo was being used by their U20s. I find it astonishing that a professional club’s academy is not recording every match, let alone every training session. Video is essential to individual cognitive and tactical development, of that, I have no doubt. Yet some LOI academies do not even run video analysis sessions, and some clubs are currently sharing one camera, some teams even have access to none at all.

Could funding ensure that all academy clubs matches are recorded and uploaded to a central LOI platform? Could it ensure every fixture has three officials? Could it demand that games are played on quality surfaces, whether astro or grass? Because when those standards rise, players rise with them.

Above are just a few examples. The list of areas where standards fall short is long, too long for one article. But if this new wave of funding is to mean anything, it has to start with standards and a detailed look at where they are falling short.

The Money Has Arrived - So Now Comes The Demands

The money has arrived, but now comes the hard part. This is where Irish football must decide what it truly values. Will this investment simply create new titles and pay packets, or will it build a culture that demands higher standards from everyone involved? Funding can open doors, but only standards, accountability, and genuine passion will push Irish football through them. The demands must now be made, and they must be met by the right people!!! Outstanding work by people like Will Clarke and others who shaped LOI Academy football has laid the groundwork, but what they built is only a path, one that depends on people who want to continue the journey, not profit from it.