League of Ireland academies need an annual cash injection of €10 million if the national team is to reap the rewards and prosper.

But talks with Government over vital funding streams for Irish football appear to be on hold following Jonathan Hill’s abrupt departure as FAI chief executive.

Yesterday, the LOI’s Academy Development Manager Will Clarke laid bare the stark reality facing professional football in this country.

“To be quite frank, if we don’t get the funding then we’ll maintain the status quo,” said Clarke.

“We’ll have relative success on an Ad Hoc basis but there will be nothing sustained over a period of time.”

Clarke continued: “Ireland will always have good footballers. We'll always have players who are successful despite the system.

“But we want to make sure that more kids have a better opportunity to fulfil their potential.”

Clarke presented statistics that showed there were 33 Irish players in the top five European leagues back in 2002/03, playing 46,880 minutes across 521 games.

But two decades later, In 2022/23, there were just 16 players across the big five leagues, with a combined playing time of 9, 818 minutes in 109 games.

“The figures and data don't lie,” said Clarke.

“Look at the level of investment in academy staff, and look at the FIFA rankings and who is qualifying for World Cups and who isn't.

“We're bottom of the table when it comes to all of those key metrics.”

Ireland, Andorra, Luxembourg and Northern Ireland are the only European countries to have fewer than one full-time employee working - on average - at club Academy level.

By comparison, Portuguese clubs have on average 45 full-time staff at each of their seven academies.

Poland has approximately 23.5 at each of their 16 academies and Croatia has an average of 19 staff at each of their 10 academies.

There are 24 academies in Ireland at present, which is a problem in itself.

But the FAI intends introducing an ‘Academy Mark’ system whereby the academies that actually drive standards and produce players are rewarded financially.

The €10 million figure floated by Clarke is the total amount needed - and in reality almost €5 million is already in place through grants and private investment.

Academies receive solidarity payments from UEFA, while the FAI stumps up €250,000 to share between the 20 League clubs - but it’s a pittance compared to other nations.

Ireland is one of 21 European countries whose average academy budget is less than €500,000 a year.

The others are Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Cyprus, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta,

Montenegro, North Macedonia, Northern Ireland, Romania & San Marino.

Academies in Portugal, Netherlands and Belgium have an average budget of up to €2m.

The FAI’s ‘Academy Development Plan’ was submitted to Government in November but the association is still none the wiser over potential funding opportunities.

Clarke said: “If it’s from the FAI, private investment, clubs, UEFA, hopefully Government, we need around €10 million a year to have a realistic chance of being competitive.

“There’s no silver bullet, no getting x-amount of money tomorrow and we're going to see results in 12 or 24 months'. It's medium to long term, five to 10 years.

“But the big thing is getting the players into a full-time environment.

“Football seems to be the only sector where the educators are expected to do things on a voluntary basis.

“We're doing what we can to make sure the current and future generations of kids are given a fair crack of the whip.

“If you look at the lack of investment going back decades, the people who have suffered are Irish kids.

“For whatever reason, Irish kids haven't been given the same opportunity as their counterparts in other European countries over the years.”

And Clarke feels investment in football should be an election issue with one on the cards in the next year.

“There’s 225,000 registered players and 100,000 unregistered so that’s 350,000 playing football on a weekly basis. That’s a lot of votes.

“Football has to find its voice now because for too long we’ve been overlooked.”

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