The Irish Football Team Thread

The Stephen Kenny years lol

 

Would rather just never qualify again

 

Not sure that is true. Would actually be funny if it was in the sense of how much the zombies love the guy can you imagine their reaction if suddenly he declared for and played for Ireland. Don't think it is true about his dad though.

 

FAI unveils 863m euro infrastructure plan to transform Irish football

The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) has announced ambitious plans to invest 863m euro (£743m) to modernise the infrastructure of Irish football.

Investment will be sought over a 15-year period.

The FAI wants 47m euro (£40.4m) to upgrade its Abbotstown National Training Centre for its Republic of Ireland teams.

It also aims to spend 426m euros (£366m) at grassroots level and 390m euro (£335m) on the League of Ireland.

Unveiling its 'Facility Investment Vision and Strategy' on Thursday, the association said football in Ireland "has been under invested in for the last 25 years and we have fallen behind our European counterparts in facilities investment".

The FAI hopes to secure 517m euro (£445m) of funding from the Irish government, 173m euro (£149m) from local authorities such as educational bodies and health authorities and 173m euro from their own funding sources, including Fifa and Uefa.

It is also proposing the establishment of an independent 'Ireland Football Facility Fund' to ensure a "consistent, professional, and dedicated focus on facilities transformation for our game".

Abbotstown not fit for purpose
One of the FAI's aims is to develop a new National Training Centre after admitting the current set-up at Abbotstown in Dublin falls "far short of the standard seen in many other European associations".

The association's goal is to improve facilities in order to produce competitive international teams that can qualify for major tournaments on a regular basis.

The Republic of Ireland women's team has qualified for this year's World Cup, but while the men's team reached the Euro 2012 and 2016 finals, their last World Cup appearance was in 2002.

The FAI's statement said: "In the current facility, there are no changing rooms for players, match officials or staff, no high-performance, medical or sports science facilities.

"In addition, playing surfaces are below standard and include ageing artificial surfaces that need to be replaced."

The FAI also plans to improve League of Ireland stadia and training facilities, which the association says is "clearly holding the league back".

By the end of the 15-year plan, the association wants every League of Ireland stadium to have a minimum capacity of 4,000, and wants each club to have its own academy and training ground.

The FAI says Ireland is one of 12 European countries not to have completed a full stadium project between 2009 and 2018.

At grassroots level, the FAI wants to build new and upgrade existing facilities with a particular focus on the girls' and women's game, which it says has experienced "exponential growth in recent years and will suffer if we do not invest in facilities now, as we will not be able to cater for this ongoing demand and growth".

The report says there is "a lack of basic female-friendly facilities to cater for the 34,000 women and girls currently playing" in Ireland, with 38% of clubs unable to offer female-friendly toilets.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65836095

 

To be fair it was well put together and is the first time I can remember the FAI actually having a proper plan to actually do what its supposed to do and that is actually develop the game in Ireland to finally maximize and realize the massive potential it has in Ireland. Of course how much of this will ever comes to pass remians to be seen but I have much more confidence in the FAI these days under its new leadership that at least we are making clear progress and going in the right direction.

As an aside they also announced that significant inroads in to the massive debt left behind by Delaney and co have been made. We were almost 64m in debt when Delaney's regime collapsed and apparently that is now down to 44m. Still obviously a big number but again thats solid progress on the finances front as well which hopefully arguers well for the ability to bring together the financing to make this infrastructure plan a reality.

 

Yeah let's hope it works. Be good to get back to the days of producing quality talent again!

 

Good to see this but i doubt it will come to anything,Irish football is going well at the moment but i put that down to the clubs themselves and how they operate these days and not the FAI.

We had the Genesis Report after the Kean Mc Carthey Saga and i dont think anything came out of that and we were told Dalymount would be rebuilt in time for the Fai centenary(or whatever it was)a few years back and its still a dump so i have my doubts about his.

Hope im wrong but only time will tell.

 

One year ago we did the Brits

 

Big game tonight in terms of hoping to make the playoffs. With all the Nations League connotations and that can't be bothered even trying to figure out if third will be enough for the playoffs. Will have a proper look if we can get a positive result tonight. With France and Holland likely to come first and second and Gibraltar fifth the double header with Greece is arguably the most interesting aspect of the group.

 

Come on Ireland!

 

Getting hammered here. Where's GG for Greece?

 

On the bench thankfully

 

Greece are going thru us

 

Ma Sour As for Greece

 

Boooom! Greece 1-0.

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Ffs

 

That was criminal from O'Dowda..