MARC CANHAM admitted the FAI dropped the ball on the Brexit Adjustment Fund – but expects some certainty on State funding for academies by the end of the year.
The FAI have been flatly told that their request for some of the €10 million per annum it wants to support League of Ireland academies would not come from the Brexit fund.
And that has sparked a political war of words with Sinn Fein spokesperson on sport Chris Andrews saying the Government had missed an “open goal”.
But Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe stated that the FAI were simply too late with their application – and Canham acknowledged that was the case.
He said: “We are happy to accept we may have missed an opportunity there, as an association, not the Government, on that specific fund.”
But FAI Grassroots Director Ger McDermott highlighted that the request for backing from the Brexit fund was one of several options.
And Canham is hopeful that the Government will back proposals on their table to support the League of Ireland academies.
He said: “Before the end of the year we’ll know where we are. I don’t know what an announcement will look like.
“But certainly from our conversation with Government on that specific item, we’ll have a good understanding of where we are by the end of the year.”
And he stressed that the €10 million figure is required to develop Ireland’s next generation of footballers so that the Boys and Girls in Green can compete at the highest level.
He said: “We believe around €10 million per annum would absolutely transform player development and academies in this country.
“Will we get all of that? Not sure. But we presented different ways you can do that. We think around €10 million would help us catch up and accelerate.
“Lesser money would mean that we might not go at the rate we want to go.
“We have to make sure that Irish football – the association and the clubs – contribute to that and cannot just purely be funded by Government.
“But that is what you would need to broadly run a tiered academy system that produces players and people that go on to other pathways in the game moving forwards.”
