Oh well, he can jet into Dublin for their usual Friday evening games as they make it straight into European competitions, then a choice of Dublin or Hull for the night?!!.......................ok, flies into Humberside on Saturday and watches his top six team heading straight for the Premier League. Simple. All done and dusted, bring it on. Has all the hallmarks of the feelgood factor from the beginning of last season (and that really went well).
I could have played for Coleraine - according to the lad I played against on holiday in Majorca 30 years ago , he played up front for them , never got a look in against me , told me I’d be a good centre half LOL I’d played centre forward , right wing and right midfield all my playing days !! Packed it in when they put me right back LOL
What if the feeder starts winning the league and gets long runs into the Euro Conference? I mean League of Ireland teams know they'll lose any super stars any way. As we do far that matter.
All LOI teams loan players in from the UK anyway - bloody Lincoln have sent 2 players to Drogheda this year
I flicked it on in the 2nd half but my stream was playing up a bit. They play some good stuff, and have some decent young players but the pitch was garbage. The likes of Wood & Jarvis would improve them (if they're staying)
Sligo have at least two players who have transferred to the EFL in the last 12 months. Keena who is at Cheltenham and goalie McGinty at Oxford. I saw them last July in the Conference League.
Talent playing in the Irish league is about to get a lot better too as UK clubs can't nick the best ones when they're kids any more either. It's pretty nuts how few players in their national side have ever played in Ireland
Just so happens that on the day that Acun takes major stakeholder status of one of their clubs, the FAI unveil 863 million euro vision to upgrade all aspects of the game there over a 15 year period. If the vision comes true, Acun could be receiving benefits as much as giving them!!! https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/othe...stment-plan-for-the-next-15-years/ar-AA1cis4I The biggest problem for football in Ireland, and it always will be, is the really strong commitment to indigenous sports (GAA) where facilities and stadia are light years ahead. Also looks like Shelbourne are trying to get funds out of an Immigrant Investment Programme (see point 13 at the end of this article on the same topic). Home truths flow from FAI HQ (irishexaminer.com)
Are we witnessing the birth of the franchise football era? Daniel Gallan please log in to view this image CROSSING THE RÚBICON Football transfers carry a degree of risk. At least they’re supposed to. The gamble is part of the fun. There’s no telling how a superstar talent will fit in at a new team. Juan Sebastián Verón, anyone? But what if none of that mattered? What if the permanence of a contract was merely a fugazi? Something that wasn’t worth the paper rumour mills are run on? As it stands, players who join a club that is part of a multi-team ownership model are effectively available to any of their satellite sides. It has rarely been an issue at the highest level, but what if a world-class player signed for one club for an eye-watering fee, and was then loaned to a Champions League team with the same owner? It could be about to happen; welcome to the new age of football. Rúben Neves, the 26-year-old Wolves captain, is about to sign for the Saudi Arabian team Al-Hilal for a cool £47m. Unlike the other big names who have set up shop in the petrostate lately, Neves is at the peak of powers. With respect to the ambitious Saudi league, it feels like a step down and is reminiscent of Oscar doing one from Chelsea to Shanghai Port in the Chinese Super League when he was 25. Thank goodness for loopholes, then. Because Neves may not be lost to the Premier League just yet. Al-Hilal are one of four Saudi clubs owned by the state’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). Its mission is to bankroll these teams and turn them into totems of the world game – including Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr, Kanté and Benzema’s Al-Ittihad and Al-Hilal, who have (for some reason) promised to make Álvaro Morata the world’s highest-paid player. But the Saudis, deep-pocketed though they may undeniably be, recognise there is a global game at play here – which is why a widely reported two-year loan dealcould see Neves don the black and white of Newcastle. Eddie Howe’s Premier League upstarts are also owned by PIF, and if this move unfolds as expected, we may yet cross another Rubicon in the sport’s history. A Uefa report published in February described the explosion of multi-club franchises as having “the potential to pose a material threat to the integrity of European club competitions”. The continent’s governing body also reported an estimated 6,500 players from 195 clubs were employed by 27 multi-club investment groups. A third of these are US based – 777 Partners, the Miami firm that owns Hertha Berlin, Sevilla, Genoa and Standard Liège, has been linked with Todd Boehly’s Chelsea – but there are other global power blocs coalescing. If Neves does play for Newcastle – and there seems to be nothing in the porous Premier League rulebook that would prohibit him from doing so – it would provide Howe with a top-drawer midfielder without making a dent in his budget. Not only would that allow Newcastle to circumnavigate those pesky FFP rules, they would also have the power to turn any PIF-owned team into a glorified academy. We’ve already seen the pitfalls of such a model in cricket. Jos Buttler, arguably England’s greatest ever white-ball batter, is a prime case study. Through the season he wears the same garish pink kit for the Rajasthan Royals in the IPL, Paarl Royals in South Africa and could do the same for the Barbados Royals in the Caribbean [nice work if you can get it – Daily Ed]. It’s hard for fans to invest in players and narratives when the stage changes so often. The Royals “Universe” (yes, “Universe”) or, to give its proper name, the Emerging Media IPL Ltd, is one of four similar brands in world cricket with their flagship team in the IPL. Their mission is simple. They want to consume cricket and control all of its content. They’ve swallowed teams in South Africa, the USA and the UAE and they’ll want to do the same in England. Individualism means nothing. Players are reduced to universal parts that can be slotted in where needed like additional bits in an Ikea package. Football has more robust safety nets, but for how long? Neves could be the difference for Newcastle next season as they go on a famous Big Cup run or title challenge. Owners of other football franchises will be paying close attention.
This poses a very good question. What's to stop us circumventing FFP by having Shelbourne buy some of our flashy new Turkish recruits and then loaning them to us?
