Gavin Cooney

ON THE DAY the GAA, Camogie Association and LGFA announced a proposed date for their integration, the FAI unveiled a plan to integrate itself. 

Director of football Marc Canham has become known to the country as the face of a couple of very long-winded managerial pursuits, but his signature piece of work is the FAI’s new Football Pathways Plan, a blueprint for how the game will be organised and played at all levels in Ireland. 

Malcom Gladwell would be impressed with the 11,000 hours of consultation that went into the final document, but there is more consultation to come, with the plan cast more of a “vision document” than something set in stone. The broad principles are there, but they may be open to tweaking, as nothing will be introduced without some back-and-forth with those closer to the grassroots. 

This, you may argue, is an excessive amount of collaboration, but Canham is dealing with Irish football, a land so complex that Charlie McCreevy once talked about sending future election candidates to the FAI for a six-month crash-course on real politics. In that context, best to make everyone feel listened to. 

Irish football is best understood as a loose confederation of leagues, committees and administrators, united only by mutual suspicion. This non-system has done an abject job in realising the full potential of Irish football, and it is this the new plan seeks to address. 

The document explains the issues with the game’s fragmentation and inconsistency. Different counties and leagues run different seasons, with the country beset by a mixed application of the formats requested by the FAI under the plan of Canham’s predecessor Ruud Dokter. 

And if you wondered why football hasn’t fully flourished in rural areas, it’s because only Cork and Dublin operate at all levels of the game: youth, junior, intermediate, and League of Ireland. (That’s only for the men’s game: not a single county in Ireland offers all of these levels to girls.) 

There are some counties in which kids are playing football only 30 weeks a year, which is down to poor facilities that are quickly made unplayable in winter weather. In that context, a switch to a calendar year makes complete sense, though it was met with some grumbling when Canham presented his plan to members of the General Assembly. (Canham insists the whole plan has been endorsed by the whole of the FAI board.) 

The plan proposes running a March-November league season from U15 up, with U12s to U14s running a split season that allows for a summer break, while U8s to U11s will play in four separate blocks. This is open for some wriggle room, but the FAI’s difficult job is to bring everyone along with them while also being able to dictate when needed. One of the stand-out pieces of feedback is a request to the FAI that they show stronger leadership. 

Another means of integration will be the formation of a football pyramid, which would make it technically possible for an amateur side rise to LOI status by virtue solely of their results on the pitch. In the short-term, that means the addition of a third tier to the men’s LOI and a second to the women’s league, along with the expansion of the FAI Cup and the institution of an FAI Amateur Cup. 

Canham’s background in the Premier League meant some people anticipated those plans would be copied and pasted to Ireland, but that’s not the case. There are no plans to start professional academies below U14 level, with kids wisely encouraged to keep playing many different sports before that age. Benfica’s academy is at the point where they are artificially creating a multi-sport environment for its younger academy groups, so this is something organic the FAI can channel. 

Then again, the FAI have always facilitated that, at least in theory. Convincing players to stick with the game and providing opportunities for the best has been the problem. Canham says there needs to be a tighter link between football and education: he acknowledged that anyone hoping to go pro needs to be training full-time after they finish their Junior Cert. But that must also be combined with full-time education, a system that has proved so fruitful for the IRFU. One of the frustrations of the document is that parts of it are ‘a plan to have a plan’, with further work to be done on fleshing out a strategy to integrate with primary, secondary, and third-level education, for instance. 

There is an ambition to expand the League of Ireland scholarship programme, which will be rolled out next year and has been funded by a group of Irish internationals, with Gavin Bazunu, Seamus Coleman, and James McClean among them. 

How lamentable that the game here has had to resort to generosity. The pathways plan mixes common sense with ambition, but it won’t be realised without a huge investment, primarily in facilities. 

Part of the FAI's vision.

Canham says money can be raised through Uefa and Fifa programmes, but much of it will have to come from the government. The FAI have yet to celebrate a big win in terms of significant infrastructure investment and there was an odd resonance to the fact that, as Canham spoke, the government announced they had just found €50 million to help the redevelopment of Casement Park, a project the FAI have infused with urgency by successfully landing Euro 2028. 

For context, the FAI are asking for €35 million a year for the next 15 years to tackle their facilities problem. The flip side to this is that it goes to show that government can find money for sports projects when it suits them. “Hopefully it’s an encouraging sign that there are going to be opportunities for us to capitalise on the investment and we will continue to have conversations”, said LOI director Mark Scanlon. 

The FAI have now produced the documents and made their arguments for funding. It is now up to them to get it, and for the State to grant it. Anyone with an interest in Irish football should read the plan, though its abundance of LinkedIn jargon means it takes a bit of wading through. But these glossy shibboleths are part of the language of business and government, so perhaps it will impress those holding the purse strings, its primary audience. 

It’s an admirable, weighty piece of work which acknowledges and addresses some of the structural problems afflicting the game here. But – and ’twas ever thus – the policy was launched in the shadow of another managerial search, as the country fulminated over its favourite piece of HR. The new manager won’t be called a manager but a head coach, and they will have to agree to abide by new principles of play, which we are told will be an identifiably Irish style of play. As to what that style will be and who will lead it…that’s going to be a matter of further consultation. It is highly unlikely to be based on Getting it Launched, mind, with a survey reporting back that the majority of participants want Ireland to be able to build through the thirds and dominate possession. (A small minority still believe we should be Going Direct.) 

We are told the head coach search is nearing an end, with some in the FAI believing there may be an announcement by next week. We are not holding our breath. 

An excessive focus on the senior men’s team – and specifically the manager – is one of the factors that has contributed to Irish football’s entropy. It would be disingenuous of the media not to acknowledge our role in this too. 

So when the latest appointment is made and when that candidate inevitably leaves – and history tells us they will likely leave under a cloud – focus will turn to Marc Canham. 

Better that he be judged by the implementation of the Football Pathways Plan instead. Because ultimately, this too is a results business.