Yes, the SRFC model is the future
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surely the academies should be linked to the LOI clubs
From what I know of it, it certainly looks a decent model to follow. Why aren’t more clubs following it? Lack of resources, politics, stubborness?
i would assume resources but also the members drove this as the only sustainable way to do it, the guy from Oz funded it and then Desmond got onboard
The FAI & Government need to support the LOI clubs to be able to do this
The Bazunu money makes a difference - he came all the way through and is a huge fan
A rake of them seem to go before they are 18 & we get compensation for this rather than big bucks - these are mainly the guys that join later
the LOI clubs are private entities and would be responsible for their own player development.
This is a national initiative led by the FAI.
They’ve never had a grass roots initiative to get coaches in at the bottom. It’s always been separation to the elite and the base standards never rise.
Maybe if the FAI clubs stepped up to the plate like Rovers and linked with grass roots to put their coaches & scouts in like the Premier league teams did it would make things better. The bigger clubs in Dublin were nurseries for the top teams for a while. That kind of model could force LOI teams to invest a bit in grass roots. Leaving it to the FAI won’t pay off for them anyway
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I wonder is it possibly to counterbalance lads going off over to the UK too young? Apparently it’s a huge problem according to Dokter.
That isn’t allowed anymore with Brexit
Irish young lads can’t join UK academies?
yes, because of Brexit
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Not until they are 18
Great.
now its completely on the LOI and the FAI to generate revenue because there’ll be no more fat cheques coming from the UK for LOI players. Unless some league like Germany or Holland, or one of the Scandanavian leagues see an opportunity and come for the best of what we have.
like Zefi & i think there are a few more too
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I think Evan Ferguson has an English mother which is why he was allowed to move to Brighton
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Be class if you had our best 17 year old’s banging in 20 goals in a season for a LOI club and then getting a move straight to a decent club around Europe.
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lets say you took every player that went over to the UK from the ages of 14-18 in the last 5 years and put them in the Irish system as it is now? What would you do with them? The infrastructure isn’t there to manage this. Rovers are the only crowd capable of doing it currently, the rest are so short term its frightening.
The FAI are making an elite tier at every age group to pull up the trap door.
There’s a massive opportunity now to make the base standard higher, nothing will change unless that happens. There is no will to do it though, they’re all the time looking for silver bullets
Scales is an odd one
he was missed by the system completely
you’ll always get an outlier. No surprise it was Rovers who benefited from it though.
They’ve a wide, wide net. Young lad down here who was showing promise was brought up to Rovers for trials at 14. They liked him, they’ve arrangements made with the father to bring him up twice a month to keep an eye on him.
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Scales was an Irish u21 International at UCD before he moved to Rovers
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