Euro bid could lay ground for progress

If stadium Ireland is built it is set to have significant long-term benefits for the Eircom League, as it would enable the FAI to get its hands on the windfall from advance corporate box and premium-seat sales from co-hosting the European Championships in 2008.

Where the Republic of Ireland's end of the joint bid with Scotland is more or less unique, however, is in its reliance on stadiums which have no connection to its domestic league.

If the stadium at Abbotsown is built and Lansdowne Road receives an extensive makeover, the Republic would become the first country in the history of this competition to play a part in hosting the finals without staging games at the homes of its leading clubs.

This isn't to suggest the association should talk up Tolka, Dalymount or Richmond Park. None of these grounds appears to have even the potential (setting the question of money aside) to be upgraded to the point where it would meet the European body's minimum standard of 30,000 seats with a variety of ancillary facilities.

While the Scots and other associations around Europe view hosting the tournament as an opportunity to revitalise their domestic leagues by dramatically overhauling their club facilities, the benefits here look set to be less direct and would take a good deal longer to deliver.

In the unlikely event of the tournament arriving here, it would not, by the time the money filtered down into the different levels of the game, have anything like the impact felt in Belgium 18 months ago.

Stadiums in Charleroi and Liege, though no great shakes even during Euro 2000, were dramatically improved by the work undertaken to make them into European Championship venues.

The same can be said of the Portuguese first division grounds currently being overhauled. The government and football authorities there see the 2004 European Championships as an opportunity to provide a significant boost to the country's ailing domestic club scene.

Similarly it was entirely understandable the Scottish FA was, behind the scenes, so bitterly disappointed by last week's decision by Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell decided that public money required to make a solo bid would not be made available, thus forcing them into a bid with the Irish.

With four excellent stadiums already in place there, the decision means two rather than four grounds are set to receive substantial funding and a major opportunity has been lost.

Whether so many 30,000-seat facilities could really be justified in Scotland is, of course, open to question.

However, the fact the money will now be provided by a foreign government and benefit a rival association will still have come as a disappointment to everybody at Hampden Park.

Over here, the debate on how to move the bid forward and what its potential costs and benefits might be is only starting but its seems the league should be making its voice heard.

If the full extent of the opportunity of hosting even a small part of a major championships is to be grasped then it should be done with a view to having an immediate knock-on effect on the local game. That can be best done by investing in facilities in advance of the tournament.

As part of Ireland's end of this joint bid offers should also be made to host a couple of UEFA's under-age championships over the next six years with specific targets laid out for ground and training-facility improvements.

The process could effectively be put out to tender among the clubs, with those proposing schemes that offer the greatest long-term benefits to the league receiving the bulk of the assistance.

There would, of course, be a knock-on effect in terms of Euro 2008 as well, with the grounds being available as training facilities for the four teams based here.

More importantly, in the unlikely event Ireland's and Scotland's bid for these championships was to prove successful we, as well as our reluctant partners, could look back at the entire process as having stood for more than simply an excuse to build for what some clearly hope will be a cash cow and many more fear will turn out to be white elephant.