Qualification would mean home windfall

For the moment it's rather overshadowing events back in the National League, but club administrators and supporters from around the country have good reason to hope the Irish team manages to capitalise on its 2-0 lead in Thursday's World Cup play-off in Tehran.

The most obvious reason, of course, is money. The FAI hopes to make up to £10 million (€12.7 million) from qualification for next summer, a considerable amount of which might be expected, in one way or another, to benefit the 21 clubs of the senior league.

While Brendan Menton insists that the strategy being implemented by Merrion Square will involve a more integrated approach to spending by the association, the windfall would almost certainly allow for substantial investment in the provision of new training facilities, trained coaches and development officers.

The organisation's general secretary points to the emerging situation in Galway, where the local club is forging links with other levels of the game as the way forward. "The plan," he says, "is to invest in resources that will be available to a cross-section of users."

The message, one infers, is that clubs, leagues and associations which have found coexistence to be a painful business had better start learning to live together.

"What we will be looking to do is to identify needs in an area, provide facilities and then ensure that they are open to everybody," he says. "A major problem in the past has been that everything has been too fragmented, and with the money that will be coming into the game now, regardless of whether we qualify for the World Cup or not, we need to ensure that we don't waste our resources by duplicating everything."

One difficulty is that the old way of funding the senior and junior games has broken down over the past couple of years. Money received from the so-called "Sky television deal" was traditionally paid to National League clubs, while interest on 10-year ticket money was allocated to the junior games. The former payments have now ceased, however, while the money from tickets was swallowed up during the development stage of Eircom Park; so, neither formula applies any longer and no replacement has been proposed.

An early indication of how the association will structure its approach to funding should come by the end of the month with the release of the strategy document it has been working on since the agreement with the Government on Stadium Ireland was reached.

What will be made clear, it seems, is that the problems of the league can not be solved simply by throwing money at them, but, in the event that imaginative and progressive solutions are proposed to the challenges facing the game, then significant funding can be made available.

There is also the hope, though, that qualification for Japan and South Korea will result in a variety of spin-offs for the league, from commercial contracts that the FAI might manage to develop, to a generally improved profile at a time when the domestic game is switching to the summer season.

"Obviously the surge of interest that we would expect if we were to qualify should benefit the league," says Menton. "It's early to say what the specifics would be, but we would hope that the game generally would become a lot more marketable again."

The league clubs will hope that will involve a big marketing spend, something that has been desperately required for many years but which is essential if the initial phase of the experimental season is to be a success.

That may be something the 21 clubs have to scrap it out for over the coming months, although that they remain divided even over the structure the league will employ for next year's transition season is hardly encouraging.

If Thursday's game in Tehran goes well, however, at least the pie being fought over may be a little bit larger than bite-sized.

emalone@irish-times.ie