AS THE Uefa roadshow headed for London yesterday the FAI confirmed it hopes to build on what it considers to have been a successful Europa League final, between FC Porto and SC Braga, and bid to host the Super Cup, as FAI chief executive John Delaney suggested when the trophy arrived in Dublin last month.
A FAI spokesman described its Super Cup ambition as more of a “slow burner”, though, and the more immediate hope will be Wednesday’s event might restore a little of the allure that appears to have gone out of watching big football games at the venue since the economy took a nosedive.
The association has yet to sell the venue out for a football match but probably did well to come as close as it did on Wednesday night given the manner in which tickets were returned by the participating clubs and the restrictions in relation to seats because of the segregation of fans.
The FAI hope the attendances for next week’s Carling-sponsored games against Northern Ireland and Scotland will be significantly up on the tournament opener with Wales in February, although the prospect for the former match have not been helped by the threat of a boycott by Northerners unhappy with the IFA’s packaging of tickets with transport.
The FAI reacted yesterday by promising fans who pay into that game free admission for the ones between Wales and Scotland as well as Wales and Northern Ireland later in the week. Beyond that, anything less than sell-outs for the autumn internationals is almost unthinkable given the extent to which prices have been cut for “season-ticket” packages.
Flogging the Dublin Super Cup, the tournament involving Celtic, Manchester City, Inter Milan and League of Ireland representative side, which is due to be played at the end of July, is less of a concern as the event is controlled by external promoters. The event was boosted this week by the news Sky had signed up to screen it live in Britain and Ireland for the next three years and TV sales are key to its success with Endemol claiming it will be able to sell it, in some form, into around 100 territories.
Wednesday, the FAI insists, has however, helped their cause not least with the game’s European authorities who have it in their power to send another big occasion Dublin’s way at some stage. “It’s not going to happen overnight,” said the spokesman, “but last night would have helped. It’s important we showed Uefa we could get something like this done and they were very happy with the way it all went.”
Porto’s remarkable young coach Andre Villas-Boas hailed his team’s victory while acknowledging it had not been the most stylish of games. The question now is whether he and his players stick around to see what more can be achieved by the club or decide to move on.
The coach insisted prior to the game that winning the Europa League would not suggest Porto could be serious contenders for next season’s Champions League because, he said, “life’s not that simple”.
He did say he wanted to “build something” at his hometown club, the one he supported as a boy but the 33-year-old also said he hopes to spend no more than a decade in top-level coaching due to the enormous pressure involved and that might just make him impatient to work at a club that really can challenge for the club game’s top prize.
When Porto last won the Europa League (then the Uefa Cup) in 2003, under Jose Mourinho, they did go on to win the bigger competition the following year but Mourinho’s departure following that success resulted in the breaking up of the team.
The Porto board insist they are determined to hold on to everyone this time and the club is in a decent bargaining position given most of the key stars are safely under contract with the likes of Hulk and Falcao having buy-out clauses of around €100 million and €30 million respectively.
Still, Villas-Boas himself observed this week the high prices obtained for Mourinho’s team allowed Porto to rebuild and, he insisted, progress to the point where it is dominant in its league. Dublin, then, may yet be remembered as another staging post on the club’s journey with many of its stars, not least the coach, making way for another new generation.
The TV3 viewing figure in Ireland for Wednesday night’s final was 306,700.
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