THE FAI face a hectic few weeks in the wake of the Republic of Ireland team qualifying for a first major championship in a decade with contracts to be sorted, base camps to be booked, commercial revenue to be maximised and schedules to be organised.
First up, at least in a tentative way, will be the manager’s contract. Giovanni Trapattoni publicly accepted the association’s stance in recent months that his position was something that should best be addressed after the qualifying tournament was out of the way and his performance could be evaluated in the cold light of day. The Italian’s hand, however, was strengthened enormously by the comprehensive win in Tallinn last Friday.
The FAI can, to be fair, point to their huge debts and enormously difficult trading position as evidence of the need to cut the costs associated with the senior team. But assuming business man Denis O’Brien continues to fund half the cost of the senior management team – something that seems a good deal more likely after he flew into Tallinn to watch the first leg of the play-off – they are unlikely to persuade Trapattoni to accept another significant pay cut.
He will point to the €8 million plus in prize money that his employers are guaranteed from Uefa for qualifying as well as the various commercial and other additional revenues they are bound to earn as a compelling case for continuing to pay him something in the region of €1.6 million per annum.
FAI president Paddy McCaul is on the record as saying a deal will be done to keep him and it seems unless O’Brien does walk away or Trapattoni, who will collect a substantial bonus for guiding the team to the finals, massively overplays his hand then it will.
His players are also likely to get in on the act pretty quickly too. Michael Kennedy, a long-time adviser to the likes of Roy Keane and Niall Quinn, helped negotiate a deal in 2002 that gave the players a reported half of the association’s overall net profit of roughly €6.5 million. The FAI need to be less generous this time and it will argue, as Richard Dunne acknowledged on Monday, that the top players already make huge sums from their clubs.
Some of the squad are relatively modest earners, though, and with everyone who has played any part in the campaign, including fringe players and staff members, set to get something, the argument will be that even a decent-sized lump sum gets spread pretty thin.
Commercial revenue will come primarily from two sources: bonuses from existing sponsors and new deals. The FAI’s deals with Umbro and 3 both provide for substantial payments in the event of the team being successful and each could end up paying additional six-figure sums to the association. The organisation was said to have one significant new agreement due for announcement even before qualification was secured and others are bound to follow. The question will be how much can be generated in such a depressed market.
Some very preliminary work has already been done on establishing where the team might base itself next summer and site visits will take place in the coming weeks. The organisers have offered 38 potential camps (21 in Poland and 17 in Ukraine).
Many of the better ones, particularly in Poland where most teams want to stay, will already be spoken for and the FAI may face a bit of a scramble to get somewhere good.
The fact the English association have ordered off the official Uefa menu and chosen their hotel and training ground in Krakow, however, suggests the standard is not high because neither looks great and that’s a major concern for latecomers.
Ireland’s choice of location may be more influenced by the draw on December 2nd in Kiev. While other nations settle for flying long distances in and out of venues for games, Trapattoni and co may, especially if they are drawn in one of two groups to be played in Ukraine, have little option but to stay close to one of the venue cities.
On the face of it, Group A looks to be the ideal draw from an Irish perspective as it would put them in with Poland and allow them to play all three of their group games in the one place – Wroclaw – with a quarter-final in Warsaw the prize for the group winners.
Things will be a little trickier otherwise.
In the unlikely event that Ireland was to win Group C for instance, they would go from their last group game in Gdansk where they would play either Spain or the Netherlands, straight to Donetsk, 1,810 kilometres away, for their quarter-final.
The two venues in Group B (Kharkiv and Lviv) are just over 1,000 kilometres apart, meanwhile, which would obviously be bad news for Irish supporters who could spend just short of 20 hours on trains to get from one city to the other.
First up for the fans, though, will be the quest for tickets. Some 448,000 are due to go on sale to followers of the competing nations after the draw is made. More than half a million have already been sold, while another 322,000 have gone or will go to sponsors, VIPs and members of the “football family”.
Important Dates
December 2nd:Draw for the finals in Kiev.
February 29th:International friendly date
May 29th:Deadline for submission for squads
June 3rd:Possible deadline for arrival at base camp – teams must arrive at least five days before their first game
June 8th:Opening game of tournament which will involve Poland and be played in Warsaw
July 1st:Final at the Olympic stadium in Kiev
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)