Youth to profit from new deal

Packie Bonner's hopes of making significant progress with the implementation of the FAI's Technical Plan during the coming year received a major boost yesterday when it was revealed that €500,000 of the money received from the association's newly improved sponsorship deal with Umbro will be allocated to the scheme.

Acting FAI chief executive John Delaney yesterday said that the association's board had considered how the new funding might be used at a meeting last Friday and had agreed to use it to kick start the ambitious but under-funded plan.

The much needed injection of cash will be made during the coming year, swallowing up the bulk of the additional cash received from the sportswear firm for 2005.

Delaney also said an additional €200,000 will also be allocated to the budget for underage international squads, a sector that will now cost the organisation about 1.7 million during the next 12 months.

"Clearly the technical plan is a central part of our plans for the future and it was agreed by the members of the board that it represents a good way to spend this money but I met with all of the managers of the underage teams as a group last week and they expressed their concern about the budgets for 2005/'06 and so I know that this additional money will come as good news to them as well."

Delaney described the new deal with Umbro, which runs until 2010 and is worth a minimum of 10 million to the association in cash and product, as "good business" for the organisation which will be better off by around 600,000 per annum compared with the terms of the old agreement, which had been due to expire next year.

There is also a range of potential bonuses built into the contract, with the FAI standing to make an additional €3.1 million over the coming six years depending on the performance of the national senior team and the sales of related Umbro products. To gain the full amount, Delaney conceded however, the senior Irish team would have to win the next two World Cups as well as the 2008 European Championships.

Umbro Ireland's managing director John Courtenay nevertheless insisted that he expected to the association to take substantially more than the 10 million figure (at least €7 million of which is due to be in cash) from the deal.

"Every time we sign one of these deals we talk about minimum figures," he said, "but the reality is that when you're trying to estimate what the real value will be you are trying to make your best guess about how things are going to go over the years that follow. Our view is that with the team we have at the moment, and looking at the quality of some of the young players we have coming through, we can expect to pay out significantly more than the minimum figure.

"We still view this as a very good investment for the company, though. Umbro Ireland is 100 per cent Irish owned and our relationship with the FAI is extremely important to us. We're delighted that the deal has finally been sorted out because in the sportswear business or any other sector of the fashion industry you can't really work just a year ahead. The reality is that we had been trying to extend this deal for some time but things were all over the place (in the FAI). Communications were very difficult. Since things have changed in there, though, it has proven much easier to make progress."

The matter of the clothing ordered when the then chief executive Fran Rooney contemplated an alternative range of FAI endorsed merchandise to that supplied by Umbro has been now been resolved amiability. As part of the deal the company will take possession of the product and decide then what to do with it.

"I haven't actually seen it myself so I'll take a look before making any decisions," said Courtenay. "We might sell some of it on, I'm not sure at this point, but it's worth pointing out that in the context of a deal like this or what we would sell in the normal course of events it's not a large amount of stuff so it's really not a major concern."

Delaney, meanwhile, said that the association's contract with Fiat has now been signed and that he anticipates that long-running saga of the deal with Eircom, on which heads of agreement were completed a year ago, will be put to bed within a matter of weeks.

Even in the midst of this whirlwind of contractual activity, however, he said that he did not anticipate talks being opened with Brian Kerr on an extension to his deal, which runs out at the end of the current World Cup campaign, until the chief executive's post is made on a permanent basis.

"I think Brian's done a terrific job," he said, "but I think it would be more appropriate that the question be dealt with at that time. After all it is the man who gets the job - and obviously I hope that is me - who will have to work with Brian for the term of any new deal."

Kerr's agent, Fintan Drury, said last night that he views it as "entirely sensible" that talks on the manager's future be put off until the question of the association's long-term leadership has been resolved.