Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Despite football being the biggest sport in Ireland, I feel it has been overlooked for too long in this country, in particular our footballing academies. The future of Irish football relies on investment, resources and infrastructure to support, build and evolve youth football. Historically, resources have not been there to give players the contact hours with coaches that are necessary. Irish clubs as a whole are fighting to survive and they need support from all relevant stakeholders, including the Government. Statistics outline the difference in training hours for a kid at an Irish club compared with its counterpart category 3 club in the UK. They fall way short. As the ages rise from under-14s to under-17s, so too do the disparity and the imbalance. Alarmingly, staffing levels for our academies are among the lowest in Europe, with ten full-time staff across 24 academies here, Poland boasting 376 staff across 16 clubs and Portugal with 315 over seven academies. Croatia, often hailed in comparison to Ireland due to its having a similar population, has 190 full-time academy staff across ten clubs.

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