Daniel McDonnell: Uncertainty is the only certainty going into 2024 for Irish football

It’s a challenging question. Presumably the enduring images would centre around the anthems ahead of the Women’s World Cup opener and the delirium of Katie McCabe’s goal against Canada. A stadium shot of an all-time record FAI Cup final attendance would feature too. Stephen Bradley’s four-in-a-row with Shamrock Rovers should do as well.

Evan Ferguson’s breakthrough could arguably be the album cover. But there would need to be a sorrowful shot of Stephen Kenny too and Vera Pauw dancing on the stage before her fate was sealed. Add in a grab of an FAI delegation spending the build-up to Christmas in a 200-minute Oireachtas hearing centred around the CEO’s salary and that’s a complicated hamper of emotions.

Go back a decade and the concept of women’s football and the League of Ireland providing the good news yarns of the year would have been laughed out of town by a regime that treated both strands of the game like they were a burden as opposed to a priority. It’s also important to stress that the memories generated in this department don’t necessarily reflect rude health either.

For all the positivity around League of Ireland crowds, most clubs are nowhere near breaking even with Rovers, the champions, set to run a €2m loss this year.

There were mitigating factors there, in particular a deflating European campaign, but by the economy of scale, the picture elsewhere around the country isn’t much better. Interest in going to games has risen – especially in Dublin – and 44 fixtures were sold out across 2023 so the bottom-line attendances and ticket income could have been much higher.

Yet the idiosyncratic nature of the game here has created the winter situation where certain clubs have been asked to tweak their kick-off times to suit the needs of a TV ‘deal’ that doesn’t actually deliver them any money. Limited revenue streams for businesses who are now trying to run men’s and women’s sides, plus a full academy section without additional support, means they remain vulnerable to losing their best players overseas for minimal compensation, thus cementing a cycle that will stunt growth.

Little things niggle away at them. The FAI recently informed participants that they wouldn’t be able to cover streaming costs for Women’s Premier Division matches in 2023. Maybe it’s fair enough that clubs should be taking this on but the outlay is a hard sell when word is that average viewing figures at leading clubs is low double digits.

The Women’s Premier Division is starting from such a low base that crowd figures should be treated with perspective. Still, the fact that champions Peamount United sealed the deal in Wexford in a game with an official attendance below 150 offers a sobering counterpoint to the symbolic turnout of 35,944 for the Aviva Stadium meeting with Northern Ireland.

The rise of the women’s team should not lead to the mistakes of the past being repeated. There’s a danger of complacency creeping in because of the proliferation of Irish players at the top end of the English game which is almost a throwback to the ’80s and ’90s in the men’s sphere.

As the sport grows there and other countries around Europe with superior infrastructure start to take it more seriously – admittedly there are nations that may never fully buy into it – then Ireland could be overtaken if a singular focus on the national team is used as the vehicle to measure growth.

Of course, the slight problem with that argument is the failure of the men’s side to reach Euro 2024 has reaffirmed the importance of major tournament income, much as it’s unhealthy to have a governing body reliant on the bounce of a ball or the luck of a draw to be better placed to implement strategies they have devised.

Director of football Marc Canham’s main brief is to introduce a ‘Football Pathways’ development plan which follows on from the ambitious €863m infrastructure ask presented during the summer.

The obvious question is how the FAI are going to pay for Canham’s vision. In recent months, Canham has effectively become a professional recruiter when his role should be about much more than that. But if he can help to pick the right boss, then maybe his employer will have bonus finances to help to fund his blueprint. How Irish football is that?

The broader questions will all be considered by a board that will be fully gender balanced when two more females are added in the New Year.

Roy Barrett’s time at the FAI will now forever be associated with the decision to sanction holiday pay for CEO Jonathan Hill, but that shouldn’t take away from the fact there was a lot of truth in his parting AGM speech on the damage created by the ‘factions’ jostling for control.

Some of the loudest critics of the concept of independent directors around the top table have now been elected to join them which is closer to a social experiment than a source of encouragement.

There was a time when the appointment of shiny new senior team managers served as a distraction from the errors of the executive but a generation who grew up during that mess will not be as easily sated as former pals of John Delaney who were fine with him until they realised he had accumulated too much power.

​A few of the board characters flagged as knights in shining armour acted as pawns at different stages of Delaney’s rise. The emergence of fresh, football-elected voices around the top table would be welcomed. Aside from the League of Ireland chamber, it remains an old boys’ club.

Hill’s authority with the workforce has been undermined by his pay arrangements with confirmation of his 22pc wage bump since 2020 causing a greater level of upset than the storm around the monies he received for unpaid leave.

The issue for Hill is that he doesn’t have any real credit in the bank. Pointing out that the CEO receives considerably more from the FAI than the League of Ireland champions tends to push buttons. Lower-paid FAI staff earning a fraction of Hill’s wage without any prospect of the pay rises he has enjoyed are deeply unhappy. Make no mistake about it – he’s on shaky ground.

It all comes back to cash eventually, the good stuff and the bad stuff. Ireland’s laudable qualification for the European U-17 championships – with a multicultural dressing-room profile reflective of an inclusivity that sets it apart from other codes – was hailed as an overachievement because we are only one of four nations in UEFA with an average of less than one full-time academy staff member per club.

Northern Ireland, Andorra and Luxembourg are the others. It’s both a badge of honour and a badge of shame.

State funds are helping similarly-sized nations and there are compelling social reasons – as well as sporting ones – to justify investment in the highest participation endeavour in the country that currently collects a third of what greyhound racing draws down from the exchequer.

Alas, football continues to make a dog’s dinner of driving home the case for stimulating an industry, with sympathy levels drained by the actions of the few that are hurting the many.

Heading into 2024, the only certainty is more uncertainty.

Same as it ever was.