New Shelbourne owner Acun Ilicali aims to win the League of Ireland in 2024. The Turkish media magnate also intends to strengthen Damien Duff’s squad to ensure the Drumcondra club is playing European football next season.
But priority number one is to remove Shamrock Rovers from atop the domestic pile.
“With Damien, it won’t take long,” smiled Ilicali at Friday’s press conference in the Aviva Stadium. “Let me put all the stress on his shoulders. I met with [Duff] beforehand and today. From these meetings with our coach, we are not far away.
“Next season I am very confident we will be a very strong team. If you ask me, what is the target? If we are not in Europe for next season I will be disappointed. And why not become the champions? It would not be a miracle. Next season, with many, many recruits, we can go into higher positions.”
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The next question can only be, which model do you support, Shels or Bohs? Shelbourne now exist at the bottom rung of a multi-club system that includes Hull City, and potentially Roma. In the starkest possible contrast, Bohemians are fan-owned.
“If Manchester City owned a club in Turkey I would be very happy,” said Ilicali.
Understandably nicknamed the “Turkish Simon Cowell”, the 54-year-old wore a black T-shirt in a room full of Shels officials decked out in their best club attire.
Framing himself as Irish domestic football’s answer to City Football Group owner Sheikh Mansour, the proprietor of Acun Medya and English championship club Hull City sat in the Aviva between former Shels chairman Andrew Doyle and “Mr Operations” of both clubs, Tan Kesler.
Notably, we were not in Tolka Park, a stadium that the new ownership still intends to purchase off Dublin City Council.
Uefa is currently investigating the legitimacy of multi-club arrangements, namely Chelsea’s purchase of French outfit Strasbourg, while Bohemians’ chief financial officer Daniel Lambert has called upon Fifa to “urgently combat multi-clubs”, stating they have the “potential to destroy the game”, with the small, domestic competitions such as the League of Ireland the first to collapse.
“The only potential issue of the multi-club model is when two teams play in the same competition,” said Doyle in his new role as vice-chairman overseeing the “reimagining” of Tolka Park.
Ilicali: “He said multi-club system is not good?”
Doyle: “I actually spoke to Daniel during the week and I told him every single aspect of his concern can be covered in contract. I am a former lawyer and I offered to draft the contracts for him.”
When the laughter subsided, Ilicali asked: “Uefa are investigating what?”
If Hull City and Shels, who have overlapping board members in Kesler and Ilicali, were to qualify for the same competition, say the Europa Conference League, Uefa can intervene.
“Is there something we don’t know about?” Ilicali continued. “Maybe inform us and we give up this deal. What is the problem between two teams? There are so many teams around the world, like the City Group.”
In February, the Premier League charged Manchester City with more than 100 rule breaches spanning nine years, including the failure to include full details of player and manager remuneration.
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At this point, Kesler intervened: “Where we are trying to go is with our coach and his staff. We’ve been working with [Duff] for the last three months, asking him what he needs and what he needs day-to-day to improve success. He is coming back requesting certain things. Us and the chairman are trying to identify the right players to create better football for you to see.
“Our vision is not to try to destroy the Irish league, it is to improve the Irish league per se.”
Others, like the fan-owned Bohs, would disagree on a point of principle. Shels supporters will hardly care when the chequebook is opened for Duff to improve his squad or when Hull academy players are sent across the Irish Sea.
Ilicali added: “If Manchester City owned a club in Turkey I would be very happy because it is an advantage to the Turkish league. We will see better players and a good way of football philosophy in Turkey. If you ask me, it is an advantage for the country but of course I respect the opinion of some people. This is life. We cannot always feel the same.”
