In September, Andy Moran introduced himself to the wider football world. Two goals and two neat assists in the 5-2 EFL Cup defeat of Cardiff City showed Blackburn Rovers that their season-long loan from Brighton and Hove Albion is a special midfielder.
Further evidence of the 19-year-old’s quality was also evident at Turners Cross last month when the Republic of Ireland’s under-21 skipper scored from a wonderful volley against Turkey.
Moran almost slipped through the net. Brighton were hesitant to sign a skinny 16-year-old after Bray Wanderers spent two seasons cautiously exposing him to men’s football. The relationship between the Seagulls’ former academy boss John Morling and the FAI prompted the Premier League club to take a chance. Within weeks, Brighton were describing him as “the most un-Irish player” in terms of technical ability.
Coaches tell parents that every teenager’s pathway into professional football is different, yet a clear pattern exists between Ireland and England.
The gold standard is Evan Ferguson, who leaped from St Kevin’s Boys to Bohemians, making his senior debut against Chelsea at 14 before signing for Brighton and Hove Albion in January 2021. Ferguson avoided Brexit rules, that prohibit Irish talent joining a British club until they turn 18, due to his English mother.
If scoring a Premier League hat-trick at 18 is the extraordinary example, then Moran’s steady climb into the professional ranks offers a more realistic route.
The Dubliner represents the latest test case for the FAI’s player pathways. Under director of football Marc Canham, the association is keen to redesign the system with a white paper to be published in December that will outline how specific Fifa and Uefa funding is required to ensure that “high-potential future internationals” are equipped for the road ahead.
Take the example of Mason Melia. His journey began at St Josephs AFC in Sallynoggin, before a League of Ireland academy, in this case St Patrick’s Athletic, came calling. Melia, now 16, came through the system and graduated to become the youngest ever League of Ireland goalscorer at 15 years and 281 days.
But the likes of St Pat’s need more resources to assist with Melia’s development. Seemingly, help is coming from the FAI.
However, the majority of Irish boys are in the Moran mould. Not physically developed enough to play League of Ireland, but to remain at home is to deny themselves crucial coaching hours. On average, contact time for Irish under-17s is 260 minutes per week whereas a category three English club academy offers up to 720 minutes.
The FAI’s short-term aim is to equip this raw talent with enough mental resilience and technical proficiency to excel in the professional game, if and when they leave Ireland. The association are also aware that the athletic development of their players remains a major weakness.
“By the time Irish boys get to 16 they are too far behind the best players in the world,” two coaches, working within the current system, separately informed The Irish Times.
The FAI accept that the traditional pathway of promising young players signing for top tier English clubs has almost disappeared, mainly because the Premier League has become a destination for elite global talent.
Any teenager who is signed by a Premier League club will almost certainly go on loan to the EFL Championship, a European feeder squad or League One. After representing the Republic of Ireland under-21s, an agent tends to deliver a permanent move to a Championship team, which leads to a senior international call-up. That, for the most part, is the end of the pathway as a relentless 50-game EFL campaign commences year upon gruelling year.
For players like Troy Parrott and Jake O’Brien, the path took them from relative obscurity at Premier League clubs to the lower English divisions and now Europe, in the Dutch and French leagues, where they are hoping to revive their careers via the Josh Cullen method. Cullen did so well for Vincent Kompany at Anderlecht that last season they arrived at Burnley as a manager-midfielder package.
Listening to Canham recently, it became clear that the problems facing the FAI around player development will take 10 years to be fully addressed.
The association also accepts the flawed nature of Kenny’s current squad largely existing outside the major European leagues. Last weekend six Irishmen – Ferguson, Nathan Collins, Josh Cullen, Chiedozie Ogbene, John Egan and Matt Doherty – featured in the Premier League, 27 appeared in the EFL Championship and 20 clocked minutes in League One.
In June 2022 and 2023, Ireland were badly exposed during defeats in Armenia and Athens following the six-week gap between the English second tier ending and the international window beginning. The problem appears unsolvable now, given the average Championship salary is reportedly £22,000 (€25,500) a week, making a move to leagues in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, France or Portugal a poor financial decision.
The Canham paper will also include longer term ideas to amalgamate domestic academies with full-time education. The alternative is Shamrock Rovers’ privately-funded academy and how their relationship with Ashfield college helped nurture a teenage Gavin Bazunu before he joined Manchester City.
“If you do look at world football over many years and look at really high-ranking teams or teams with similar-sized populations [to Ireland], there is a direct correlation between the talent development and education system in terms of achieving that success,” said Canham before pointing to the examples of Belgium and Croatia.
In 1998, the Royal Belgium FA and government created eight specialist football schools that allowed players aged between 14 and 18 to train during the normal curriculum – two-hour sessions, four mornings a week – while living at home so they can access club training in the evening. When this system produced a golden generation, including Kevin De Bruyne and Thibaut Courtois, leading clubs began to link up with other schools in their community.
The IRFU have accessed a similar model, albeit via privately-funded schools, before their own provincial structures further develop the flow of talent.
“The FAI want the clubs to develop players which is nonsense,” said Harry McCue, the recently retired FAI-ETB (Education and Training Board) co-ordinator. “The clubs do not have the time, they do not have the personnel. What we proposed [to Canham] is soccer-specific schools.”
The Canham Plan is widely anticipated.
Irish Pathways to Professional Football
Troy Parrott
Born: Dublin
Age: 21
Position: Forward
Republic of Ireland: 20 caps, four goals.
Previous clubs: Belvedere FC, Tottenham Hotspur, Millwall, Ipswich Town, MK Dons, Preston North End.
Current club: Excelsior Rotterdam (on loan from Tottenham).
Middling loan moves to MK Dons and Preston, after bad experiences at Millwall and Ipswich, led him to Excelsior Rotrerdam in the Eredivisie, where he’s scored twice off the bench in successive appearances. An understandable decision to sign for Spurs at 15 has not worked out. Under contract until 2025, his only Premier League exposure was off the bench against Burnley in 2019 and Wolves in 2020. Despite important goals against Andorra, Lithuania and Scotland, Stephen Kenny dropped him from the senior Ireland squad last month.
Jake O’Brien
Born: Cork
Age: 22
Position: Centre back
Previous clubs: Cork City, Crystal Palace, Swindon Town (loan), RWD Molenbeek, Belgium (loan).
Current club: Olympique Lyonnais.
Eleven caps for Jim Crawford’s Irish under-21s alongside full internationals Aaron Connolly, Ferguson and Will Smallbone have yet to translate into regular club minutes. Having helped Molenbeek gain promotion to the top tier of Belgium football, he earned a move to France after his 2021/22 loan season at Swindon in League Two fell short of convincing Crystal Palace to extend his contract. Also played League of Ireland for Cork City in 2020. Despite Lyon’s winless start to Ligue 1, when the Youghal defender was benched behind three full internationals, Duje Caleta-Car (Croatia), Sinaly Diomandé (Ivory Coast) and Clinton Mata (Angola), his debut finally arrived recently in a 2-0 loss to Stade Reims.
Andy Moran
Born: Dublin
Age: 19
Position: Midfield
Previous clubs: Knocklyon United, St Josephs AFC, Bray Wanderers, Brighton and Hove Albion.
Current club: Blackburn Rovers (on loan from Brighton).
Coming of age at Ewood Park under Jon Dahl Tomasson. After a superb goal for the Ireland 21s against Turkey, Moran recently caught fire in the EFL Cup, scoring twice and creating two goals in the 5-2 defeat of Cardiff. Made his Premier League debut for Brighton against Everton in January 2023 before securing the loan to Blackburn where he is operating beside fellow Ireland-qualified attacking midfielder Sammie Szmodics.
Mason Melia
Born: Wicklow
Age: 16
Position: Forward
Previous clubs: Newtown Juniors, St Josephs AFC, Bray Wanderers.
Current club: St Patrick’s Athletic.
An early developer, 113 minutes off the bench across seven League of Ireland games this season, scoring twice and becoming the second youngest player to feature on the domestic front, behind a 14-year-old Evan Ferguson, so comparisons to the Brighton striker are inevitable. St Pat’s might get a second season from him or a conglomerate like City Football Group could swoop in and farm him out to one of their European clubs. Manchester City’s holding company also own Girona in La Liga, Lommel SK in Belgium’s second tier, ES Troyes AC in the French second division and Palermo of Serie B.
