The Republic of Ireland got the Nations League draw everyone wanted. England, Greece and less so Finland, will guarantee brisk ticket sales for the FAI in 2024.
Certainly, the association’s English-born chief executive Jonathan Hill and director of football Marc Canham, who both began their careers at the Football Association, will take full advantage of the first competitive matches against the neighbours since 1991.
Being paired with Gareth Southgate’s England, as the six fixtures take place between September 5th and November 19th, should provide plenty of intrigue. And there is potential for the current Irish squad to exact some revenge on Gus Poyet’s Greek outfit.
The away ties give the incoming Ireland manager challenging trips to Wembley, Helsinki and a return to Athens, where Stephen Kenny’s side lost 2-1 last June.
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Greece finished third in the Euro 2024 qualification group, behind France and the Netherlands but ahead of Ireland, and Poyet intends to take them to Germany this summer via next month’s play-offs.
Current England under-21s manager Lee Carsley remains the favourite to be appointed as Kenny’s replacement on a four-year contract, so there will be plenty of added spice to the games, not that any is ever needed.
Conflicting reports in the UK media have tipped Carsley to succeed Southgate when his contract ends in December.
It was hoped that the new “head coach,” as the FAI have rebranded the position, would be appointed before last night’s draw. Canham is being assisted in the process by Hill and Packie Bonner, the former Irish goalkeeper who is also an independent director on the FAI board.
Hill was the English FA’s commercial director between 1994 and 1996, which covered the riots at Lansdowne Road in 1995, when a friendly between the countries was abandoned after 28 minutes, and the hosting of Euro ‘96.
Canham spent 11 years at the FA before moving to the Premier League, where he became director of coaching until his appointment to oversee enormous changes within Irish football. The 41-year-old’s player pathways plan will be published this month as he maps out the next decade of development for talented Irish boys and girls by introducing a “football pyramid” that links grassroots to the professional game.
Ireland’s last visit to Wembley, for a friendly in November 2020, was overshadowed by the videogate affair when the management showed players motivational clips in the dressingroom before kick-off that focused on Anglo-Irish historical relations.
England won 3-0, thanks to goals from Harry Maguire, Jadon Sancho and Dominic Calvert-Lewin. However, following an FAI investigation, both Ireland goalkeeping coach Alan Kelly and Damien Duff resigned from the coaching ticket.
The last competitive outings against England were the Euro ‘92 qualifiers, when 1-1 draws in Dublin and London allowed Graham Taylor’s men to qualify for Sweden by a single point.
With Southgate’s side ranked third in the world, Greece currently 47th and Finland 59th, managerless Ireland are the lowest ranked team in the group, sitting one place below the Finns.
The FAI were represented at the draw in Paris, which followed Uefa’s 48th annual congress, by Hill and president Paul Cooke.
The dates for games will be confirmed by Uefa on Friday morning.
Earlier in the day, the association voted with the overwhelming majority of Uefa members to allow the governing body’s president Aleksander Čeferin to run for an unprecedented fourth term.
The English FA CEO Mark Bullingham was the only representative in the French capital to vote against the rule change. The FA, along with the Norwegian and Icelandic federations, also voted against bundling multiple amendments into a single vote.
Also included in the bundle of changes that would allow Čeferin to extend his tenure, is an agreement to expand the minimum number of women on the 20-strong Uefa executive committee from one to two representatives
Bullingham held up the solitary red card against governance change, while sitting two rows in front of Hill and Cooke, inside La Maison de la Mutualité conference centre. However, Čeferin quickly announced his intention not to seek re-election in 2027 despite 49 of 55 national bodies voting to expand term lengths on the Uefa ExCo.
“I am not planning to run in 2027 any more,” he said. “I intentionally didn’t want to disclose my thoughts before because of two reasons: first, I wanted to see the real face of some people and I saw it; I saw good and bad parts.”
The Slovenian administrator has led Uefa since Michel Platini was forced to resign in 2016 after receiving a payment from former Fifa president Sepp Blatter.
In his opening address, Čeferin said: “My daughter actually told me: ‘Father, sometimes I think you are a character from The Lord of the Rings.’ But I’m not. I’m not interested in the ring.”
The 2024-25 UEFA Nations League
League A
Group A1: Croatia, Portugal, Poland, Scotland
Group A2: Italy, Belgium, France, Israel
Group A3: Netherlands, Hungary, Germany, Bosnia
Group A4: Spain, Denmark, Switzerland, Serbia
League B
Group B1: Czech Republic, Ukraine, Albania, Georgia
Group B2: England, Finland, Ireland, Greece
Group B3: Austria, Norway, Slovenia, Kazakhstan
Group B4: Wales, Iceland, Montenegro, Turkey
League C
Group C1: Sweden, Azerbaijan, Slovakia, Estonia
Group C2: Romania, Kosovo, Cyprus, Lithuania/Gibraltar*
Group C3: Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Northern Ireland, Belarus
Group C4: Armenia, Faroe Islands, North Macedonia, Latvia
League D
Group D1: Lithuania/Gibraltar*, San Marino, Liechtenstein
Group D2: Moldova, Malta, Andorra
(*Lithuania and Gibraltar play a relegation playoff in March to determine which team will be relegated to League D)
Matchdays 1-2: September 5-10, 2024
Matchdays 3-4: October 10-15, 2024
Matchdays 5-6: November 14-19, 2024
Quarter-finals: March 20-23, 2025
Semi-finals: June 4-5, 2025
Final and third-place match: June 8, 2025
