Soccer authorities in Ireland are chasing the sun. In a landmark decision in December, the FAI’s general assembly voted to introduce a calendar in which the sport – across professional, amateur and underage leagues – will align by 2028, shifting the season’s focus from winter to summer.
Calendar-year soccer, or summer soccer as it’s known, broadly runs from March until November, as opposed to the existing schedule which runs from August to May. Grassroots teams in Ireland, with some exceptions, traditionally play their seasons over winter. League of Ireland clubs, however, have played summer soccer since 2003.
The FAI is keen to sync the 72 leagues across all levels along summer lines. Ireland is an outlier in Europe as the only one of Uefa’s 55 organisations without an aligned calendar. A key pillar of the FAI’s Football Pathways Plan is the mantra “more football in better weather”. The plan was announced in February; the 12-year pathway project is in conjunction with the FAI’s €863 million facility investment vision and strategy.
The FAI general assembly was held at the Carlton Hotel in Blanchardstown, Dublin. All but three of the 135 delegates cast their vote, with some voting online. The motion was passed – 74 voting in favour, 56 against.
The result caused some ire. For example, League of Ireland premier division sides – which in theory have no skin in the game give the league already follows a summer schedule – had two votes each whereas, say, the Dublin District Schoolboy’s League, which caters for almost 50,000 children, had just one vote.
“I’m flabbergasted. We didn’t expect the ‘yes’ vote,” says Brian O’Reilly, secretary of Carlow & District Football League. “All 28 clubs in our league rejected it. It’s not just players, it’s coaches and volunteers involved in other sports. Over 70 per cent of coaches coach hurling, rugby, [and] football alongside soccer. This clash won’t work. Holiday season is also an issue. Clubs use summer months to host camps, which is a big revenue stream. What’s going to happen to them?”
The disenchantment in Carlow is replicated in pockets across the country. Of Munster Senior League delegates, 24 voted against, 14 in favour. At the Cork Schoolboys’ League, there was a similar pattern: 34 against, 18 in favour.
“The Cork Schoolgirls’ League trialled it,” says Noreen Martin, chairperson of Douglas Hall AFC. “It didn’t work. When you took a break for a few weeks in summer, due to Leaving and Junior Cert, when the kids came back they kind of forgot they were in the middle of a season. We struggled with numbers. Other codes like camogie and ladies football, at a peak time in their season, competed for attention. Our attitude would be ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.”
Midlands Schoolboys/girls League chairperson Chris Nestor is also sceptical, citing a trial period the district ran post-Covid involving a short summer season over six weeks. “It was us dipping our toes in the water. We thought, coming after Covid, when everyone was locked up for 18 months, that people would jump at it. We only got a third of our players out. It was a wake-up call. It didn’t suit – people go away on family holidays, clubs do maintenance on their pitches from the end of May, you can’t re-seed a pitch in December because grass isn’t going to grow.”
Any change will inevitably invite a degree of resistance. People, after all, are creatures of habit. But the four-year timeline will give the changes time to bed in.
Kildare was the second amateur league to switch to summer soccer in 2008. Its clubs were annoyed by having seasons disrupted by bad winter weather. It lost one club as a result, but the other 52, representing 80-90 teams, have prospered.
“The summer season change gives us so many options,” says Michael Casey, chairperson of the Kildare & District Football League. “You can easily organise midweek fixtures. You can be more flexible with clubs looking for a weekend off. We found a massive increase in spectators. Better weather. Somewhere to go on a Sunday afternoon. Interest in the league has increased dramatically amongst local communities.”
This echoes the outlook of Maeve Buckley, a director at sport consultancy firm Leading Sport. “In theory, the environment for players and spectators improves. More people will engage in the club, at a local level, buying coffee, helping out, painting, and stuff. More resources will be put back into the club because it’ll be a nicer environment to be around. At an adult league level, improved spectator experience will lead to more money spent at games,” she says.
“From a player perspective, the Football Pathways Plan’s intention is to improve the experience at grassroots, but ultimately that will go up to League of Ireland level – better players coming out of a better system, carrying on up to a better national and international level. That virtuous circle should generate better income for the game.”
A recurring fear about switching to summer soccer is that clubs will lose out in a head-to-head with Gaelic games.
Paul Wynne, a coach with Gallen United in Offaly who is also involved with Athlone Town, believes this is a red herring. “The reality of GAA in Offaly is it runs from February to November anyway. It’s always clashing. In fairness to Offaly GAA, they’ve released their calendar for next year already, so if you know GAA fixtures in 2025 are on Sundays and Tuesdays that doesn’t interfere with soccer played on a Saturday.”
“I noticed club spokespeople arguing in favour of the switch to summer soccer playing down the clash with GAA with a ‘let’s just do our own thing’ vibe. We see challenges, but we’ll deal with them,” adds Gearoid Mannion, a Clare District Soccer League delegate and vice-chairperson of Avenue United, Clare’s largest club.
Rob Hartnett, CEO of Sport for Business, is a Bohemians fan and coaches GAA teams. He points out that soccer competes against entities beyond GAA and rugby for attention, including mobile phones, game consoles and music festivals, but stresses soccer’s advantage is that it’s an easier sport to organise – less technical to play than rugby; smaller team sizes than rugby or Gaelic games; and pitch sizes 40 per cent smaller than GAA pitches, which make it easier to budget for with local authorities.
“My local club’s biggest single expense is floodlit, generally all-weather training facilities,” says Hartnett. “We’re like spring lambs when we get back out on to grass in the spring time and we can play under natural light on natural surfaces, not having to worry about the cost of keeping the lights on. There’s a win in that. The other costs are embedded – you’re still gonna play the same number of matches, pay the same number of referees and coaching and development officers.”
An obvious test case is the League of Ireland. It introduced summer soccer on a three-year trial basis in 2003. It hasn’t looked back. Fans were more comfortable. Finer weather helped improve training conditions. Skill levels improved. Results of Irish clubs in Europe ticked upwards. Over three years, the Republic of Ireland moved up five places in Uefa’s club coefficient rankings.
This year alone Shamrock Rovers will have earned more than €5 million in prize money from their Uefa Conference League run.
“Summer soccer has been great for the League of Ireland for a variety of reasons,” says Jamie Moore, head of media for St Patrick’s Athletic, “a lot of them have been outlined by those debating in favour of the vote regarding better weather and pitches for kids and adults to play on.”
Feels like the calendar switch across Ireland’s soccer leagues might be more than a summer fling.
Show me the money
The FAI’s general assembly vote to align its calendar puts soccer in Ireland in more direct competition with Gaelic games. It’s noticeable that the GAA and rugby have more well-funded governing bodies.
The GAA posted a surplus of €6.5 million in 2023 with consolidated revenues of €112 million. The IRFU, meanwhile, posted a deficit of €18.4 million in its most recent accounts – typical of a post-World Cup year when the financial burden of preparing the men’s senior team is much greater.
In general, however, the union’s finances are in rude health. It’s debt free, for example, while the FAI posted debt of €43.2 million in its latest accounts. This gives the IRFU significant capacity to fund grassroots rugby and provide ample competition to soccer as the FAI continues to pull itself out of its financial mess.
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