Until St Patrick’s Athletic sold Mason Melia to Tottenham Hotspur this week, the League of Ireland had always been sold short.
It’s not a stretch to say English football clubs continually exploited their neighbour’s lack of professionalism to source quality on the cheap.
Take the past 20 years. Kevin Doyle, Shane Long, Séamus Coleman, Wes Hoolahan and Stephen Ward all spring to mind.
Reading sold Doyle to Wolves for £6.5 million in 2009. That was £6.4 million profit after three seasons when Kevin scored a goal every three games.
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The same goes for Reading, West Brom and Hull City selling Long. All for profit.
I believe Reading paid about 90 grand sterling for both Doyle and Long. Back in 2005, Cork City probably felt this was a good deal.
Everyone knows that Everton got Coleman, one of their greatest club captains, from Sligo Rovers for a bargain-basement £60,000.
Wes played more than 150 times for Shelbourne before Norwich City paid Blackpool £250,000 for him. The Canaries got more than 300 games and more than 50 goals from Hoolahan.
Ward clocked up 170 Premier League appearances after Wolves paid Bohemians £100,000 in 2007.
Everyone involved in Irish football can shoulder some responsibility for allowing the club game to be constantly passed over. That includes ex-internationals who avoided the league at all costs.
The FAI played its part, particularly under John Delaney when the CEO could see how other Uefa members were evolving at academy level.
Nobody can duck for cover. The most talented 15-17-year-olds in Ireland always went to England. That was the only way to become a professional footballer; you had to leave your education, your friends and family behind.
Sending an Irish boy or girl over to England is no longer possible under UK employment law.
Essentially, that makes Melia the first genuine test case of talent joining a League of Ireland club – St Pat’s – at 14 and staying until a Premier League club pays a seven-figure fee to move when he turns 18.
The Tottenham Hotspur deal is a historic moment for Irish football.
Melia will be well advised, especially by agents and family who saw what happened to Troy Parrott in north London. Signing a five-year deal with Tottenham does not make you a Premier League player. It gives you a fighting chance.
Until he goes in January 2026, Melia’s last season at St Pat’s provides a fantastic story for the League of Ireland; a disjointed system has managed to nurture and produce a star by exposing him to men’s football at 15 years old.
Melia will either open a route into the English game for others or he’ll become the latest cautionary tale.
He will know before the rest of us whether two years in the St Pat’s first team has readied him for what comes next. Never mind breaking into the Spurs side, holding his own at training will be revealing.
Premier League clubs are the most ruthless environments imaginable.
Remember, Parrott made his Tottenham debut at 17. He’s 23 now and after a series of loan moves around the lower leagues in England, it became clear that his career would be best served by a move to Dutch football.
Melia has already proven his mettle against the likes of Shamrock Rovers and on European nights. Clearly, Spurs feel that another year at St Pat’s is better preparation than somewhere such as the Belgian Pro League.
This highly ambitious move might not work out. He is a technically proficient attacker with a promising future, but Tottenham is valued at more than €3 billion and the club generates annual revenue of €600 million.
They do not wait for talent to find its feet. Richarlison’s £50 million move from Everton has not worked out, so the man with 20 goals for Brazil in 48 caps is being replaced by French teenager Mathys Tel, who arrives from Bayern Munich for £30 million.
Tottenham paying about €2 million for Melia is a standard January window investment.
Evan Ferguson is beginning to understand the system. At 20, he has moved from Brighton to West Ham on loan. The same happened to Gavin Bazunu, going from Manchester City to Southampton to play in the Premier League, and Nathan Collins wasted no time shifting from Wolves to Brentford when his minutes dried up at Molineux.
It has never been tougher to break into the Premier League. Collins is a rare current example of an Irishman who commands selection week in, week out. Ferguson hopes to shine at West Ham while Bazunu is forced to rehabilitate his Achilles on loan to a Belgium club. Benched again, Caoimhín Kelleher is looking for a move away from Liverpool.
Melia gets his chance in 2026 while others such as Parrott and Andrew Omobamidele, now at Strasbourg, see career longevity in a smaller European league.
At least the system is beginning to function, at least the wheels of professionalism are turning, but without the promised support from the Irish Government to fund League of Ireland academies, Melia could be a rare example of talent finding its way to a Premier League club.
