Unless you have land to sell, league football in Ireland is not an earner. Those down Shelbourne way will testify to that these days. Since the decline of the game here in the late 70s and 80s, clubs feed off the goodwill and passion of a select few - many of whom can afford the financial hit - to keep above water.
Construction magnate Mick Wallace is one of those individuals. Granted a First Division licence in recent days, his new senior entity, Wexford Youths, will be coming to a ground near you this season.
Filling the void left last season by the now defunct Dublin City, Wallace is confident the ethos of his club will bolster a league besieged of late by negativity. He's not making the leap for financial reward, rather taking the next step on a journey rooted since childhood.
"We are very much a community based team and will be run differently than any League of Ireland club has ever been run," he predicts. "It will be run in much the same spirit that our under-18 and under-16 teams have been run by myself for the last 16 years.
"Not all the publicity coming out of the league recently has been positive," Wallace adds. "We can help make things better by bringing something very positive to the league. We will set an example to the rest of the country."
Wallace's plunge was not an overnight case of 'build it and they will come'. Foundations have long been set in the guise of a successful underage set-up in the county, spearheaded by his Wexford Youths team who have dominated underage football in the last decade.
"We're about all that is good in football, the core being a community base - a club for the people of the region. It's going to be an incredible boost for soccer in the area," he says.
The club is located just outside Wexford Town and boasts modern facilities on a 14-acre site bought by Wallace almost five years ago. Two state-of-the-art outdoor pitches, two artificial surfaces and a large indoor complex grace the site.
Wallace is credited as the driving force behind football in the county and, indeed, for bringing current Republic of Ireland and Reading striker Kevin Doyle to prominence. He guided Doyle through underage teams in Wexford and, after time, introduced the striker to his friend and then St Patrick's Athletic manager Pat Dolan. The rest, they say, is history.
But Wallace warns the venture will not be an overnight success.
"We're going to struggle this year because we're trying to convert junior soccer players into senior players with a League of Ireland standard and, as you can imagine, that won't be easy. We're going to need a couple of years to find our feet.
"In the first season we'll be doing well to stay off the bottom. We don't expect miracles overnight and it'll probably be our third year before we make a serious impact in terms of finishing up the table and challenging for promotion."
That challenge will be driven by Wallace himself who will manage the team. Pat Dolan, an experienced manager in the domestic game, will act as his assistant-cum-advisor. Owing to his television commitments, Dolan's role will be minimal, but, according to Wallace, significant nonetheless.
"Pat has a lot of experience in the league and there's plenty I can learn from him," says the property developer who, alongside the former St Pat's and Cork City manager, is busy preparing a squad of 31 local players ahead of the season's start on March 9th.
