LEAGUE OF IRELAND OPINION:Wexford Youth manager Mick Wallacebelieves it would be unwise for the Government to cut spending in football and sports in general.

IT'S BEEN another bad week for Irish football and the economy as a whole. At clubs up and down the country players are facing pay cuts or the loss of their jobs although the numbers involved are relatively small when compared to something like Dell where, we now know, almost 2,000 will be laid off during the coming months.

So, in terms of actual employment the problems being encountered within football are being overshadowed by what is going on in sectors of the economy like technology and, of course, construction.

But the game, like sport generally, remains an important part of community life across Ireland and having gotten so much wrong during the boom it would be terrible if the Government now sought to cut back on an area that has been so consistently under-funded through good times and bad.

Given the scale of the challenges it faces the FAI has, in my opinion, done reasonably well in recent years and it should be judged over the next few more on how well it marshals the League of Ireland, wider club and youth games, through the recession than on whether the national team qualifies for South Africa.

Needless to say, though, many of the people who played a part in running the game down the years here have to accept a share of the responsibility for the problems football is currently encountering.

Certainly, the fact that many League of Ireland clubs were going to struggle once the wider economy tightened was inevitable. On the most basic level, just about all paid out more than they took in and common sense suggested there was only so long that that could go on for.

A few made up the shortfall in recent years with the help of wealthy backers but often those putting up the money weren't really football people, they saw the money they spent as an investment and almost inevitably their chances of realising a return was tied up with the continuation of the property boom.

Most disappointingly, though, even those clubs that did take in significant amounts of outside funding tended to spend it on buying players and then paying them ever increasing amounts of money.

Wage bills became incredibly bloated while comparatively little was spent on stadium improvements and almost nothing invested in the likes of training facilities.

As relative newcomers to the league, Wexford Youths may, in some ways, have been fortunate to have started with a clean slate a few years back but in the space of a few seasons we have invested around €6 million (all effectively at cost because of the business I'm in) in our home at Ferrycarrig.

We have high-quality playing pitches and all-weather training facilities, a wine bar restaurant that will soon be open to the local population, a 4,000 square-foot gym nearing completion that will also be available to the community and even our own team bus. The next stage of the development is to build a €4.5 million 2,500 seat stand which, once completed, will be one of the better facilities of its kind in the league.

The capital investment then has averaged about €1 million a year while the net cost of running the club is a little over one 10th of the sum. The ratio is probably the other way around at some other clubs but we can do what we do because we have a youth section that is, at the very least, on a par with any other, our first team remains amateur with players, drawn from the local community, receiving only a small amount in expenses and we are not preoccupied with qualifying for the Champions League.

At present, our average attendance is between 800 and 1,000 during the first half of the season but we believe that by providing vastly improved spectator facilities we can double that number. It's no coincidence, in my opinion, that two clubs with amongst the best grounds in the league - Cork and Derry City - are also amongst the best supported.

As it happens, we had the third best attendances in the First Division last year but our crowds tend to dip significantly as the campaign rolls on.

Familiarity with opponents, as well as general fatigue, appears to take their toll. The best supported team in these parts are the Wexford hurlers but they only get the really big crowds for championship games and they would seldom have more than four of them.

Having made it to the League Cup final, meanwhile, our first team played 44 times last year with 36 league games. The schedule required us to play nine times in midweek, something that represents a crippling cost to those clubs who are already struggling to make ends meet and a major organisational challenge to managers given that players need to get off work in order to travel.

Dropping a round of league games for the coming season would dramatically reduce the number of midweek games required while, more generally, cutting costs and relieving pressure on everyone involved with clubs but so far there is little to suggest that it will actually happen.

It probably has a better chance in the First Division than in top flight, where managers and players, keen to hang on to what they can of their income, would be reluctant to countenance the idea of playing less. Ask the people who look after the finances of the clubs, though, and they'll tell you that in the absence of serious television or sponsorship revenue every additional game costs money.

That shouldn't be what it all comes down to but there's no denying that, now more than ever, it's a fairly important factor.

We shouldn't become too hung up on the financial situation, though. Economists who reckoned a year or two ago that the good times would never end are now carrying on as if they'll never return but these things have always been cyclical and the economy will turn around again in time. Irish football will see better days too.

Elsewhere, governments show a greater appreciation of the importance of funding the things that bind our society together. It's something I have often seen at first hand in Italy where, for all their economic difficulties down the years, there is an ongoing belief in the wisdom of using sport to invest in communities generally, and to young people in particular. I'm hoping the authorities here will view things the same way when I go looking for help with the cost of our new stand. Doubtless they'll argue the money has run out although thankfully there seems to be some sort of acknowledgement that spending on infrastructure has to continue.

My simple contention is that that doesn't have to be limited to roads, sewage plants and the like. Football is played regularly by 450,000 people in Ireland today and by investing in it, and other sports, we are investing in the infrastructure of people's lives.