The English FA seems to have committed to its promised Dublin friendly against Ireland after John Delaney announced at an AUL event in Dublin last night that he just had a phonecall saying the game was effectively confirmed.
Delaney didn’t reveal a date for the match but it now seems set for May, or possibly early June 2015. Any sort of confirmation, though, will be viewed with relief here as both associations weigh up the financial implications of Sunday’s Euro 2016 draw in Nice.
For the FAI, the benefits of the new centralised TV deal were undermined slightly by the fact that they landed what would previously have been hailed as a financially lucrative group.
There is still significantly more money to be made from the fixtures themselves for the financially stricken association, though, and a major windfall awaits if the team can deliver on its seeding and secure a place at the tournament.
Even if it does not, it is important that the side stays in the hunt until the end of the campaign with games like the home one against Germany on October 8th next year likely to attract more supporters and return a greater profit if the stakes for Martin O'Neill and his men are high.
If a start to the campaign that involves three away games this side of Christmas goes wrong then it will be bound to have a knock on effect on the organisation's income in 2015 but the more immediate concern around Abbotstown will be the fact that the fixture list has provided just one competitive home game – against Gibraltar – between now and next March when Poland come to town.
Important deal
The new Uefa deal – reckoned to be worth around €10 million a year – will clearly be important but the association received slightly more than that in Euro 2012 related revenue during the last year for which its finances have been published and turnover still plummeted from €45 million to €39 million. In the directors' report that accompanied the numbers, it was stated: "the decrease of revenue was driven by a lower number of home matches, we had only one competitive home match in 2012".
Lean period
In the circumstances, knowing for sure that England are to come to Dublin is a small but important part of getting through another lean period. The fact that the two nations were not drawn with each other made confirmation of the game more likely, but the anticipated March 2015 date was undermined as England play their competitive game in that window on Friday the 27th while Ireland play on Sunday the 29th. That appeared to leave the following Tuesday as the only remotely viable date for the game and that would require Ireland to play twice in just over 48 hours. Playing the game this year is apparently out which leaves May/June 2015 the earliest that the FAI could realistically hope for.
As it happens, the English FA is under major pressure itself to come up with some attractive home friendlies in part because its qualifying games have been rendered almost meaningless by the expansion of the European Championships which means that the strongest sides are virtually certain to qualify.
The Germans have been making just this point and they have reacted angrily in the wake of Uefa president Michel Platini’s tongue in cheek suggestion on Saturday that if they do not like the new rules then maybe they should consider not participating.
"I find it somewhat arrogant for a Uefa president, and maybe we should simply not play after all," German Football League chief executive Christian Seifert said in a television interview. "Then we'd see what the European Championship is still worth."
