By Tony O'Donoghue, RTÉ Soccer Correspondent
Shamrock Rovers manager Michael O’Neill says that no one who played in the league game with Bray Wanderers will be involved in the friendly with Newcastle United the following day in Tallaght.
He’s quite right of course but his view only emphasises the point that pre-season friendlies against 'glamour' opposition aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
Rovers, of course, take on Real Madrid at their new Tallaght base soon but to tell you the truth I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than go and watch showpony Ronaldo go through his paces.
Clearly I am out of step with the rest of the world here. The visit of the Galacticos will garner huge media interest but frankly I have seen Ronaldo and many of the other members of the Madrid 'Boy Band' and I have little interest in counting the stepovers in a meaningless friendly.
Kaka, who is far and away a better player, won’t even make the trip to Ireland and I can’t imagine what value the punters will get for their hard-earned euro.
It’s a measure of the celebrity-obsessed culture we live in that every step the spoilt, obscenely rich footballers take while in Ireland - from airport to nightclub and back – will be followed voraciously by the public and stoked by the media.
For Shamrock Rovers it is a chance to build the brand and expand into the wider public consciousness. Fair enough. The whole hoop la (geddit?) may earn them a few bob as well, but not much I’d imagine. As O’Neill admits, these games could hardly have come at a worse time as far as Rovers’ title aspirations are concerned.
Already there are too many games in the domestic calendar and with the amount of disposable income available to most fans dwindling at an alarming rate, it doesn’t make sense to add more cost to an emptying pocket.
If teams played each other less often you would then have an opportunity to properly market the matches to prospective customers. I believe there is an audience of soccer fans out there who do not regularly buy into the Irish match-day experience and would do so if given the proper prompting.
Bray Wanderers, as my nearest League of Ireland club, have an exciting young squad and in spite of their lowly position are playing some lovely football.
Last week they welcomed the double champions Bohemians to the Carlisle grounds and even had the audacity to take the lead before losing.
This week Shamrock Rovers, the most famous name in Irish soccer, are the visitors but it’s hard to get many column inches on the game, even in The Wicklow People.
Apart from the same small constituency very few clubs are reaching out to new markets, new customers, new fans. And as new Cork City owner Tom Coughlan told me recently, research shows the brand awareness for even a club of Cork’s stature is surprisingly low.
It’s hard to believe that Finn Harps will have more people watching Ipswich Town than the high-flying and free-scoring Waterford United, even taking into account the Keane factor.
Roy Keane’s new team got beaten at Finn Park and the result of that might be that some people in Donegal might give their local team more credit than they would have. Keane was delighted with the workout as he begins the next phase of his never-less-than-fascinating career.
We keep hearing, especially at FAI gatherings, that soccer is the biggest participation sport in this country. The Festival of Football and images of people from all ages and all walks of life at the recent AGM in Monaghan bore stunning testament to that.
We have to find ways of capturing the hearts and minds and support of all the people who play the game and channel them towards their local senior team.
By the way, the FAI deserves congratulations for its work at grassroots level, the continuing of the Lansdowne Road redevelopment and indeed the success, so far, of the Trapattoni experiment.
However, a €16 million deficit is pretty daunting, no matter the circumstances, and not releasing the accounts until the night before, or indeed the morning of, the annual general meeting 'because it wouldn’t be in the best interests of the association' is staggering in its arrogance.
The family of football, like the League of Ireland, shouldn’t be a narrow, closed grouping. The soccer church should be a broad one - open, honest, accountable and transparent.
No need to worship false Gods.
