St Patrick's Athletic manager Stephen Kenny says his 17-year old striker Mason Melia could have moved to the continent this year but the transfer to Tottenham Hotspur was the one he really wanted.
Melia made history by becoming the league's first million euro player after Pat's and Spurs agreed on an initial fee of €1.8m, with the Wicklow-born centre-forward joining the Premier League club on 1 January 2026.
It is believed that the figure could rise to £3.5m (€4.2m) with a 20% sell on.
Due to Brexit rules, Melia is unable to join an English club until after his 18th birthday in September and will officially join at the start of the next January transfer window upon completing a medical.
Kenny said that the player could have gone to clubs on the continent in the past couple of years but was willing to wait for the move he wanted.
"Garrett Kelleher, the (Pat's) owner, was highly involved in negotiations, that's certainly outside my remit," Kenny told RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland.
"He could have gone to Italy, Germany or Belgium - he could have moved there (to those countries) this year or last year - but he got the move that he wanted.
"I think the move to Tottenham is the one that he really wanted."
The teenager has made 41 league appearances for Pat's since his debut in the 2023 season and became the youngest goalscorer in LOI history when he found the net in Pat's 7-0 win over UCD at the age of 15 in June 2023.
He played an increased number of games in Pats' 2024 season, as well as their Europa Conference League campaign, which saw them reach the play-off round, losing narrowly to Istanbul Basaksehir.
"We played six games in the Europa Conference League qualifiers last year and as a 16-year old, he played as the lone striker, the centre-forward," says Kenny.
"He was able to go up against internationals at that level as a 16-year old and acquit himself very well.
"He's a very modest young man. He has a very high work ethic. That's what sets him apart as well, his phenomenal out-of-possession pressing.
"Apart from his individual skill, his ability to score goals and the threat he carries, his attitude out of possession and his insatiable desire for hard-work is obvious.
"He's very young and there are pitfalls in every career but he has all the attributes to do very well."
Melia, from Newtownkennedy, is a nephew of former Republic of Ireland player Clive Clarke, who represented him in negotiations and Kenny hailed the commitment of Melia's family in supporting him.
"Director of football Ger O'Brien recruited Mason initially as a young player (in 2022)," Kenny explained.
"We've a full-time environment at St Patrick's. His mother Pamela drives him up to Dublin every morning.
"We often have double sessions and she spends the day there to bring him home. It's tremendous commitment from his family.
"He's been an important player for St Pat's in qualifying for Europe. We're looking forward to the season ahead and no doubt he'll play his part in the team.
"From our point of view, he just has to continue to enjoy his football. He doesn't need any undue pressure."
Clarke has revealed up to 60 clubs were interested in his nephew's signature and breaking the transfer record was a long-term target from the beginning of the process.
"It's through Mason's hard work that it has been able to happen," Clarke told Oliver Callan on RTÉ Radio 1 this morning.
"He went over to Spurs three years ago [to visit], it's a club he thinks very fondly of. We probably had 50 or 60 offers throughout Europe.
"The likes of Celtic have come really strongly and pushed really hard for him. You can only pick one club and he chose Spurs. We decided to make it happen and it's all done now.
"This is something for the last four or five years with Mason that we've been building up to this moment. We know he is a very talented boy. It has been great working with St Pat's and Mason in trying to break the transfer record, which is what we all set out to do from probably this time last year because we felt we had a player of certain ability."
Clarke hopes the move is "a statement" of what can be achieved by nurturing players at home in Ireland and has called for greatest investment from the state into academies in Ireland, given the Brexit ruling.
He spent close to two decades playing in England with the likes of Burnley and Stoke City.
"It was so easy to go over as a young teenager like I did in the past," he stated.
"You go into the academies that are really well funded in the UK and try to develop. But that has become more and more difficult, especially the bigger academies, because there is so many players in them. I think it's brilliant for the League of Ireland.
"The FAI and Government have to get together to really fund the underage players coming through and give them everything the GAA players get.
"It's crazy an amateur sport is better funded than a professional sport in Ireland. That needs to change to give the best young players the foundations to follow in Mason's footsteps.
"Hopefully this transfer fee is a statement that it could be done and we don't have to give our best young players away to English clubs for €100,000 or €200,000."
