Cork City need to focus on themselves in era of mega contracts
Cork City's Ruairi Keating. Picture: INPHO/Tom Maher
It’s an arms race in a chaotic world of inflation and corporate interest, with the prize the same for everyone in the ring.
Everyone wants to rule the world, to be crowned champions every November, and have access to European prize money at the end of every season.
Cork City operated in that place the 2010s and now they dream of being in the conversation after years of trial and error, relegation and promotion.
Shamrock Rovers hold court as they won four consecutive League of Ireland Premier Division titles and used that as a platform to compete on the continent, with their biggest prize being qualification to the UEFA Conference League group stages in 2022.
Derry City have eyes on their thrown, a position they’ve strengthened over their benefactor selling his engineering business to American conglomerate for almost $2bn in 2022.
Shelbourne exist in the shadows, after years of attracting investment and building a team under Damien Duff.
Even those without aspirations of winning the league this season have enormous resources to draw from, the appointment of former Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny on a multi-year deal is justification for that alone.
Even newly promoted Galway United, are backed by local billionaire property developers and resources were made available this summer to recruit players like Greg Cunningham, who has played in the EFL Championship for the last five seasons.
It’s an arms race, and there can only be one real winner at the end of the year over the riches on offer from playing in the Champions League and Conference League.
Clubs are still trying to force their way in. St Patrick’s Athletic, keen to make up for lost ground after a disastrous start to the season, have just brought in former Ireland U21 international Zach Elbouzedi on a multi-year contract.
Waterford did something similar at the start of the year, as the newly promoted club signed Padraig Amond on a two-year deal after the striker terminated his contract with Woking.
There was a time in Irish football when 52-week contacts were the aspiration, a prize Cork City celebrated being able to offer after they won the league and cup double in 2017. Now it’s all about two- and three-year deals, instead of guaranteeing wages for the winter and offseason.
There’s a lot to unpack when taking a macroeconomics perspective.
The end-point is still the same: it’s a lot more expensive to run a football club in 2024 anytime over the past ten years.
City found a way of dealing with that by securing investment at the end of 2022, at the height of the inflation and cost of living crisis, and it brought a fresh sense of optimism to their return to the League of Ireland Premier Division.
The temptation now is to join the party, and to spend in a bid to avoid the mistakes of 2023 being repeated. That’s how football works. There’s no common sense, but a constant feeling of chasing and listening to your heart.
And Cork City know this, and they know their place in the hierarchy according to manager Tim Clancy.
“We aren’t in the position to go and compete with clubs that are paying massive, massive wages which is happening in the Premier Division,” he said in a recent interview while mentioning the sustainability of the arms race in the land above.
"You would question the sustainability of that over a long-term period,” he said.
That’s what it is, a bubble that could pop as soon as the economy retracts and investments start drying up.
It’s what happened in the 2000s and it brought a host of clubs, from Drogheda United to Bohemians, to the brink as the country learned the meaning of the words austerity and bailout.
City have been burned before, in a financial and football sense, and they know both sides of the debate.
Now it’s all about deciding what is the best course of action as they navigate a return to the League of Ireland Premier Division, during the home stretch of the year in the basement.
They can choose to compete, and sprint alongside those trying a marathon for the first time, or play it safe by focusing on themselves.
Whatever the course of action is, the writing on the walls is to tread lightly and know where you stand.
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