The introduction of international breaks to the League of Ireland season were designed to cope with a high volume of U-21 calls, but they have become necessary for another reason.
When Estonia name their squad for March’s European qualifiers with Hungary and Austria, there’s a strong possibility that four LOI players will feature in their panel, a stat which is a snapshot into a winter of recruitment that reflects the changing complexion of the Irish transfer market.
A driving factor in that is a website that various sources have compared to eBay, LinkedIn, Tinder and a real-life version of ‘Football Manager’.
The FAI have been in talks with the people behind Transfer Room, styled as a virtual marketplace for football, about offering a subsidised package for all sides in the league given that the handful of clubs who use the network are finding it very beneficial.
Founded by the Dane Jonas Ankersen (a brother of Rasmus, a driving force in Brentford’s rise before helping to set up Sport Republic, the company that owns Southampton and came close to investing in Shelbourne), Transfer Room is a resource that operates exclusively for stakeholders in the football world.
Over 650 clubs use it to do business, with membership opening up direct access to sporting directors, loan managers or whoever is tasked with the job of sourcing or selling players.
Covid brought the platform to another level and trusted agents now have the option to pay to register their clients on the service. Put simply, a club looking for a player can put a message out on a virtual noticeboard and wait to see what comes their way. The answer is generally hundreds of options, but there are filters that can be used to ensure it’s a realistic union financially.
Testimonials from Arsenal, Juventus, Roma and Leeds, amongst others, highlight that the big guns are utilising the service, but it’s lower down the food chain where it has stimulated discussions and deals that would have been hard to execute previously.
Sligo Rovers, St Patrick’s Athletic, Dundalk and Bohemians have all used the service at various stages. It doesn’t come cheap, with a four-figure sum required to gain access, but users extol the benefits.
Cork City manager Colin Healy has turned to Sweden to boost his squad for the new campaign. Photo: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
“You can get background on players, you can speak to them directly and get a feel for them, rather than just watching clips. We’ve brought in lads who want to come to Sligo for the right reasons.
“The service is club to club, and while there are agents on it as well who can pitch players to you, it takes out a lot of the mess in between. You deal with people who are calling the shots and making the right decisions.”
The scouting platform Wyscout is where managers then go to watch back games, but Transfer Room helps in terms of identifying viable candidates.
“It’s like an old-school job advertisement board,” says St Pat’s manager Tim Clancy. “You pitch what you want and then you get applications from clubs or agents. There’s no doubt it’s a very good platform to use, but you still have to do your homework then.
“It lets you know what is out there and what it might take to do a deal, but then you have to look at the CV and figure out if you know someone from there who has coached or played alongside them. That helps on the background check. Without that, you’re taking a punt and those are generally ones that don’t work out.”
Frank Liivak poses for a portrait during a Sligo Rovers squad portrait session at The Showgrounds in Sligo. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Both Russell and Clancy had a personal connection with Estonia that has played a role in the quirky influx of Baltic operators. Russell studied the Estonian national team for his Pro Licence.
“I wanted to go for a country that was similar to Ireland where a lot of the players are in the domestic league and the wages they are on would be comparable to Ireland,” he explains. “I felt from a recruitment point of view going forward, it would be beneficial to me.”
When he was appointed Bit O’Red boss last summer, Russell made a move for midfielder Frank Liivak. Over the winter, he brought in Bogdan Vastsuk from a club in Poland.
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Russell was also aware of Markus Poom, the son of ex-Derby goalkeeper Mart, who has joined Shamrock Rovers. The Hoops knew all about his club, Flora Tallinn, after a stinging European defeat in 2021. Clancy went to Flora to bring in Vladislav Kreida on loan, but another connection is Estonian agent Harri Ojamaa, whose brother Henry played with Clancy at Motherwell.
The recurring theme here is the need for clubs chasing Rovers and Derry City to look outside the box because the top two have such a strong hand when it comes to hoovering up established LOI performers. Russell adds that regional clubs have to pay ‘a premium’ to convince Dublin-based players to move around the country now that there are multiple full-time options in the capital.
Dundalk were in that position of dominance until things went south under Peak6. Transfer Room was used at that juncture, too, with one club source recalling how chairman Bill Hulsizer had a login which increased traffic from their end. “It was like fantasy football for him,” the source joked. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d tried to match with Messi.” The Lilywhites now use the service in a different way.
“It’s not just Transfer Room that we use,” stresses manager Stephen O’Donnell, who shopped in England and Scotland this off-season. “We have our own database and we go a lot off that in terms of stats, age bracket and what we are looking for. Finding players takes a lot of perseverance.”
Perfect match: New technology like Transfer Room is helping Sligo Rovers boss John Russell to recruit players like Frank Liivak from Estonia
A league-wide deal would allow other clubs to avail of a service that would cut down their junk mail. Drogheda United boss Kevin Doherty was chatting at the LOI launch last week when a message on his watch popped up with yet another unknown agent offering another player he’d never heard of.
This is par for the course. Cork City manager Colin Healy admitted that ‘hundreds’ of names were thrown his way in the off-season. He ended up bringing in three players from the Swedish circuit.
“There’s life outside of the English leagues,” says Healy. Albin Windo, a 25-year-old Swede starved of game-time in their top flight gave the lowdown on his old Varbergs team-mate Daniel Krezic, a striker. Kevin Custovic completes Leeside’s Swedish legion.
The range of nationalities cropping up around the league is a reflection of the post-Brexit landscape. A steady exodus of Irish players in the 18-25 bracket to the English lower regions is a consequence of work-permit rules that have made it very hard for low-profile Europeans to gain access to the UK. The Common Travel Area means there is no problem for Irish players.
However, it is draining the LOI talent pool and managers are looking abroad to find suitable replacements. St Pat’s picked up ex-Dutch underage international Noah Lewis because he couldn’t secure a UK permit.
There’s no sign of this trend reversing. Russell’s main headache coming into the new season functions as the perfect example. He was confident of fending off interest from League Two to keep top scorer Aidan Keena, but when a League One side, Cheltenham Town, came calling and triggered a release clause, Russell knew the game was up.
He was never going to find a replacement of that quality on his doorstep at short notice, so he pursued an individual that had been on his radar for some time. Faroe Islands international Stefan Radosavljevic has arrived to try and fill the Mullingar man’s shoes. Novelty is quickly becoming normality.
