Irish clubs wise up to financial youth sale benefits

Professional English league clubs have long looked towards Ireland for potential cheap future talent to add to their own ranks, and even if a particular player did not quite make the grade and step regularly into their first team set ups, for very minimal outlay they often made good profit in the end.

In recent years it was very common for League of Ireland clubs to see talent leave for free, or at best a very nominal sum that gave few benefits to their initial investment and the time they had spent in nurturing a players development and

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With plenty of changes to the league set up being discussed, and a focus on growing revenue, fan engagement and the impact of the Irish game as a whole, clubs have turned their attentions to financially capitalising on the sale of some of the brightest talents that come through the youth system and are slowly (finally) becoming far more savvy.

Whilst a more strict higher initial transfer fee still remains more uncommon it is starting to happen, but in more recent times Irish clubs have insisted on far more favourable sell on clauses and they have begun making far greater use of add ons in a more general sense.

An example of this would be Matt Doherty's move from Wolverhampton Wanderers to Tottenham Hotspur back in August 2020. Their deal involved a reported £15 million transfer agreement and it is now strongly rumoured that Bohemians managed to pocket an extra £1.5 million for themselves when the deal was completed, owing to the sell on clause they insisted on.

Moving back to the subject of initial transfer fees, Waterford in some ways are starting to push the boundaries here as it is now being reported that there is a pre agreement in place with English Championship side Southampton, for 17 year old talent Romeo Akachukwu.

If those reports are true, the League of Ireland club are speculated to benefit from 500,000 Euros, and it remains open to debate as to whether or not that could be the final fee depending on what clauses have been negotiated and added to the deal.

Akachukwu was known to have been drawing wider attention to himself over the last 12 months, and it is claimed that a number of clubs were expressing a strong interest in him, but Southampton would stand out purely because they have a real history of developing a youth pathway into their first team squad.

Matt Targett, Luke Shaw, James Ward-Prowse and even Dublin born Michael Obafemi are notable youth products for them, so the pull for Akachukwu is obvious when you think of the pathway he was probably promised to the first team.

The attacking midfielder made his name really at last years Under 17 European Championships, and that was certainly helped by the 20 appearances he made during Waterford's successful League of Ireland First Division promotion campaign at the last time of asking.

The stand out clearly being his hattrick in a 3-1 victory over Athlone Town during the Play Offs, and his development so far has also seen him promoted into the Ireland Under 19 set up - so again, big things are expected from this kid, and Southampton obviously see that.

Many will be looking with interest as to how he settles in and what he can make of himself, but Waterford seem well covered - other clubs will quickly follow suit on that score.