Canham reveals regrets over Healy and defends position

FAI chief football officer Marc Canham has said he has full belief in the association's plan to develop Irish football despite several bumps in the road in recent months.

After nearly three years with the body, Canham has unveiled several programmes to change the game in Ireland and continues, along with other FAI employees, to seek out the state funding that is needed to implement them.

The fallout from the departure of Ireland women's assistant coach Colin Healy, as well as struggles for the national teams, and unhappiness from high-profile League of Ireland managers, has all come to his door in recent months.

Two wins over Bulgaria for the men's side in the last week provided some leeway.

But the overall picture is not a happy one.

He is confident the FAI are on the right path, even if the likes of Shamrock Rovers boss Stephen Bradley has claimed the wrong people are in charge of the game here.

Speaking to RTÉ Sport today, Canham said: "I genuinely believe in what we are doing. Clearly there is development and learning from every experience, in terms of communication and what you do.

"I have to reflect and think there is different things you could do differently. Overall I have absolute, fundamental belief that what we're doing is the right thing for Irish football.

"We're not trying to just fix or tweak a few things or improve this bit here or there. We're trying to step back and look at all of Irish football. That is why our plan is the whole game approach of grassroots, national and international.

"I genuinely believe and our team believe it will be success over the next period of time and into the next decade and decades, if we deal with some of the big fundamental issues.

"That is what our plan is trying to. I'm really positive about what we have done so far and what it will look like in the future."

The FAI's financial situation remains a huge challenge

Canham has promised to learn from the acrimonious exit of Healy, saying there was "deep regret" within the FAI over the affair.

Healy criticised the process in which he was removed from the assistant manager's role, claiming he had been informed just weeks before the decision that there would be a recommendation that his contract be extended.

Canham said: "It was a really difficult situation that is deeply regrettable. It has been a couple of months, obviously, since that became public in terms of that situation. It was never my intent or the association's intent for someone to feel so hurt and disappointed by their experience of leaving the association.

"So from a human perspective, I and the association deeply regret how that's rolled out.

"It's never my intent for any human to feel like that. It's disappointing for me personally because I always try and treat people with respect and honesty and empathy.

"It's really disappointing for me personally to have that feedback. I've never had that in my personal or professional career to date.

"It was a really difficult situation that was deeply regrettable... It was never my intent for any human to feel like that" - the FAI's Marc Canham on the controversy surrounding Colin Healy's departure as Republic of Ireland women's assistant coach pic.twitter.com/Rl3e6SpsiX — RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) March 24, 2025

"I have to take that learning moving forward to make sure that never happens to anyone that I deal with in the future.

"I had deep sympathy for his own personal situation, which is devastating for him. But we wish him well for the future. From a football perspective, we stand by the decision that we made and the process that we made."

One issue Canham has currently in relation to women's football is the future of former head coach Eileen Gleeson.

She was replaced by Carla Ward and has seen Hannah Dingley take another of her former jobs spearheading the female game.

Canham was reluctant to give too much away on what her current and next role is: "Eileen is an employee of the association. She is contracted. We're working through those conversations at the moment.

"I understand why you ask the question and that it is of interest to people, but we just can't comment on that. It's our policy to not talk about people's contracts publicly in any way. Unfortunately I can't say any more at this point."

Establishing academies within Ireland as well as developing stadia remains the top priority for Canham.

With the League of Ireland thriving in terms of crowd numbers, capacity has been reached at many venues.

But the greater concern is around developing players with the lack of facilities and finance to provide the necessary coaching and contact hours a major hinderance.

Under the current system, Ireland are likely to remain in the abyss of international football.

Talk of additional funding for academies has been on the table for several years, without being delivered.

Marc Canham feels there can be a bright future for Irish football

Canham revealed a meeting is planned with Government officials in the coming weeks to try to accelerate it, knowing time is running out.

There is growing impatience from League of Ireland clubs in particular as Ireland remains one of the worst resourced nations in Europe when it comes to full-time coaching.

An Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for Sport Charlie McConalogue were lobbied during last night’s win over Bulgaria.

More talks will take place shortly.

Canham added: "It is really critical to get investment into academies to support future generations of Irish players.

"We've had positive conversations with Government over the last couple of years. We've been really proactive with that and obviously there has been a change of government and they have lots of priorities

"Our biggest priority in the conversations is around facilities and academies. We saw last year a really positive amount of funding was received for investment in facilities and we hope that will come also in academies

"We believe club-led development programme is where we want to get to and we need that investment to development the infrastructure for a football industry.

"We continue to have those conversations. We've only met them in the last couple of weeks and are meeting them again in a week to continue the discussions to try to build some momentum.

"We had the Taoiseach and Minister McConalogue at our game last night. We were talking to them about our academy plans and a range of other topics. It remains a big priority for us. We thank them for their support so far and in advance for the funding to give the clubs what they need to develop their structures."

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