The cost of being successful?

June 2nd 2017 is a date that perhaps rubber-stamped a power-shift in Irish football. Champions for the past three seasons Dundalk faced a must win game with runaway leaders Cork City at Oriel Park. The end result was a damaging 3-0 defeat that realistically bought an end to any title hopes for the Lillywhites. It a defeat that felt more too, almost like a shift in power, such was the manner of City's win which opened up an eighteen point lead at the top.

The following morning however bought City back down to earth and that familiar feeling of being successful in Ireland as Seani Maguire, the hat-trick hero in that 3-0 win, had his transfer to Preston North End confirmed. The rumoured fee is €150k with a few additional clauses put in with City at least securing his goal scoring services up to the end of July. This means Maguire will be available for two full Europa league rounds, should City progress, which is worth more than twice the transfer fee.
Having secured Maguire, the league's top scorer this season for a paltry sum, Preston have set their sights on City left-back Kevin O'Connor. The cost of being successful?

Well Dundalk know that themselves. Their European exploits last season put not only the club in the spotlight but the players as well. Centre-back Andy Boyle and flamboyant winger Daryl Horgan both joined Preston on free-transfers after the conclusion of Dundalk's Europa league campaign. That coming a year after losing goal scoring midfield Richie Towell to Brighton.

Unfortunately these transfers are commonplace in the league of Ireland. The major factor behind these is the weak financial positions of all the clubs. Clubs are only in a position to look ahead just one season and thus in the main only offer one year deals to players. Only the likes of City, Dundalk and Shamrock Rovers offer anything longer in the main. Promising young players are advised to sign one year deals by agents which strengthen their position in moves across the Irish sea.

Cork City's season has put them in the spotlight and any run in Europe this summer might attract more clubs to the other star performers. For City, such is their lead at the top of the league they realistically have it won which brings its own financial rewards with champions league football. That virtual guarantee should be attractive to potential Maguire replacements.

So far Preston seem to be the only English club looking around the league of Ireland for players on the cheap this summer. In the past players moving to England have had various degrees of success and failure. Brighton for example haven't been able to see the player Towell was at Dundalk while Preston's Horgan and Boyle have settled well.

The cost of being successful in Ireland has always been losing players to British clubs. The lack of revenue dictates that. Even if the league had a solid financial clout it would be in similar situations to many leagues outside of Europe's top three-four where selling players is the norm.
Shelbourne's 2004 European run saw them lose Wes Hoolohan to Scotland's Livingston for £123k. St Pat's lost their prized asset in Chris Forrester, Derry City going back to Niall McGinn and James McClean and of course Cork City who lost Kevin Doyle midway through the 2005 league winning season. The problem even back when the league was healthier is getting decent fees for players.

A stronger contract situation would ensure clubs get a somewhat decent transfer fee but that comes with stronger finances which is also no guarantee as seen in the early 2000s. Club's were in a healthier financial position and had stronger contracts and still lost the likes of Seamus Coleman, James McClean and Shane Long for minuscule amounts.

Russia's far east

The curtain was bought down on the National football league, the second tier in Russian football last weekend. The second leg of the promotion play-offs between two Premier league sides and the third and fourth placed national football league teams took place. One of those second tier sides was SKA Khabarovsk. A team unfancied that had in recent years cemented their place in mid-table in the second tier. The club are based in the far eastern city of Khabarovsk and had never graced the top tier, until now.

SKA Khabarovsk by finishing fourth entered the promotion/relegation play-off with FC Orenburg who had finished 13th on their inferior head-to-head record with Anji Makhachkala. The first leg was held in Khabarovsk's Lenin Stadium to see a nervy 0-0 draw. A positive result given they prevented their higher placed opponents scoring an away goal. 

The second leg was equally as nervy, three days later and some 7,300 km away from home. Extra-time came and went without either side's net bulging as the lottery of penalties loomed large. Just under 7,000 in attendance were to witness the men from the east secure a first ever promotion into the Premier league with a 5-3 win in the shoot-out. The winning penalty being dispatched by Ruslan Koryan after Andrei Malykh had the misfortune to be the only player in the shoot-out not to convert for his side. 

That promotion bought SKA Khabarovsk into the world media. Unfortunately it wasn't much to do with their shock promotion from mid-table to promotion in twelve months but to do with their geographic location. SKA being based in Khabarovsk are less than 30 miles away from the Chinese border and this season were one of just two sides from the far eastern corner of the country to participate in the second tier. 

With the relegation of Siberian side Tom Tomsk from the Premier league next season SKA will be over 6,500 km from their nearest opponents in FK Ural from Yekaterinburg. Their furthest trip incidentally will be to Zenit's new Krestovsky stadium which is 8,850 km away from SKA's home. 

SKA's promotion means they are the first far eastern team to play top tier football in Russia since 2008 when FC Luch-Energiya, based even further away in the port of Vladivostok, were relegated after finished bottom of the league. Luch-Energiya were despised by many of their Western opponents based purely on their geographic location. Complaints about the distance were plentiful and got particularly nasty when CSKA Moskva's Igor Akinfeev remarked about the club by saying "they should play in the Japanese league". That after Luch had torn into CSKA 4-0 in Vladivostok in 2007. 

However SKA's promotion isn't a sign that football in the far east is booming, far from it in fact. As stated SKA will be the first side from the region in the top tier in nine years. While SKA were celebrating their unlikely promotion, down the road (in jest of course, it's 750 km away), Luch-Energiya were coming to terms with their relegation to the third tier (on the pitch, there is suggestions that they will replace FK Chita in the second tier next season). This relegation being their second into the third tier since their top flight relegation in 2008. 

SKA will be just the third different side to play top level football from the region since the break up of the Soviet Union. The first side was FK Okean Nakhodka who to date remain the furthest eastern team to ever play in a top flight European league but are also no longer in existence having been liquidated in 2015. 

Even the second tier has been sparsely represented in recent years. There was the 2014-15 season where SKA and Luch were joined by FC Sakhalin from the Sakhalin Oblast which is located off the Russian mainland and above Japan's northernmost Hokkaido island. Amazingly FC Sakhalin took part in the second tier that featured Baltika-Kaliningrad and thus the world record for the longest domestic league game was set with 10,500 km between the teams. 

Teams from the region are always up against the geography. The Russian football federation did introduce a procedure to help ease the financial burden on the travel costs to and from the region a few years back. This was to group both SKA and Luch into one long haul journey, so for example, some teams out west would play Luch away and then a few days later play SKA away before jetting back west and likewise for SKA and Luch to play two away games in quick succession before flying back east. This being done a couple of times a season to cut the air miles slightly.

Challenge to stay up:
SKA's challenge is now to stay in the top flight. Doing so will of course be difficult for obvious reasons. The blueprint for them can be how Luch stayed in the top flight for two full seasons in the 2000s. In Luch's first season back in the top flight in 2006, they amassed twelve victories, eleven of which came at home. The following season they narrowly avoided the drop. This was in no small part achieved by their seven home victories. Of the thirty-two points collected that season, twenty-six were gained at home. The blueprint is clear for SKA, make the home advantage count.