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Realised we didn't have a thread for Ireland similar to the Wales one. Noticed how much of a mess they're in; making the SFA look competent in comparison. Most of their issues are related to John Delaney's leadership of the FAI: The FAI had to have a bail out from the Irish government in 2019 and are still in €40m of debt to them. Seem to be culling 20-30% of their staff to save on costs: https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/2025/08/27/fai-confirms-signigicant-job-losses-as-part-of-restructuring-process/ Been almost no investment in the Irish game for a prolonged period, both in infrastructure and youth development (which has apparently been cut heavily in recent years). Financially seem to be dependant on the success of Euro 2028 and Ireland qualifying for this World Cup. The national team has massively declined over the past couple of decades to the point they're probably comparable to us in the early 2000s and, with the funding challenges, seem to be in no position to recover anytime soon. They did manage to recover a 2-0 deficit last night against ten-man Hungary at the Aviva, but that's one of the games they had to realistically win to get into the play-offs. On the flip side, they do have a number of good young players coming through and the League of Ireland has improved a lot in recent years. They seem to have a decent number of players who'd certainly end up in our squad were they Scottish. What should we take from the situation in Ireland? Really seems like a opportunity for us to build up our game to mean Ireland won't be a problem to us for the foreseeable future.