Former Republic of Ireland, Everton FC and Manchester City FC defender Richard Dunne spoke exclusively to Get French Football News about the infamous World Cup play-off between France and Ireland in 2009 and about Irish footballing connections with France today. In this second part, Richard talks about the benefits of young Irish players making the move to France.
I believe you live in Monaco now. Do you follow AS Monaco and Ligue 1 at all?
A little bit. I go to some of the Monaco games. I do the Champions League coverage on Virgin in Ireland and we show a lot of the French teams so I keep an eye in. They’ve really recovered this year, Monaco, as they were struggling for long periods but they seem to have got their act together and got a big win yesterday [a 2-1 victory at Olympique Lyonnais], so they’ve still got a fighting chance of getting top 4.
Ireland are still hoping to qualify for the World Cup and their centre-back pairing could in theory be a Ligue 1-connected partnership, with Jake O’Brien who did well at Lyon before moving on to Everton, and Andrew Omobamidele, who is doing well this year at RC Strasbourg. There is a heritage of Irish players playing in France, but do you think it’s important for Irish players to experience playing abroad and is France a good place for them?
I think France is an amazing place for them. The league is really competitive, it’s really athletic, it’s a tough league but it’s a good learning base for players who want to get to the Premier League – if you can prove yourself in France then there’s a great opportunity to get over to the Premier League.
Omobamidele and certainly O’Brien have had real success there. And there’s other young players – there’s Ade Solanke who ended up signing from FC Lorient to Bournemouth, there’s another player, Des Armstrong, who’s gone out to France [also to Lorient], there’s the young lad David Dunne at Monaco, who came from Cork.
So there’s players who are starting to make the move out there, to realise the opportunity, because with Brexit now in the UK the players can’t move until they’re 18. So they need to get themselves around Europe. We’ve seen the success that Troy Parrott has had in Holland [at AZ Alkmaar] and it’s giving people the belief that it’s not all about the Premier League, there’s a career elsewhere, and the French league is one of the top 5 in the world. If you can get into a side that’s playing in European competition then that adds to your CV.
The one thing I’d say is that it’s difficult as there’s a lot of good, young French talent coming through all the time. So it’s not an easy place to go, it’s not a place where you can think “I’m just going to leave Ireland and go and play first team in France” – you’ve got to work and you’ve got to be a really good player to do it. So I would recommend the opportunity to go to France or to any other European country to play first team football, players should take it.
RIchard Dunne was speaking exclusively to Get French Football News courtesy of Betinia
