By:
Conor Martin
Cork’s Ringmahon Rangers are set to receive a welcome cash injection after former player Caoimhín Kelleher completed his transfer to Premier League Brentford on Tuesday.
The Munster Senior League Senior Premier Division club will no doubt be proud to see their most famous son become a first-choice goalkeeper at a Premier League club.
They’ll also be no doubt excited and pleased about the incoming money windfall that will make its way across the Irish Sea.
Boost for Irish grassroots clubs
The sell-on clause they included in Kelleher’s 2015 £30,000 transfer to the Anfield club has proven fruitful.
The Republic of Ireland stopper’s former club will receive 20% of the fee paid by the club managed by Thomas Frank, as reported on Monday. That fee in question is reported to be £12.5 million (€15 million). This could increase to £18 million (€21 million) with performance-related add-ons. As a result, the Cork club are due to bank €3 million.
It will be the biggest-ever sell-on windfall for an Irish club.
Previously, Shamrock Rovers received around €2m of the fee Southampton paid Manchester City for Gavin Bazunu in 2022.
Rovers’ arch-rivals Bohemians got a €1.7m cut from Matt Doherty’s transfer from Wolves to Tottenham Hotspur.
Also in line for a payout from Kelleher’s London move is his boyhood club, Rockmount AFC. Which is also where Manchester United legend Roy Keane started out his football career.
They are set to receive 20% of the fee received by Ringmahon, earning up to £720,000 from the Irishman’s sale.
The news is a welcome boost for grassroots football in Ireland. It will also allow Ringmahon to improve the club in various areas.
The club has a sizeable amount of members connected to the club, 500 to be exact.
Of course, there is also the knock-on effect this will have with younger players at the club who will be thinking, if Caoimhín can make it on the world stage, then so can we.
Ringmahon Rangers praises ‘Kelleher-effect’
In an interview with the Irish Times, Ringmahon chairman Paul Higgins spoke about the effect Kelleher’s success has had on the clubs younger players:
“It’s easy for us to go back to the kids and say, ‘If you work hard, you have a chance at that. We have photos of the boys when they were younger in teams, working hard. [Current players at Ringmahon] see all that and it’ll drive them all on to bigger things.”
And the Kelleher-effect hasn’t gone unnoticed. “It’s bringing numbers in their droves,” Higgins says. “It’s brilliant. And it’s huge numbers that want to be goalkeepers, which is probably a problem position for everyone for years.
“We always believed that Caoimhín would be a success.
“But I don’t think anyone could have expected him to be so successful to the extent that he is. Because he’s well thought of and well regarded among all his fellow players.”
And Higgins feels now is the right time for Kelleher to leave Merseyside. “He’s after winning every single trophy he can at Liverpool. At Brentford now, he’s going to go in, he’s going to be number one, he’s going to be Irish number one. It’s a great stepping stone for his future, so it’s huge for him.”
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