IFA FEARS LOSING MORE YOUNG PLAYERS AFTER SYKES’ DEFECTION
FEARS are growing in the Irish FA that more young Northern Ireland players will follow the lead of Oxford United midfielder Mark Sykes and switch allegiance to the Republic of Ireland.
Announcing his first squad for next month’s Nations League games against Romania and Norway, Northern Ireland boss Ian Baraclough (right) admitted he was “very, very disappointed” that the 23-yearold had decided to declare for the Republic but the Belfast Telegraph understands that an even more concerning issue at Windsor Park is that the ex-glenavon ace’s move could have a domino effect.
It is believed that some other players coming through the ranks with Northern Ireland are considering their international futures and will have watched the Sykes situation with interest.
Belfast-born Sykes starred for the Under-21 side under Baraclough and was called into the senior squad three times when Michael O’neill was in charge but he never played in a competitive game, meaning that, under Fifa rules, he could still opt for the Republic of Ireland.
Having held talks with Republic boss Stephen Kenny, Sykes this weekend informed Baraclough that he wanted to go from north to south.
Sykes has not been included in Kenny’s Republic of Ireland squad for their September Nations League encounters with Bulgaria and Finland though, given such an international switch cannot be formally processed for a number of months, his FAI call-up is likely to come at a later date.
He played 11 times for the under-21s and excelled with Baraclough at the helm and, when O’neill was manager, he was on the bench for a Euro 2020 qualifier in Belarus in June last year. Had he been brought on, it would have tied him to representing Northern Ireland at international level.
Baraclough made the point that he wasn’t intending to hand caps out in order to secure international futures but, on the back of the Sykes move, stress levels have increased at the IFA about what could happen next with the potential for more players currently at Under-17, under-19 and under-21 level making a move.
In the recent past, high-profile switches have been few and far between following a period when the IFA lost a number of Northern Ireland-born promising players to the Republic, including Darron Gibson, Shane Duffy (left) and James Mcclean.
Quizzed if the IFA could do anything about players switching allegiance, Baraclough said: “There’s been a lot of talk in the past about it, there have been a lot of discussions, be it with Uefa, Fifa, the Court of Arbitration, but they are the rules as it stands at the moment.
“We don’t particularly agree with them but, unless that changes, it’s something we have to deal with.”