The Europa Conference League was created to allow clubs from smaller nations to take part in European competition, while also helping their leagues coefficient rankings and getting more clubs to qualify for the Europa and Champions Leagues.
This seemed to be tailor made for League of Ireland clubs who have knocked on the door of Europa League qualification in the past but that hasn't been the case.
No League of Ireland club is yet to qualify for the Europa Conference League proper but St. Patrick's Athletic are looking to change that.
The Inchicore side face Azerbaijani side Sabah in their first leg of third round of qualification on Thursday at Tallaght Stadium. However the return leg in Azerbaijan has been causing an issue for Pats.
In between the two legs Pats have a League of Ireland fixture against Galway United and with the logistics of getting out to Azerbaijan, playing a match in Galway on the Sunday beforehand isn't ideal preparation.
St. Pats manager Stephen Kenny said that his side have already requested for the match to be cancelled but it was rejected. Speaking to reporters after his side's win over Sligo Rovers, Kenny spoke about the difficulty with getting to their second leg against Sabah.
We have requested the Galway game to be cancelled, because we have to come back from Galway and literally get on a flight in the early hours of the morning to Turkey, and then hang around for a lot of hours and in the end we’ll be on two separate flights,
We have asked Galway and we have asked the FAI. The FAI said you have to make a request to Galway, but Galway have said no, so that’s fair enough, that’s their decision.
But I think there is a provision in the rulebook for the Director of the League to make a decision,
The former Ireland manager then went on to question the FAI's support for League of Ireland clubs, especially in terms of their European ambitions.
My problem is this, you need a bit of vision here. All of the mission statements in the FAI are that we want to have two or three teams in the group stages within a certain amount of years.
But there is no evidence that it is actually supported.
We then had six matches in a two-week period when I came in before that and now we have five matches in 15 days, including going to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, and going through three time-zones to get to Azerbaijan.
Stephen Kenny has a point, if the FAI are serious about getting more clubs in Europe, then they should be helping their sides rather than hindering them.
