Campbell College is rugby country. Located just a penalty-kick from Stormont in east Belfast, it has churned out a parade of rugby greats from Mike Gibson to World Cup hero Gordon Hamilton – and more recent Ireland internationals like Paddy Wallace and Tom O’Toole.
It has serious Hogwarts vibes as well, and if the oval ball wasn’t so dominant, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were more likely to find students playing Quidditch than soccer.
But it’s here the cream of Northern Ireland’s talent has been based since 2024, at the Irish Football Association’s JD Academy.
A dozen are chosen each year from across the north for the programme, which combines Elite Football development with their final two years of schooling.
Campbell College in Belfast, where the cream of Northern Irish soccer talent is based
The IFA funds their education and full board for two years, providing significant support for the players and families. They must remain in Northern Ireland for the duration and cannot accept offers from clubs outside Northern Ireland until they have completed their full-time education.
Among those graduating from the Academy’s previous iteration at Jordanstown was Arsenal’s Céadach O’Neill, the subject of recent approaches from the Republic. His younger brother Conleth is a current student of the Academy at Campbell.
Those ‘approaches’ have long been a bugbear of the IFA, given what Michael O’Neill describes as an ‘unfairness’ when it comes to the eligibility process. All young players born in Northern Ireland are eligible for the Republic by virtue of the automatic right to Irish citizenship conferred by the Good Friday Agreement.
The Academy may not have been established exclusively to stave off Republic approaches for young players, but it’s an added benefit. Ironically, academies have been in the news down south, with the announcement of a €1m investment in last Tuesday’s Budget.
Ceadach O’Neill in action for Northern Ireland in the Nations League against Georgia
‘Of course players have decisions to make on their club situations, on their international situations, but I think your pathway is very important,’ Northern Ireland manager O’Neill told the BBC recently.
‘We want young players from whatever part of the community they come from. If they’re in this programme or even if they’re outside this programme or late developers. This is one option that’s available and it’s a very good option. I think it builds a loyalty within players as well and that’s what we are aiming to do.’
O’Neill last month stated that Céadach O’Neill did not have a ‘bloodline’ connection to the Republic of Ireland, in the wake of attempts to convince the teen to switch allegiance.
The use of the word ‘blooodline’ – a word in hindsight he admits he could have avoided –sparked criticism from Republic supporters and commentators. However, that reaction is nothing to the annoyance up north over what is seen as the exclusive targeting of players based on their Catholic/nationalist background for recruitment to the Republic, and the repeated reporting of these players as coming from ‘GAA family’ or having played GAA in the past, suggesting this denotes inevitable fealty to the Republic.
Andy Waterworth, the Irish FA Director of Talent and Elite Player Development
As one columnist put it: ‘Perhaps I should start dropping references to which lodge a Protestant player’s grandfather marches with on the 12th, just to level things up.’
On the face of it, it’s an unedifying look. However southern eyes, only thinking of the Republic’s interests, are more likely to turn to those kids who have outwardly expressed their ‘Irishness’ through the GAA or otherwise rather than others who may have little, if any, sense of ‘Irishness’.
As it happens, O’Neill and Andy Waterworth, who is the Irish FA’s Head of Elite Player Development, could be described as coming from GAA families themselves.
O’Neill played himself and his late father Dessie was an Antrim hurling legend. Before establishing himself with Glentoran and Linfield, Waterworth played GAA in his teenage years and his grandfather Noel McCarthy was a defender when Down won their first All-Ireland title at any level when the juniors won in 1946. A true all-rounder, McCarthy later captained Glentoran to a clean sweep of domestic trophies in 1951, going on to play over 400 games for the east Belfast side.
‘I played minor (Gaelic) football and you know I loved GAA when I was younger but it was always my second love,’ O’Neill told Mail Sport. ‘Football was always my first love … I grew up watching Northern Ireland, for instance at the 1986 World Cup, so my only ambition was to play for Northern Ireland, despite what people may have thought about my background.
Michael O’Neill in action for Newcastle United in an FA Cup clash with Swindon in 1988
‘You know it was a proud day for me and the father when I made my debut for Northern Ireland. I wasn’t the exception… there was plenty of other lads like that, other players like Jim Magilton, but you know our focus was all very much on being part of the Northern Ireland squad. A lot of players for the 10 years I was in the squad were of a similar background.
‘I think sometimes people in the Republic reflect only on the game of November 1993, but that’s over 30 years ago and Northern Ireland as a country has changed.’
O’Neill’s side are in rude health now, top of their Nations League B Group, the only team yet to concede a goal. Not bad for such a young outfit whose average age was just 22 when they brushed Ukraine aside – 3-0 – in Trnava last Friday week.
Apart from the younger O’Neill, Ruairí McConville, Brodie Spencer, Callum Marshall, Braiden Graham and Patrick Kelly were among others in that night’s squad to come through the IFA’s academy system.
The spotlight on Arsenal star O’Neill is not Michael O’Neill’s first rodeo when it comes to the north-south tug-of-war. In his first spell in charge of the North, he advocated a gentleman’s agreement with his Republic counterpart and namesake, Martin O’Neill – something which never materialised. And his ‘bloodline’ comment annoyed southern commentators as much as his claim back in 2018 that the FAI only targeted ‘Catholic’ players in the North annoyed Martin O’Neill.
Youngsters Bailey Magee and Kayson Braniff with Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill
‘We never had a gentlemen’s agreement at any point in time,’ the Northern Ireland manager tells Mail Sport. ‘I have not disputed the rights of any young player in Northern Ireland to make that choice and I know that people referred to my use of “bloodline” but really what I was referring to was that a player plays for the country where they are born, or his parents are born or his grandparents are born – those are the rules of FIFA every nation abides by.
‘But it’s a unique situation where obviously the Republic have the option to pick outside of that. I have to pick from six counties, I don’t have the option to pick from 32 counties so I don’t think anyone would disagree there’s an unfairness in that.
‘But I’ve never disputed any young player’s right to make that decision. I’ve never criticised any young player for making that decision. I have questioned whether it’s been the best decision for their careers which I think as an international manager I’m entitled to do.
‘So you’re taking them out of a system, a system that knows them and may be able to offer a route to senior international football and the approaches are not made by the senior manager, so that’s the thing that annoys me.
‘When you make these approaches… if you’re going to play with a young player’s career you need to be 100% sure that you’re doing it with the right intentions.’
Céadach O’Neill and Braiden Graham before Northern Ireland’s clash against Georgia in September
One way of addressing the issue is to work on the ‘system’ and make it attractive enough for the best young talent. It’s win-win, but costs money. The original Club NI was the brainchild of Magilton, before it moved to Jordanstown Campus prior to finally setting up shop in east Belfast in 2024.
Magilton explained while on TV duty recently how UEFA officials were convinced to invest in the academy. Northern Ireland was chosen as one of three countries, along with Finland and Israel, for investment in such an establishment between 2019 and 2023. IFA sponsor JD also saw enough promise to invest.
‘Campbell College have a strong history of credible pastoral care,’ says Waterworth.
He describes the unlikely alliance with Campbell as a ‘nice hand in hand partnership’ though Bert Robinson, the school’s head of boarding, hinted to the BBC that there were some teething issues when it got up and running two years ago.
‘It probably wasn’t very easy at the start because of the tradition of the school. But there’s something special when I liaise with Andy about the academy. The rugby boys learn from the football boys and the football boys learn from the rugby boys.’
One of the aims of the Academy is to address the geographical disadvantage players from Ireland face if they want to make it as a pro in England or even Scotland.
‘Premier League clubs in England will start to bring players in from the age of eight, sometimes even younger and that commitment can be as much as four times a week from a very young age,’ explained Michael O’Neill. ‘A lot of these (JD Academy) lads are getting the opportunity to go to Premier League clubs, but they have a big gap to bridge against a local kid who has been in that system… by the time he gets to 16, may have been in the club for eight years.
‘So we’re hoping that the lad we drop in after two years here is better-equipped and that has proven to be the case…the feedback from the clubs certainly would suggest that they’re happy with the lads.’
Waterworth’s own career was marked by a difficult spell in Scotland, where he was homesick after joining Hamilton Academical. The move from Crossgar in County Down proved too much and he never could quite shake ‘impostor syndrome’, something he’s determined graduates of this academy avoid, hoping they ‘have a little bit of a swagger and they’re prepared’ for what awaits them.
‘When they come here they are still very young,’ Waterworth told Mail Sport. ‘We have what we feel are the most high potential players in the country because we only bring in 12 a year. They’ll have the technical fundamentals, what they need is further support on their technical development they need tactical education, they need to be surrounded by the best players.
‘I came through the whole football ecosystem from grassroots league to Irish league, across to Scotland, up to the international senior squad where I was involved in the panel. I had a lot of regret and resentment which propelled me to following the educational path.’
Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill and Hungary’s Dominik Szoboszlai last month
Research by academic Conor Curran’s on the struggles of ‘Irish Soccer Migrants’ when they left home struck a chord with Waterworth and provided him with context for a lot of what he’d experienced himself.
‘There’s a dream of being a footballer and people often say you have to put all your eggs in the football basket, where we don’t really think that.’
O’Neill’s experience as a young footballer is a more familiar tale.
‘I went to Coleraine as a 15 year-old and I played men’s football. By the age of just turned 18 I was transferred to Newcastle United and I just went into the first team squad. We didn’t have that level of support that these younger players have, but I did have I suppose exposure to the men’s game from a very very young age, which I think has his own advantages as well,’ O’Neill tells Mail Sport.
‘We’re just trying to make sure those young lads when they go across to whatever club it may be that they have the tools and the education to give them the benefit.’
And if it seals their loyalty if the Republic comes knocking, all the better.
