EXCLUSIVE | Richard Dunne’s advice for young Irish footballers: ‘I think France is an amazing place for them.’

EXCLUSIVE | Richard Dunne’s advice for young Irish footballers: ‘I think France is an amazing place for them. ’ 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.