Bohemian FC secures Oscar Traynor Centre’s future following agreement with FAI, NDSL and AFL

Bohemian FC is delighted to announce that the club’s directors have become the sole members of the Oscar Traynor Coaching and Development Centre CLG, which is the long-term leaseholder of the Oscar Traynor Centre Football Centre in Dublin 17.

This follows an agreement between the North Dublin Schoolboy League (NDSL), Amateur Football League (AFL) and the Football Association of Ireland (FAI), who all stepped away from the company, allowing Bohemian FC board members to step in.

Bohemian FC, under the agreement reached, has paid off significant debts related to the site, ensuring its long-term future in football.

This has been made possible thanks to years of financial sustainability at the club and a clear vision on facility and community development. We have also agreed that the NDSL will continue its use of the centre, for their thousands of young boys and girls from across North Dublin.

Bohemian FC will remain the other large football user of the site, as we have done for several years, with our boys and girls academy teams being based here alongside social inclusion projects. Some other users will also be accommodated on the site, including hours for local schools.

Bohemian FC has ambitious plans for the development and future use of the centre, to build on what is presently an impressive facility, and create the best academy in Irish football. But this will be a unique setting providing a football and education base for aspiring professional players as well as disadvantaged and marginalized groups.

We have already made improvements with a new analysis room finished in recent weeks. Our bigger plans will involve further development of the site, across both on- and off-pitch football facilities, as well as classrooms and multi-use spaces needed for modern academies and community work, all subject to finance and planning.

From 2024 onwards, Bohemian FC will be hosting several elements of our community and social outreach projects from the centre. These projects will hugely benefit the local area and be across disability and inclusion football for both adults and kids, educational programmes for early school leavers, integration and anti-racism activities as well as our work in health and wellbeing, and climate and sustainability.

This is a huge and exciting development for the club which will benefit Dublin 17 and indeed the northside of the city as a whole.