Irish priests to enter European futsal tournament next year

Irish clergy have been invited for the first time to take part in the ‘European Futsal Championship For Priests’, which will be held in Prishtina, Kosovo, on February 1-5, 2027. Fr Mark Quinn, Tuam Parish, who is organising the Irish team, told The Irish Catholic that the tournament is in its 19th year, but it’s the first time Ireland will join.

Fr Quinn is “a lifelong soccer fan and player” who still plays today with his parish team, ‘Tuam Celtic’. He found out about the competition last year when a friend sent him a video. He contacted the tournament organisers and asked if Ireland could enter a team. They told Fr Quinn “that they would be delighted”, so now he is looking for priests in Ireland who would like to join.

“Of course, the number of priests has gone down, so that means the potential player pool has too, but there are also a number of priests here from Africa and Asia who will be able to represent Ireland.”

While in seminary, he said, “I organised the weekly football match on the University grounds. It was made up of seminarians, religious, and lay students. Once I organised a tournament which had a team from the seminary, from Redemptorist Mater in Dundalk, from men’s apostolate and from the local Salesians’ house.”

Fr Quinn has plenty of experience coaching. “Before seminary, I was a coach and a manager of a number of sides, and I was able to get some FAI coaching qualifications under my belt along the way, so it’s always just something I have done – looking after teams and organising players. I love it; so when this came up I thought it sounded fantastic.”

He hopes to have a meeting with interested clergy in October, but for that they “need more bodies and of course some support and possible kit sponsorship!”

Priests working in a diocese or religious Order in Ireland who would like to try out for this team are invited to do so by emailing Fr Mark Quinn at frmarkquinn@tuamparish.com.