Before we begin this interview we would like to thank both Treaty United and Ciara for the opportunity for this interview and we wish them the very best for the 2025 season starting in 3 weeks.
LOITalk: For people who are reading who may not know about you, tell us abit about yourself?
CM:I’m originally from Vancouver, Canada – grew up there with 2 Irish parents (Mom – Drinagh, West Cork / Dad – Athlone) who emigrated to Canada in the late 70’s in their 20s. Started playing soccer when I was 7 when I threw a fit at my younger brothers first game cause he got to play and I didn’t. My parents had never seen girls play soccer, so my Dad looked into it, and within a week was the coach of my U9 team. Played on competitive teams growing up, got a scholarship to Yale in the US to university and played NCAA D1 there. Went on to play in pro leagues in Denmark, Norway, Australia, Canada and the US – and played for the ROI National Team as well for a few years. Got 3 masters degrees while I was playing pro at various universities and ran my own coaching and events business remotely through my whole soccer career. Played til age 34 professionally and made a brief comeback for Treaty in LOI in 2023 at age 43 and captained the team’s first win in 2 years, which I’ll brag about in the old folks home in a few decades.
LOIT:What inspired you to chase a career in football? Any stand out moments?
CM: It was my thing with my Dad when I was younger – he was probably the best and worst thing that happened to my soccer career cause he knew nothing about football – but I loved the car rides with him and chats about what I could do better, and then as I got older, all my friends and my social life was around soccer – I just really loved working super hard at something and watching myself improve. And then once I saw it could lead to university, traveling etc, it just kept me motivated.
Stand out moments would be my first cap with Ireland playing against the US in a huge stadium in 2008 in Philadelphia after they’d just won the gold medal. I used to spend thousands of hours with my friends in my 20’s playing pick up in random parks and we were all so competitive it was like our own little World Cup every day and I loved that time. I was never a standout player growing up and had to work so hard for everything I got, so I think there were a lot of little moments in my career that I just felt proud of myself for the work, resilience and belief it took to get there.
LOIT: You were the first North American to feature in a UEFA Champions League final. Is that up there with your best achievements playing wise?
CM: I don’t think I realized how big it was at the time – but looking back, I always was sort of ahead of the curve, pushing myself and doing and seeing things before other people did or saw them. A bit of a risk taker I guess you could say and at the beginning stages of women’s football getting taken more seriously. It’s something in retrospect for sure I’m very proud of. More so because like I said, I was a late bloomer and was still toe punting the ball when I was 12 and just had a very challenging journey to get to where I got to. I played in an era where in the Champions League semi finals against Arsenal we were changing in a makeshift portable locker room just outside of the Arsenal men’s parking lot, so its wild to see how far the women’s game has gone since then.
LOIT: You Joined Treaty United in January 2023, What attracted you to Treaty United?
CM:It was a very random journey – I reached out to the league wanting to sponsor and bring Canadian female players to Ireland to start a team in West Cork where my Mom is from. The FAI said that they weren’t doing standalone teams anymore and encouraged me to reach out to one of the teams in Munster that were struggling on the women’s side – and recommended Treaty. Marie Curtin my old teammate from Ireland was there and so that helped get in the door. I brought the 7 North American players over in 2023, and joined them on the pitch to make sure the environment for them was good, saw the club was struggling and asked the board if they were interested in investment. They were, and so I went and found that investment and here we are.
LOIT: In October 2023, You were announced as CEO of Treaty United, What motivated you to take on the role?
CM: It was always a goal to run an Irish soccer club – kind of like that wild, dream goal. I wanted to give back to a place that gave me my international career and also felt as a player I knew the kinds of things that were important to make a club successful – I had a lot of business experience that ran parallel to my soccer career and when I got the investment, it was the role we discussed with my partners that I would take, and here we are.
LOIT: How have you found your first season in the CEO role of Treaty
United? Is it harder than expected?
CM:It’s been a challenge for sure, but in a good way. There was a lot to learn. We were also taking over something that already existed but didn’t have a lot of structure so there were major foundational things like financial governance, building out an org chart and roles, building policies and procedures, improving things on the footballing side, building relationships in the community whereby there wasn’t a lot of trust because of the ups and downs of Limerick football in the past. I worked probably 15 hour days every day last year to get the foundations laid – it was very hard work, but I feel like we are getting to a good place now. I’m excited for this year, for the knowledge we now have, and the bandwidth we’ve built, that will help us reach our goals.
LOIT: What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced since taking over the club?
CM: I think the scepticism and jadedness because of the tumultuous past within Limerick senior soccer, the sheer volume of work and figuring out the best way to organize it, building capacity to manage it, and coming into something that already existed and having to figure out what is working and what needs to be improved, as well as having to build a lot of structures from scratch.
LOIT: What is your long-term vision for Treaty United, both on and off
the pitch? Where do you see the club being in the next 5-10 years?
CM:In 5-10 years, our goals are for our men’s team to be competing strongly in the Premier Division, our Women’s team regularly winning the Premier Division, and our academy recognized within Ireland and internationally as a hub for building top players on the boys and girls side to impact at the highest level. We’d also like to have world class facilities in 5-10 years for both training and game day as well.
LOIT: Can you share any exciting plans or developments fans can look
forward to for on and off the field?
CM: – We submitted a 9 million euro stadium proposal in July for the LSSIF grant – we weren’t able to publicize it for various reasons but I think its a great display of the long term vision and standards we are working towards within the club. We will apply again in the future and feel hopeful that next time with a longer runway and opportunity to lobby publicly, that we will be successful.
- We identified last year player physical development and injury prevention, especially on the men’s side, as one of the key reasons our play suffered after our strong start – we’ve hired and are waiting for the visa to go through for a world class Director of Sports Science from North America who has worked with national team athletes in soccer and professional athletes across many different leagues such as the NHL, National Lacrosse League and MLS who we feel is going to make a big difference in the athletic development of players within the club, and give us an edge in that regard on a national level.
- We also will be signing international players on the men’s side who have been with us in pre-season – they’ve scored against Galway, and Cork in preseason matches – and we’re looking forward to continuing to use our international network to acquire impact players, while also developing top talent from within our academy to impact both senior teams in a significant way at our club.
- On the women’s side, people will see top talent from Limerick, such as 15 year old Madison McGuane featuring on the senior women’s team this year and a really exciting blend of international and young local talent that we think we will compete well in 2025.
LOIT:Attracting people to get to games and support the teams is
probably 1 of the most important things to ensure the clubs stability,
If you could say anything to anyone in the midwest region thinking of
going to a game what would you say to them?
CM:We’re working very hard to build a game day atmosphere similar to North America – where there is an environment that draws people to an enjoyable game experience in addition to what is going on, on the pitch. I’d say give us a chance if they are looking for a fun way to spend a Friday night and Saturday afternoon – and then it will be on us on and off the pitch to ensure that they come back!
Again everyone at LOITalk would like to thank Treaty United and Ciara for her time and we wish them all the best for the upcoming season!