It was announced recently that the French sports retailer Decathlon is planning to open 9 stores in Ireland including Dublin, Cork and Galway.
Decathlon are huge in France and sell sports gear usually at cheaper prices than the usual high street sports stores. They tend to be located on the edge of towns where rental prices are cheaper rather than say in town centres.
Joining an already crowded market, their arrival is bound to have an impact on existing sports stores in Ireland, especially the more generic ones which don't specialise in particular sports.
Decathlon has some 1,350 stores in 40 countries and they expect to open their first Irish store in 2019. The plan is to open their first store in Dublin followed by Cork and Galway. I presume 2020 may well be the earliest that we will see a store in Cork.