Mooney was a goalkeeper with Limerick, Cork City and Shamrock Rovers in the League of Ireland and has also worked with the FAI.
He believes Wales’ domestic game can learn a lot from his native country and said “everything is on the table” with regard the top-flight Cymru Premier, including a much-debated switch to summer football.
“I have a lot of experience from Ireland with the league there and it was clear to me that there were some clubs that adapted better than others to connecting with communities, to facilities to building their brands,” Mooney added.
“If you look in Ireland there’s Bohemians. When I first met them they were in dire straits and now they sell out and [are] going to a new state-of-the-art stadium that’s being built and will sell out there.
“It’s because they connected with the locality, built a brand that’s really attractive to the people of the area. Sligo did similar and are very much the centre of the community.
“What we’ve got to do is to have a big plan for the league and each of the clubs have to have their own plans which fit into that and I’ve no doubt the Cymru Premier will be much stronger in five or six years’ time.
“But we need partners with us so we need for example the broadcasters, the commercial partners, the [Welsh] Government and Sport Wales to believe in the Cymru Premier division.
“We need to have a strong, thriving domestic championship and that’s really important. It’s often seen as a barometer of the strength of football in the country.
“We are in a geographically unusual spot in Europe – even in Ireland they have water between them and the biggest league in the world.
“We can literally drive a few kilometres and we’re going to the biggest league on the planet that everybody wants to be part of.
“That said it’s great because it drives interest in football generally in Wales, but our duty at the FAW is to support our clubs to grow here and we will be developing a plan with the clubs.”
In the build up to Wales’ opening Women’s World Cup qualifier against Kazakhstan, Mooney has met with staff and members of the senior squad.
He said women’ and girls football was a huge growth market and that he was confident the game in Wales would be much stronger by the time he left his role.
“The support for girls’ football in Wales has grown dramatically in the last period and that will continue to grow,” Mooney said.
“We’ll launch the Women’s and Girl’s strategy very soon and what you’ll see in that is new agreements with the women’s senior team and also a new agreement really with the whole of Welsh women’s football – a commitment to invest in grassroots, youth national teams etc.
“Equality comes in lots of different forms – it comes from having the same support, the same conditions and sometimes more.
“A lot of our men’s team for example would have their own endorsements and boot deals whereas the women’s team won’t so the FAW would cover things for the women’s teams we wouldn’t for the men’s teams.