John Delaney has come under fire in the latest sitting of the Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport, with sports minister Shane Ross saying he would consider putting pressure on the FAI to implement measures still outstanding from the 2002 Genesis report.
On foot of questioning from Kildare North TD Catherine Murphy concerning the lack of independent directors on the FAI board, Ross agreed that there were governance issues for the soccer body to attend to.
“I think you’re right,” he told Murphy. “I think that organisations of that sort, specifically those that get government funding and have such a large public following, should have independent directors. That’s something that certainly ought to happen. Obviously we can put some pressure on them because they get government funding.”
“Will you do that?” asked Murphy?
“I’ll consider it,” replied Ross. “I’ll look at the details and I’ll consider it.”
Government funding of €2.7 million accounts for around six per cent of the FAI’s annual turnover, an amount that could now come under pressure if the Minister follows through on his comments.
Murphy also brought up Delaney’s performance in front of the committee a fortnight ago, during which he brushed off questioning about the €5m the FAI received from Fifa in the wake of the Thierry Henry handball in 2009.
It prompted Minister of State for Sport Patrick O’Donovan to claim that it was the committee itself, in a previous iteration, that had blocked efforts to get Delaney to shed light on the payment.
Further light
“I was a member of the last committee,” O’Donovan said, “and Senator [John] O’Mahony was the chairman of it. We attempted to do that and we were blocked by our own members. Some of them might want to forget that now but that was blocked by our own committee.”
O’Donovan was referring to the committee’s attempts in June 2015 to bring Delaney in front of it. At the time, it was reported Delaney had personally called members to convince them not to question him on the matter with Dessie Ellis TD saying that Delaney had told him “he had disclosed as much as he could regarding the payment”. On foot of Murphy’s question, O’Mahony shed further light on the events of the time.
“The legal advice, strong legal advice at the time, in relation to the €5 million that came from the Thierry Henry thing, the legal advice was that we couldn’t question it because it wasn’t Government funding,” O’Mahony said. “There was a request to bring the CEO of the FAI and we had to act on the legal advice we got.”
“At the meeting here two weeks ago,” said Murphy, “the CEO of the FAI said he was told he wouldn’t have to answer that question. I found that unacceptable, that someone would come and be told they weren’t required to answer what was an important question.”
“I think that’s something which should have been addressed at this committee last week,” said Ross.
