Jonathan Hill, the FAI chief executive, last spoke to the assembled media on June 8th.
Hill and outgoing chairman Roy Barrett were front and centre. The leadership dynamic changes this Thursday morning when Hill will be flanked by director of football Marc Canham. It will be the 41-year-old’s first press conference despite being in the role for 15 months.
The announcement in June was ambitious as the FAI laid out plans to receive €517 million in Government funding over 15 years to improve facilities around the country, and slowly build a football industry in Ireland.
Hill revealed that the association’s debt had been reduced from €63.5 million to €44 million but the 60-year-old former English FA commercial director didn’t avoid reality; football’s turnover of €54.3 million in 2022 paled in comparison to the IRFU’s €115.6 million and the GAA turnover of €96 million.
Still, the potential existed for the Republic of Ireland senior teams to be successful in the second half of 2023. Vera Pauw’s squad were heading to the World Cup in Australia, the first Irish women’s side to qualify for a major tournament, and Stephen Kenny’s men’s team were preparing for a crunch European Championship qualifier against Greece in Athens by embarking on an expensive weeklong camp in Turkey.
Three months is hardly a damning period of time for a football executive to avoid questions but the number of controversies that have arisen during this period have seen questions and concerns increase week on week.
Hill and the FAI have been criticised for allowing the decision not to reappoint Pauw go unexplained since August 29th as it spilt into the men’s international window, where only John Giles has publicly supported Kenny’s candidacy to take Ireland into the future, following defeats to Greece, France and the Netherlands.
On Thursday, Hill plans to address a number of these issues before taking questions. Top among them is expected to be the allegations levelled at him by Pauw, after the FAI board of directors voted last month not to offer her a new two-year contract.
Pauw accused Hill of reneging on a “promised offer” of a contract extension before the World Cup. She claims that the CEO interfered in “technical football matters”. She said the FAI “management” asked if she had been “Garda vetted”.
Hill will be asked to address each of these complaints.
Pauw also stated that Canham was “not trained” to conduct a World Cup review and that it should have been an independent operation. She even criticised the behaviour of her assistant coach Tom Elms.
Hill and Canham will be also asked about this.
However, the format of the press conference will make it challenging to cover the fallout from both the men’s and women’s senior teams.
Beginning at 10:30am, Hill and Canham will sit before the entire media – broadcast, print, radio and online journalists – with the chief executive to read a prepared statement that will last 10 minutes.
There follows 15 minutes of “live” questions, the answers of which can be heard on radio or read online by noon.
Question one will almost certainly focus on Kenny’s future if this has not been addressed fully by Hill’s initial statement.
Next, broadcast media will leave the room and set up outside FAI headquarters in Abbotstown as Hill and Canham answer questions from print reporters for 15 minutes before breaking into a Sunday newspaper section for another 15 minutes.
Finally, at 11:45am, Hill and possibly Canham will do television interviews on the patio outside their offices.
There are mounting queries surrounding Kenny’s contract as Ireland manager, which is set to run until August 2024, as the FAI board discussed his position after the defeat in Athens on June 16th.
Kenny, who was down in Cork on Tuesday night to watch the under-21s beat San Marino 3-0, has stated repeatedly that his primary aim is bring Ireland to next summer’s Euros in Germany.
With Ireland increasingly unlikely to qualify, there will be questions around the FAI’s next moves, and whether it would make sense to give another head coach a long run into the qualification campaign for the 2026 World Cup in North America.
Ireland’s next qualifier is against Gus Poyet’s Greece in Dublin on October 13th.
There will be questions about Kenny’s potential successor, about Lee Carsley in particular, and about John O’Shea as a possible interim appointment.
Canham will be asked if an informal approach has been made to Carsley as a potential replacement for Kenny. He will be asked about other candidates.
Questions will follow about the current interview process to replace Pauw and a future format to replace Kenny.
Most questions will work off Hill’s prepared statement, so his response to the controversies surrounding Pauw’s World Cup experience and her subsequent departure will be revealing.
Hill will be asked to explain his entry into Ireland camp in July to check on the wellbeing of Pauw’s staff and players following a report by The Athletic that focused on the manager’s time at the Houston Dash in 2018. Pauw denies any wrongdoing.
“I asked the CEO to stop engaging with people and he said he had a right to do so,” said Pauw on August 31st.
Presumably, Hill’s statement will respond to Pauw.
If time allows, the FAI search to find a female executive to replace Barrett before the AGM in October, in order to hit 40 per cent female representation on the board, will be broached. Government funding could be withheld if the association fail to reach this target.
All of these avenues of inquiry will be known to the FAI media team, so Hill will be prepared. His answers will eat up the allotted time. Should any of the above go unanswered – chiefly the main points around Pauw and Kenny – the line of questioning will turn to the CEO’s position.
