Two years ago John Delaney declined to take questions from journalists at an FAI agm on the basis – he told delegates at the time – that it was not in "the best interests of the association" to provide answers to a group that had been so sceptical about its financial claims.
On Saturday in Sligo he did so again but this time the organisation appeared to acknowledge that it would not meet its own stated target of being debt free by 2020.
The claim that it would clear its borrowings on the Aviva Stadium by that date was itself a 2010 climb down on the previous assertion that the ill-fated Vantage Club premium ticket scheme would generate enough revenue to pay off the mortgage long before then.
Developed a plan
In his report to that meeting in 2012, Delaney still maintained that “the association has developed a plan out to 2020 which shows the debt being cleared”.
By early 2014, the line had become rather more blurred. “The question is do we actually want to be debt-free by 2020?” asked Delaney. “There are other things we could do with the money. The board will make that decision over the next few years.”
Now, it seems, the board has made the call that the sceptics were anticipating all along, with director of finance Eamon Breen telling delegates that "2015 to 2020 should see profits and cash being generated which will allow us to make further significant inroads into servicing our debt".
That sounds some way off the original target but is probably no great surprise given that, in the last financial year – the first in which the new Uefa deal kicked in – the association spent around €5.5 million just to stand still on its borrowings.
Prior to that, it had just received a writedown of €11.7 million from Corporate Capital Trust (this is the figure mentioned in the accounts, although repeated mention was made this week of €12.5 million “gross” with no explanation for the discrepancy), which took over the debt as Danske Bank sought to exit the Irish market.
This deal was hailed as a huge boost for the association but no details on the repayment schedule or interest rate being charged were ever made public.
Mainstream banking
On Saturday, Delaney appeared to suggest that these might not be so favourable.
“The current funding agreement that we have in our partners has delivered a significant reduction in the association’s debt levels when compared to just a few years ago,” he told delegates. “We will continue on that path by working hard to explore the market, including mainstream banking to ensure we continue to get the best deals for our members.”
There have always questions about why an American firm would grant an Irish football association a €12 million writedown on a debt it was taking over unless it simply didn’t believe that the organisation could actually pay back the full amount. Being the beneficiary of such a cut on that basis would not, of course, seem like such an achievement for the people who had consistently argued that there would not be any problem paying it back.
Delaney, of course, has declined to clarify any of these issues but despite the reference (more than once) on Saturday to of getting back to “mainstream banking”, he continued to refer to the writedown as an achievement, along with the receipt of a €3 million grant from Uefa that, unless there has been another one not mentioned in the accounts, was available to every member association.
Unapologetic The other element of the €20.5 million in “income” which he said had been obtained through “the delivery of some major financial arrangements in the last four years”
was the €5 million payment received from Fifa in the wake of the Thierry Henry handball. On this, he was unapologetic. “We’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it was a good business deal for the association . . . I wish we had got more.”
The association's honorary treasurer, Eddie Murray, meanwhile, said that the association would not be carrying the cost of reprinting the programmes for the Scotland game despite it having decided to pulp them in order to prevent comments by Delaney regarding levels of transparency at Fifa being circulated in the wake of the €5 million payment and related confidentiality clause.
“The association did not bear any additional costs directly as a result of this matter,” he said. “We have an excellent, long-standing relationship with our publisher and there was no additional cost for the re-printing of this programme.”
