Soccer

Ken Early: FAI AGM like a form of group therapy for Irish football

Delegates given a chance to ask questions although solicitors were there to vet them

A view of the FAI AGM at the Citywest Hotel on Sunday. Photo: Ryan Byrne/Inpho

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Ken Early
Mon Dec 30 2019 - 06:00

Donal Conway likes to portray his brief tenure as FAI president as one long effort to restore openness and transparency, so it was ironic that one of his first messages at yesterday’s FAI AGM was about the need for people to watch their words. Delegates were informed that two solicitors were present and would be vetting statements for potentially defamatory content.

Here we all were on the Sunday after Christmas, at an AGM which had been specially reconvened to rake through the smoking ruins of an FAI that had been ruined by incompetence and worse. Ireland’s light-touch financial regulatory system had allowed all this to happen, and now its heavy-touch libel laws stood ready to punish anyone who was unduly critical of the authors of the disaster.

Such legal precautions would have been unnecessary at past FAI AGMs where, in the words of one delegate, tradition had it that “asking a question was like Oliver asking for food.”

Sunday was Ireland’s football family in group therapy, with delegates from around the country venting their frustration and anger while the board sat at the top table and did their best to look like they were feeling their pain.

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There was little new detail on the state of the FAI’s finances, save the information that losses for 2019 are expected to be in the range of €3.5 million to €4 million. That sum happens to be close to the amount of money the FAI owes in professional fees to firms whose services it has required over the last few months, including its solicitors A&L Goodbody, Mazars, Grant Thornton, and long-time auditors Deloitte.

Deloitte in particular came in for sustained criticism from the floor, with much of this channeling the universal anger of the little guy confronted with the opaque and apparently absurdly unjust workings of the financial system.

The form of a typical query: why is it that my small business is audited in granular detail, with all expenses receipted and scrutiny applied “right down to the petty cash”, yet year after year Deloitte accepted fat fees – estimated by Paul Cooke at around €70k in a “normal” year – for signing off on FAI accounts which have proven to be a sham?

The reason given by Deloitte’s representative Richard Howard was that “as auditors, we receive representations from the board that all relevant information has been provided to us,” but this had proven not to be the case. Deloitte now believed that relevant information had been withheld, and so, as Howard repeated, “in our opinion, we were misled.”

It sounded like an admission that auditors can detect wrongdoing in all cases except those in which people are trying to do something wrong. Why it should cost so much to obtain a certification that apparently proves so little is something maybe only an auditor can explain.

There was a sense of indignation that the good name of everyone associated with Irish football has been tarred by association with the FAI’s meltdown. One delegate protested at the label “toxic brand” attaching itself to the FAI, pointing out that Fianna Fail was also once widely considered a toxic brand and yet a few short years after the economic crash its approval rating was close to that of the main government party.

This not-hugely-encouraging parallel out of the way, the delegate added that certain people were delighting in kicking Irish football when it was down, but that people involved in the game must not allow the “toxic brand” stuff to catch on, because that sort of talk has commercial consequences.

Does it? The idea that the FAI is too toxic for sponsors to be associated with seems a little far-fetched. These firms are not really sponsoring the FAI, but rather the international teams, which remain valuable properties. When it comes to getting a good deal from any potential new sponsor, the FAI’s problem is not that it is toxic, it’s that it is desperate. Any potential sponsor knows the association is broke and not in a position to walk away from lowball offers.

Another delegate said that given the money sloshing around the game in some countries, it was frustrating to see Irish football crushed beneath the weight of a debt that sounded insignificant by comparison. “50 million or 100 million, you wouldn’t get a mediocre player for that in England, all we’re talking about here is 65 million.” It makes you think – why does the FAI not simply sell Coutinho? Perhaps an idea for Shane Ross to float at the next bilateral meeting.

There was a call for “humility” from a delegate who argued that while everyone knew who was chiefly to blame, there also had to be an acceptance of responsibility on the part of the FAI council, the FAI board, and even the FAI staff – who didn’t blow the whistle soon enough. The delegate called for the FAI to issue an apology and an appeal for patience and tolerance to the people of Ireland, and received a round of applause.

The next delegate to speak rejected the previous speaker’s suggestion that the FAI staff should share in the blame. This also received a round of applause. In general, despite the grim questions under discussion, there seemed to be a sense of relief that people were finally being allowed to address long pent-up grievances in an official forum.

At a press conference after the AGM, the FAI’s executive lead Paul Cooke spelled out the size of the financial hole: €22 million. He and Conway reiterated their view that the way out of the crisis involves a roundtable discussion between all the key stakeholders: the FAI, Bank of Ireland, Uefa, Sport Ireland and the Irish government.

No such roundtable talks have yet been arranged, though Uefa are in Dublin on January 14th to meet government representatives. Cooke rejected the notion that it was now “up to the government to save Irish football,” – but only because the government cannot do it alone: all the stakeholders need to agree for a solution to be found.

He explained that Bank of Ireland, Uefa and Sport Ireland had been receptive to the idea of a roundtable, which left the government as the odd one out. This might be because the government suspects that everyone else in the room will be waiting for them to produce the money to solve the problem.

“When you look at the different entities, it’s reasonable they want to share the risk or the burden, rather than one entity absorbing all the risk,” Cooke said. Nobody wants to be on the hook for the FAI’s debts, but if somebody does not step up, examinership or even liquidation is an imminent prospect. “We’re heading damn close to the red zone,” Cooke said, but Irish football’s white knight is yet to be found.

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