Time again to check in on our heroes in the FAI, which even Ivan Yates and Brian Dowling could tell you is the Irish translation of WTF. We find the local chapter of the guardians of the world’s biggest sport just a little distracted right now, working through a to-do list that is only rivalled in length by the time it is taking to find a manager for the men’s national team. Which, in turn, is only rivalled by the time it has taken to find a sponsor for the men’s national team.
But we’ll get to all of that in due course.
Let’s begin instead with the FAI’s imminent day trip to Leinster House. This coming Thursday, Jonathan Hill and friends will tread what has become a familiar path to the Oireachtas committee rooms and hold out their knuckles for the rap of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) cane. Rumour has it that Imelda Munster has been pumping iron in the Dáil gym ready to land haymakers. Alan Dillon hasn’t been fed in a week.
Wednesday will be 13 weeks since the end of Stephen Kenny’s reign as Ireland manager
You’ll remember that the last time Hill and Co found themselves on Kildare Street, Deputy Dillon denounced what they were peddling concerning the chief executive’s salary issues as “a cock-and-bull story”. Indeed, the former two-time All Star didn’t put a tooth in it when laying out what would be required from the FAI when they returned early in the new year.
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“We will need to see the emails that were sent in order to see who initiated the conversation,” said Dillon. “It is important that we establish the facts. What is evident today is that these payments were made in secret and were part of a cosy arrangement between Mr Hill, the former finance director, the HR director and the FAI chairman, who Mr Hill says initiated this.”
That was on December 13th. How’s all that going, as a matter of interest?
“Public Accounts Committee rejects FAI’s request to push out grilling” — Irish Examiner, February 16th, 2024.
Ah.
According to John Fallon’s story, the association is pleading that the two months that have passed since they were in front of their last Dáil committee haven’t been enough time to dig out the emails Dillon is looking for. Awful slow, these email search boxes, right enough. Have they tried using quotation marks maybe? One way or the other, the PAC isn’t having a bar of it and so Hill and pals have a diary date to fulfil on Thursday.
The timing couldn’t be more apt since Wednesday will be 13 weeks since the end of Stephen Kenny’s reign as Ireland manager. If that feels like a random number to pick out as being important, we have the X account @TheIrishKieran to thank for highlighting its significance. There are 55 countries affiliated with Uefa (or 54 since they suspended Russia). Of those, 50 appointed their latest manager within 12 weeks of the previous one’s departure. Ireland is sharing laggard status with Liechtenstein and Israel (16 weeks) and Azerbaijan (30 weeks, during the pandemic).
Thirteen weeks is a long time, is the point. It’s not, oddly enough, the longest the FAI have gone without appointing a permanent manager — they went 15 weeks between the end of Steve Staunton in October 2007 and the start of Giovanni Trapattoni in February 2008. But even that felt shorter because there was a game in the middle of it and Don Givens filled the caretaker role for it.
For weeks, word has done the rounds that the issue with Lee Carsley is money. Not necessarily money for him as much as money for the set-up he wants to bring with him
Without a game this time around, 13 weeks has felt interminable. Worse, it has increasingly felt like the FAI are not in control of the situation. There’s no massive need to rush things unduly but you do need to look like everything is progressing on your terms. That is not the case for the FAI here.
For weeks, word has done the rounds that the issue with Lee Carsley is money. Not necessarily money for him as much as money for the set-up he wants to bring with him. Whatever the precise truth of it all, the one thing we do know is that the numbers aren’t astronomical. In sum, you’re talking about a few hundred grand here and there.
Granted, this is not peanuts — and clearly, none of it is growing on trees out around Abbotstown. But let’s go back to that Dáil committee hearing in December for a minute. In among all the comings and goings over Hill’s remuneration and the €20,000 mistakenly paid to him in lieu of holidays — cash he has agreed to repay — it emerged that the chief executive’s basic salary rose by €47,000 over the previous three years. This was in line with the agreed contract and perfectly above board.
Still, this is the FAI we’re talking about. People are inclined to ask very pointed questions about the FAI, what with all the past unpleasantness. Such as, if it can find the guts of €50,000 for the chief executive in obviously straitened times, why can’t it find a few hundred thousand for the most important role in Irish football? And if Carsley is the right man and this is the true sticking point, aren’t they being pennywise and pound foolish?
All of this has an effect. After a decent couple of years, the mood music is starting to turn on the FAI. People are noticing small things and getting shirty about them and making them into bigger things.
Like the fact that the League of Ireland started back this weekend and yet it wasn’t mentioned on any of the FAI’s social channels. Like the fact that the latest women’s squad was announced a day later than billed and that manager Eileen Gleeson didn’t hold a press conference to explain her picks. Like the fact that there is apparently, finally, a new sponsor for the men’s team in the shape of Revolut but it isn’t set in stone and yet somehow it’s out there as a fait accompli.
As ever, the bigger picture is the thing here. The vast majority of people haven’t got the first clue what it takes to run football in Ireland. But they do two things that are absolutely crucial. One, you cannot be seen to make a mess of appointing the manager of the Ireland men’s team. And two, you cannot sit in front of Dáil committees squirming over questions about money. In order to address all the other stuff, you have to get out from under that pair of clouds first. And fast.
In other words, the FAI has a monumental week in advance of it.
