SOCCER:DESPITE THE extent to which the association's debt has soared as their payments on the Aviva Stadium have become due over the last year and a half, FAI chief executive John Delaney again insisted at the organisation's agm in Ennis on Saturday that their borrowings will be paid off by the year 2020.

Accounts for the year ending December 31st last show that the association had loans, including a €4 million overdraft, of around €67 million at that date, but Delaney claimed the sum of €63 million in capital borrowing, which is included in this figure, has since been reduced to €50 million, while a payment of around €2.2 million towards the stadiums is due in August.

He and interim head of finance Pádraig Smith pointed to the promise of significantly rising revenues from Uefa as one key element of their plan to pay off the stadium debt, while they also indicated the resale of naming rights and a fresh round of 10-year premium ticket sales would provide the balance of monies due around the time of the deadline they have set for themselves.

“If you look at what Pádraig put out today,” said Delaney after the meeting had concluded, “there are a whole series of different revenues to repay that debt.

“First, there is the TV deal (said to be worth a total of €40 million of four years from 2014), and then there is the Hat-trick funding which is €3 million for this particular year. Uefa put it aside every four years and I gather that it could be €5 million in 2015 and 2019.

“There are other revenues too,” he continued. “The reselling of the naming rights, the reselling of 10-year tickets as well as the possibility of qualifying for the larger Euros 2016 and 2020. All those are additional revenues which we wouldn’t have had in the past.”

The precise scale of the benefits that will accrue from the centralised television and marketing rights deal being put together by Uefa for future international games is hard to gauge given the somewhat erratic nature of previous campaigns when single games against larger European nations have sometimes brought in very substantial windfalls. The record fee received by the association for the foreign television rights to a single game is believed to have been around €10 million and Delaney acknowledged on Saturday a game like the one against Italy in the last qualifying campaign had brought in around €3 million.

However, he said, the home game against Russia last autumn generated just €250,000 and he welcomed the fact this month’s World Cup draw in Brazil would be the last time such an event represented “a roll of the dice” for the association.

Aside from the Uefa cash, the association’s financial strategy appears to rely on their ability to pay down any remaining debt in 2020 with the revenues generated by the resale of the stadium naming rights and premium seats. Aviva are believed to have an option to extend their current deal but even if the company decided not to exercise it, a substantial sum would presumably be generated from an alternative deal.

The organisation might be just a little more reticent about banking on the Vantage Club riding to their rescue any more effectively in nine years’ time than it did the first time around when, despite claims by Delaney that only 3,500 of the 10,000 or so seats remain “available for sale” the accounts would suggest the equivalent of significantly less than 2,000 were actually sold at the advertised price.

In any case, prices are almost certain to be substantially lower at the second time of asking and Delaney expressed the hope that they would go rather better in 2020 as “I hope we’re out of recession in 10 years; prediction is we will be well out of it”.

Potentially having to fall back on this income still represents a blow to Delaney, who had originally promised that investment in the game would mushroom when what he anticipated would be a debt-free association took in the cash from the second round of sales.

Smith, who will leave the FAI for a new post with Uefa in October, pointed to a dramatic reduction in the cost of staging senior international games since the opening of the new stadium as one reason for optimism, although he also acknowledged that attendances at these games have been “below expectations”.

The more affordable season ticket scheme should go some way towards addressing this but clearly with children able to buy seats for around €8 that were previously budgeted to go for rather closer to €80, the revenue generated even from full houses would not be what had initially budgeted for.

Delegates, who were supplied with the accounts well in advance of Saturday’s meeting, had until nine days before it to submit questions relating to the figures. Not one was received.

During the meeting the association’s president Paddy McCaul defended the scale of Delaney’s remuneration package which last year accounted for more than one per cent of total turnover.

“As CEO, John Delaney has an unrivalled track record of delivery for the FAI,” he said.

“John’s remuneration reflects his unrivalled record of achievement, his absolute and total commitment to every strand of our game and his 24-seven, 365-day approach to the role of CEO.”

Delaney said his pay was a matter for the board to decide, but then claimed it had had no part in deciding how much of a reduction he had taken recently.

“I’m not going to speak of reasons (for his salary being so large),” he said. “The board believe it’s justifiable. I work very hard and deliver for the association to best of my ability. They didn’t want to reduce salary. That was something I voluntarily did last year and this year. It went from €450,000 to €431,000 and is will be around €400,000 now after latest reduction.”

In relation to a possible contract extension for Giovanni Trapattoni, Delaney said the board would discuss the matter at the “appropriate juncture”, but didn’t rule out a decision being taken on whether to start talks before the end of the current qualification campaign.

Trapattoni, however, has suggested his chances of getting a new deal depend on the team making it to Poland and Ukraine next summer. “This could be my last season with Ireland,” he said, “but I wish to clarify that I understand the FAI’s position regarding qualification.”