ON THE fourth anniversary of the day that Giovanni Trapattoni formally took up his position as the Republic of Ireland manager, John Delaney has some cause for satisfaction with the way the Italian is getting on. However, he got one of these appointments wrong in the past, and so is well placed to understand the pressure his English counterpart will be feeling as talks progress with Roy Hodgson over a successor to Fabio Capello.
“I’ve been through it,” the FAI’s chief executive said at the launch of Drinkaware’s guide to surviving Euro 2012, “and it’s a very difficult thing to appoint a manager. We see clubs that don’t get it right over a sustained period of time and the pressure cooker of appointing a manager to the England team . . . it’s a lot of pressure.
“We’ve seen that in difficult times, in good times. It’s a difficult thing.”
I wish the FA luck because the minute you appoint a manager, you become responsible for the results,” continued the man whose own standing with Irish fans hit something of a low during the dying days of the Steve Staunton era.
“There are popular appointments and less popular appointments but the one thing I know is, if the manager is popular or not, he becomes unpopular if results aren’t good.
“I wish them luck, I would like to see us playing England in the Euro quarter-finals.”
Hodgson, as it happens, was in the running for the Ireland job last time around and might even have got it. However, an approach from Fulham led to his appointment at Craven Cottage in December 2007.
“Don Givens met with him,” confirmed Delaney.
The connection might yet be revived when the FAI attempt to nail down a date for a friendly between the two countries over the next season or two.
Things are progressing well enough for the association on other financial fronts, insists Delaney, with these championships continuing to shape up well and negotiations over television rights for the World Cup qualifier in the autumn now at an advanced stage.
“I think if you take the tournament on its own, it will be good financially for us. Aside from the prize-money, there are sponsorships, bonuses . . . but there’s a cost to it too and we want to make sure everything is done to give the team the best opportunity to prepare.
“I’d prefer to answer that afterwards,” he said when asked about how much the FAI will clear from the tournament, “because it will depend on how far we go. It’s €1 million for a win, half a million for a draw but we’ve agreed to reward the players the further we go.
“After the Euros, we’ll put a figure on that. I think the Germans have budgeted for €23 million,” he added with a laugh, “because that’s what you get to win it.”
The Germans, of course, operate on a somewhat different planet financially and Delaney confirmed yesterday that the World Cup qualifier against them in Dublin in October could yet be worth more to the association that the entire European Championship.
It had been reported recently that the association had sold the German TV rights to the game for around €5 million and while Delaney denied this he said that talks were nearing a conclusion.
