The council of the FAI has voted by an overwhelming margin to support the banking element of the rescue package negotiated by the association at the end of January. Despite opposition to the deal from a number of former board members and their allies, 60 of the 79 council members came out in favour of the proposal with none actually casting a ballot against.
The ballot was conducted by email after a scheduled meeting of council had to be cancelled due to the coronavirus crisis. Under the rules of the association, the council, which has much larger membership than the board and is much more representative of the organisation’s constituent parts, has to be consulted on financial transactions of more than €1.27 million.
This element of the rescue package will release around €14 million in loans to the association and allow it to pay a substantial portion of its outstanding debts to creditors, some of which are clubs. The association’s debt on the Aviva stadium will also be stretched out to 2030 and there is a provision for a further €10 million to be borrowed over the next couple of years.
It is now hoped that the other elements of the deal, with the Government and Uefa, will be implemented before the end of April.
Earlier on Monday, the FAI’s coronavirus crisis clubs football steering committee met and continued the process of assembling the information required to go separately to Government and Uefa in search of financial support for the league here.
Although the restrictions announced to date currently only involve the postponement of three rounds of games, it is hard to find anyone involved in the game here who does not see the suspension of competitions extending well beyond the end of this month.
One source speculated that if the crisis peaked here in June and July, it might be October before games resumed and that a shortened winter campaign might be necessary in order to get clubs going again and facilitate a return to the regular summer season in 2021.
That might be regarded by some as a pessimistic assessment of a rapidly developing situation but one club, Drogheda United, has already told its professional players that it will not be paying them while games are suspended.
"I can't see us being back for at least two months," suggested club chairman Conor Hoey, "and we have to budget effectively because otherwise we will be out of business.
“The options will be to either extend the league or squash the postponed games into the season as planned. And if the club gets to play 27 games as intended then I would certainly envisage the players getting the money they were supposed to. I think that’s only fair, but for the moment we have no option really but to take a cautious approach.”
The move has, predictably, angered the players’ union, the PFAI, with its general secretary Stephen McGuinness expressing frustration that the club has not even supported its players until the initial suspension is complete and concern that other clubs will now start to follow United’s lead.
