Originally Posted by
Stuttgart88
I've actually got a lot on today so don't have time to inspect the constitution but it looks like the Board has full control over strategic decisions. The Board is made up of honorary roles and the heads of the main permanent committees (finance, domestic, underage, development, legal & corporate, international, national league) and the CEO. This is 10 in total because some of the honorary roles automatically invoke chairmanship of some of the committees. The CEO sits on the finance, legal & corporate and national league committees but not domestic, underage, international or development.
The Council is responsible for monitoring the FAI and the FAI board, and has the power to take "such decisions as are necessary for the effective governance and control of The Association".
As Alf says, Council meets 4 times a year and special meetings can also be convened. These meetings are to discuss the reports fed to them by the Board and to provide feedback to the Board - but seemingly only if the Board asks for it (rule 15(h). Rule 15 (d) is interesting:
The Council shall have the power to remove the Board and/or the Honorary Officers and/or any individual member of the Council by a two-thirds majority vote of those present and voting on a motion submitted 14 days in advance of a meeting of the Council and signed by at least 20 Council members.
So, does this mean only the entire Board can be removed, rather than an individual? I suppose special meetings can be convened to remove individuals or discuss their pay.
What looks odd to me - I don't know how it works in other organisations - is that the Board and senior management appear to be more or less the same. Let's take a typical company. It has shareholders, a Board of Directors, and full-time management. The Board's job is to monitor management on behalf of shareholders but also to steer a strategic path for the company and delegate the running of the company to management. Shareholders can hold the Board to account by a re-election process and the Board can fire managers.
In the FAI, Council is essentially the shareholders, but there isn't a clear distinction between the Board and the management. The Council also includes the 5 honorary Board roles but I don't think they can vote unless it's in their capacity as another representative (say, of a LOI club?). So, it would appear that the bridge between Council and the Board is the Honorary members, who each has a foot in both camps. The Honorary positions are subject to maximum terms and re-election (President, VP, Hon Treasurer, Hon Sec) so a stronger degree of Council control exists here I suppose. The Chairman of the National League is an honorary Board member and serves a term as nominated by that committee, I think.
I don't see any means of removing the non-Honorary Board members other than full removal of the Board (15d) or a special meeting. Each method requires at least 20 of 61 Council members to propose such an action, followed by a vote requiring a 2/3 majority - so removal or sanction of a Board member would appear quite tough.
Other than the 5 Honorary Board members, the remaining Council membership consists of 22 LOI club representatives, 18 provincial reps (weighted by size of province), and samll numbers of reps from Junior, Schools, Womens, Universities, Defence Forces, Referees etc. LOI clubs have a fair amount of collective power then - more than I'd thought.