Sunday Times Article re Delaney (22th Oct)
The FAI chief executive, John Delaney, has failed to act on Fifa guidelines that — if implemented — would seriously erode his powerbase within the association. Documents seen by The Sunday Times show that recommendations sent by Fifa in June last year stated that the chief executive should not be a member of any body of the association and neither should he have any vote.
Delaney sits on the main FAI board of management, where he has a vote, as well as the strategically important finance committee and the legal and corporate affairs committee.
The Fifa recommendation, in a lengthy document headed Standard Statutes, is specifically designed to ensure that power remains within the hands of elected and honorary members of the association rather than full-time, paid administrators. The statutes are signed off by the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, who states: “The Standard Statutes contain all the provisions that are intrinsic to constitutive texts worthy of that description. We are therefore calling on the associations to examine these statutes and incorporate all of the articles and principles covered into their own statutes — for their own benefit and for the Good of the Game.”
Fifa’s recommendations considering the role of the chief executive, delivered to the FAI in June of last year, have never been brought to the attention of the FAI board. Several members of the board refused to comment last week but a source close to the association said: “John Delaney came to power first of all as treasurer and then as CEO on an agenda of transparency. Particularly that nothing should be kept from the board. At the very least this document should have triggered the CEO to go to the board and say, ‘I’m bringing this to your attention. Do you want me to go back and clarify this? Do you want me to make sure that everything is okay? That’s what a CEO of any company who reports to the board should do.”
Delaney was unavailable for comment last week, though the association issued a statement that read: “The Genesis Report of 2002 recommended that the position of chief executive officer be created and that the post-holder become a member of the board of the association. This recommendation was adopted at the time through the appointment of Fran Rooney as chief executive officer and his placement on the board. That structure remains in place today. The Fifa position indicates that the statutes are ‘only a recommendation’ and not Fifa law.”
Be that as it may, what is extraordinary is that Delaney has not seen fit to at least bring the recommendations to the attention of the board. Much of the criticism levelled at Delaney over the past few weeks centres on his dominant position within the organisation — he is the key player in virtually every important decision the association makes, including the appointment of Steve Staunton — and he enjoys a position of enormous influence, which Fifa’s recommendations are clearly designed to curb. And looking back at the course of recent FAI history, if anybody within the association should take credit for the dominant position that the post of chief executive holds it is Delaney. It is uncanny how he has come to adopt the position himself.
It was Delaney who stepped into the breach when the association foundered in the midst of the Saipan debacle back in 2002. Then treasurer, Delaney flew out to Saipan to firefight the situation and called for an outside enquiry, which he pushed through the board with the assistance of another member, Michael Hyland. This was the birth of the Genesis Report, an act for which Delaney has always been happy to take credit.
Genesis’ brief was to look at preparations for the World Cup and the lessons of Saipan. It was never to look at the structure of the FAI, but it produced a raft of recommendations that would fundamentally alter the balance of power within the association. Among the most important, Alistair Gray of Genesis recommended that the board be cut from 22 members to six or eight, one being the chief executive.
Amid considerable opposition, Delaney managed to push through the Genesis recommendations, and Fran Rooney, then a high-flier from the high-tech sector, was appointed chief executive — a position that once held the more humble title of general secretary. Here another contentious episode is worth illustrating. Rooney balked at the salary of €250,000 that was offered to him and demanded instead a package that, with bonuses, would be worth €575,000. This included a percentage of commercial income, though he wouldn’t specify what his other bonus targets might be.
Several members of the board were incensed at Rooney’s demands, though Delaney wasn’t one of them. “His attitude was that we should pay the market rate, whatever that might be. He didn’t share our sense of outrage at all,” one board member at the time said. However, the acting general secretary, Kevin Fahy, was adamant that the association’s offer would not be increased and Rooney eventually accepted the original package.
Rooney’s tenure, which began in March 2003, was doomed from the outset. His management style was autocratic, but also erratic, and dissenting voices quickly began to be heard on the board. Chief among them were Fahy and Brendan Dillon, the National League chairman. Rooney, however, found a capable and trusted ally in Delaney. When Fahy and Dillon were asking awkward questions on Rooney’s contract details, Delaney again became an ally in the chief executive’s corner and the two whistleblowers were eventually squeezed out.
Part of Delaney’s stated reason for supporting Rooney was that the association risked becoming a laughing stock, so frequently were their chief executives being appointed and replaced. With Dillon and Fahy off the board — two men regarded as opponents of Delaney — Rooney then lost his crucial ally, when he clashed with Delaney over his refusal to appoint Peter Buckley as financial officer and the threat of government funding being withheld had escalated. By November 2004, Rooney was out of a job — his silence guaranteed by a payoff exceeding €400,000 — and, hey presto, who had stepped into the breach? Back in 2002 Delaney had laughed off suggestions that he had ambitions to be chief executive, but he now said he would bow to pressure from colleagues at a time of crisis for the association and take over the reins.
He has, in the view of both his friends and enemies, so far been a highly effective CEO. His list of successes is impressive — the completion of the Croke Park deal, the FAI’s redevelopment of Lansdowne Road, the move of the FAI offices to Abbotstown, good relations with the government, which have cemented funding, and a raft of commercial and sponsorship deals that have swelled the coffers of the FAI — but on one crucial decision he may have severely miscalculated.
Back in 2002, when the debate over the implementation of Genesis raged, Delaney came out with one of his eyecatching statements. “This is a huge opportunity to change Irish football for ever,” he said. “If these recommendations are not implemented in full in one year I will be out of here. End of story.” Delaney tends to wheel out the Genesis report as an ally when it suits him but, as things stand, substantial tracts of the report have not been implemented. One, designed to prevent the horribly fractious relationship between Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy from ever recurring, recommends the appointment of a general manager who would act as a buffer between the coach and the board and spot potential troublespots, similar to the type of role that the IRFU already has in place.
Another is that at the end of every qualifying campaign, the board invite the head coach or manager to a meeting to assess how things went and the lessons that can be learnt. When the qualifying campaign for Germany 2006 ended in failure, Brian Kerr made just such a request to present his findings to the board of management. The board refused the offer and instead met in his absence in October of last year. Afterwards Delaney emerged on his own — the board didn’t even see fit that he be accompanied by the FAI president David Blood — and announced that Kerr’s contract was not being renewed.
The whole evening drove a coach and horses through what Genesis was about. The appointment of Staunton was also completely lacking in what Genesis calls “process”. The services of a consultant such as Bryan Hamilton, who had been used for Brian Kerr’s appointment, was dispensed with — a move, it must be said, that was welcomed by many. Instead, Delaney fronted a three-man “headhunting” committee that spoke with Staunton, whom Delaney had known for several years, and then cancelled all other interviews. In such a climate, it comes as no surprise that Delaney felt it unnecessary to bring to the attention of the board Fifa guidelines concerning his own position. “After working so assiduously to build up his position within the FAI,” one source said, “implementing this recommendation would set him back enormously.”
The FAI did produce another defence of their position last week, saying its structures and procedures had been given a clean bill of health by Fifa back in September of last year, bar a few minor points. But close examination of Fifa’s letter shows that it relates to the Fifa statutes, which are obligatory, and not the new Standard Statutes, which are as it stands only recommendations. Indeed, the letter reads: “We kindly ask you to revise and amend your current statutes. To this end, we provide you with a copy of our new Standard Statutes, which have undergone considerable updating.”
The debate over the role of the chief executive is not one exclusive to the Republic of Ireland. Most associations in Europe follow Fifa’s guidelines, though others, such as Scotland and Holland, allow their chief executive a place on the board and a vote.
