I'm not supporting him but Delaney could argue all kinds of things in his favour. Improved financial stability in LOI, Europa League Final, Euro 2020, Euro qualification, WC near miss, increased turnover, debt-write offs, women's teams doing well, Ruud Doktor and his technical plan, exceptional work in economically deprived area etc. He's a politician and politicians are cunning spinmeisters. I think Delaney would argue that the FAI IS a professionally run organisation and that Genesis governance reforms etc were introduced post-Saipan. I don't agree, but it could be a heated argument if it came to it.
One big problem is that the ISC, whose job it is to determine whether the FAI is deserving of public money and whose job it is to scrutinise the FAI's governance, has been asleep at the wheel. also, the public and the mechanisms of government only take a casual interest at best in these matters so little public pressure has ever been exerted on the FAI to get its sh1t together. There has always been a casual acceptance of its gombeen blazer culture.
Compare the ISC to UK Sport. After a series of governance fiascos at UK NGBs, UK Sport now has a very thorough governance monitoring process and no NGB will receive public funding unless UK Soort is satisfied that it is run well. Several NGBs went bust in the 90s and 2000s and they are determined that this never happens again. They have a traffic light system to grade NGBs and to provide early warnings about possible mismanagement. I was at a talk last year by the lady who is UK Sports chief governance officer. I was SO tempted to ask from the floor whether their system might produce an amber or red light warning if one of their leading NGBs had no formal Board structures, whether the role of Chair and CEO were genuinely separated, whether there were any non-exec directors providing advice, whether the CEO being on 3 of the 6 standing committees was an over-reach, whether his salary was a cause for concern, whether the mutually agreed increase in retirement age among officers was a cause for concern, whether failure to publish financial statements outside its membership was a cause for concern, and so on. I'm no expert but my guess is that almost any one of these would have triggered an amber or red warning. Does anyone think the ISC provides this type of scrutiny? Does anyone think this Oireachtas standing committee should be asking these questions? I do.
Also, as a general rule, I hate the frequent comparison made in outrage in every country "he earns more than our prime minister". Why is the Taoiseach / PM anywhere the benchmark? That role is as a public servant that comes with all kinds of perks, not least opening up all kinds of lucrative public speaking, advisory and directorship roles after office (unless you're Bertie, but he lined his pockets before leaving office). Now, earning more than the Spanish FA equivalent is probably a fairer comparison!
