I'd say that's a fair synopsis, to which I'd add that the "football family" has made it clear that while they may have a weak hand, they are still important and they are watching the Board and its way of doing things very closely.
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More governance shenanigans at the FAI.
Andrew Doyle of Shels has stepped down from the FAI’s finance committee. This follows a PWC partner Sean Brodie who resigned from the audit risk and compliance committee in May. Each joined their respectice committee in October 2019 but neither committee has met since then.
“I’m not entirely sure it is possible to resign from a Committee which does not yet exist, but I do so in any event”, wrote Doyle.
Personally I’d love a job on a committee that never met, but I guess Brodie and Doyle are professionals :)
Doyle alleged shortcomings in six areas, accusing the FAI of:
• Unauthorised borrowing
• Failure to convene critical committee
• Failure to provide financial information to financial committee members
• Breach of independent chairman’s duties
• Blocking of nominations’ committee independent majority
• Failure to address formal complaints
Nesta99 gave another link in the FAI troubles thread. https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soc...mpression=true
It sounds bloody awful, and same old same old. I hope someone raises it with the Minister for Sport, Staycations and the Cúpla Focail in the Dáil. The FAI should be getting it in the neck for this.
It's very worrying, especially considering the issues with the Delaney regime were also basically all of the same things. I would have though governance and the finance and audit committees would have been at the very top of the priority list.
Initially I thought the most worrying bit was the self branding of the rescuers of Irish football as 'The Visionaries'.
As it turns out, Barrett made a good deal with the government, better than anyone could have expected and even negotiated a radical elevation of the grant funding paid out to Irish football annually.
The 6+6 issue turned out to be a flat tire, a red herring issue. The perception was of the bleating of delusional FAI peeved egos. The idea of 6 V 6 was projected to appeal to emotion but instead what was more evident was a board of 6 + 6, making 12.
Niall Quinn apparently branded as a non-football entity, not part of the exclusive breed the "football family". The criteria must be something awesome to get into the FAI football family house, if 90 caps, 10,000 headers and 20 goals over 15 years don't get you past the door.
Mick Wallace complaining about "government blackmail", typical culchee politician complaining about 'dem in Dublin' just sounded to me like a politician with a political agenda. Just how silent was Mick during Delaney's era, not a peep from Mick then.
The other stuff from the Shels member - most probably genuine grievances, I'd wait and see what transpires over the next months.
I didn't thgink it was that difficult to follow!
Quinn was (indirectly I think) referred to as a non-football person or an outsider by a, eh, football person complaining that non-football people were taking over the FAI.
There are two issues here: whether these guys now in charge are any good, and whether good governance practice is being followed. The answer to first question is still to be established and there are worrying signs already that we won't like the answer to the second. The lack of transparency in appointment processes is a big worry already.
FAI new CEO will be Jonathan Hill according to the times
- https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soc...tive-1.4357913
Seems like being a Leeds fan is important at the FAI
https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2020...-irfu-and-fai/
PEAK6 offered to run Lansdowne Road for the FAI. I'm a little unclear whether he offered to run it for both of them or just decided to take a swipe at the IRFU, but from the article:
Quote:
Hulsizer said: "We were informed that the IRFU had no interest in running the stadium at a profit and were content to have it available for their matches. The letter came from the FAI and in fairness there was no contact with the IRFU.
"I noted recently the IRFU reaching out to the Government for financial help because of Covid-19 and find it ironic the utilising of an asset to obtain cash is less acceptable than asking the Irish Government and the Irish taxpayer to bail them out."
Will they have to defer the AGM again to allow the new man to read himself in, in order to be able to answer questions?
Is he even confirmed? No word since the 'leaks' five days ago ....
Former head of the feasability study for the 2030 World Cup David Courell has been appointed as COO: https://www.fai.ie/domestic/news/cou...rating-officer
FAI welcomes €19m in funding from the government: https://www.fai.ie/domestic/news/fai...rom-government
I awoke today in a parallel universe where the FAI has a good, reputable and low key CEO, a good COO, a popular MNT and a wildly popular WNT, while the IRFU's leadership is getting slated and reported to the Government for its its treatment of its women players. Next you'll be telling me that some bat virus is threatening humanity and we can't do normal things anymore.
The rugby girls can grow up tbh
They and they alone got beaten by Spain not to qualify for the women's rugby World Cup
They were criticised by the management and are now literally being babies.
Just to put it into football context. That result is 100 times worse then the lux defeat
this appeared in the IT a while back...
In the 2019-2020 IRFU accounts, the union spent €2.5 million on women’s representative rugby. By way of comparison, Italy spent €800,000 on the women’s game including domestic rugby and administration salaries. Ireland had six pre-tournament camps, Scotland had one and another was cancelled because of budgetary constraints.
The focus in Spain in terms of international rugby for the women’s game centres on Sevens. They don’t have access to elite competition at 15s level. So purely based on funding and preparation, Ireland should have been well primed to qualify from the event in Italy.
we lost to Spain and Scotland in the qualifiers. I think I read that Scotland spend approximately 40% on their womens team than the IRFU do. the failure to qualify for the WC was inexcusable and nothing to do with the IRFUs resourcing of the game here.
id love to have a pop at the IRFU but its very hard to in this instance...
FAI AGM time again. The FAI have reported a surplus of €6.7m for 2021, which sounds very positive.
Slightly strangely, cash at bank has gone from E16m up to E27m (ie an E11m increase), while they've borrowed an extra E1m so they now owe E63.5m in loans. I don't really know why they're holding so much cash when there's so much debt knocking about. Other creditors (mainly deferred income) are up around E3m.
Still, it's a solid result and if they could repeat that this year (and I don't know if that's feasible; grant income in particular is well up for example), they'd be well on the road to recovery I think.