Denis O'Briens donation

[BigmanCas]

Tax Avoidance is an encouraged lawful practice. "He who would slight my dog, would buy my dog"!!

[NeilMcD]

In fairness, Advertising is probably much more insidious than a no strings attached donation. And yes I agree that in a perfect world, all athletes would be able to earn their keep without needing to rely on multimillion donations from various people. Unfortunately, that world doesn't exist, and people like Owen Heary and Eamon Zayed still need to get paid and that money has to come from somewhere.

In my opinion, there are two main problems with the money coming from O'Brien:

1) There is a strong (although admittedly as yet unproven) that the money he earned came in part as a result of bribing politicians, which shouldn't be acceptable anywhere.

2) Tony O'Donohue claimed that O'Brien was getting more regular updates than some members of the board of management. If true, then that should be a serious cause for concern. Surely he should just have said something like "Here lads, money's on the table, give me a bell when you pick someone and I'll sign the cheque." There was no need for him to be kept informed about who was being approached or when. Its unfortunately extremely conceivable that this inside information could have been easily used to more than recoup the cost of his "investment". maybe I'm just a cynical b**tard though.

As for the tax avoidance, I strangely have no problem with that. Given how the country was being run back then, any tax he did pay probably would have been wasted anyway, and I presume he at least paid some tax on it in portugal at least.

Anyway, rant over.
Cheers

Ps My first post. Hi everyone.

Point 1 has not been proved so until it is it is irrelevant and point two was just said by T'O'D who is a bitter little man and has thrown his toys out of the pram in the last 6 months. He has been totally over the top. Anybody who watched the Press Conference live and in full would see that he went straight in about the O Brien money. He did not ask any football questions whatsoever. He was bitter the way he was treated over the Staunton sacking and because he could not attack the appointment of the manager he went for the O Brien money. I would not trust anything that comes from his mouth anymore.

[DotTV]

I can't believe some of the nonsense here. Who cares where the money came from? Anyone as succesful as O'Brien has bended the rules somewhere along the way. Look at our beloved Taoiseach for christ sake!
Here we have an Irish businessman pumping money into Irish football. Not Sunderland or Carlisle or Peterborough or Man Utd! Ireland.
This means we can pay for a world class manager and still have money left over to promote the game at grass roots level.
Fair play to O'Brien!

[tetsujin1979]

I get the impression that if the FAI had disclosed that Denis O'Brien had offered them 1 million euros to pay the wages of a the new manager, but they felt they could not accept it on a number of professional levels then people here would be complaining that they didn't accept the money to get a world class manager.

[paul_oshea]

Neil, i enjoy reading TODs articles. I dont think he is too bitter to be honest. You have that love-hate relationship with him.

welcome quickfire!

[NeilMcD]

Neil, i enjoy reading TODs articles. I dont think he is too bitter to be honest. You have that love-hate relationship with him.

welcome quickfire!

Don't think there is much love to be honest. I have watched him now over the last 6 months and I find him unbearable. I normally dont see him on TV after the Ireland games as I am usually there etc. But the whole Staunton sacking he was sickening and he has been sickening on this issue too. THe press conference yesterday was a disgrace from the press. Not one of the press corp said fair play to the 3 lads for delivering a top manager. A good few of them went straight for the negatives. T'O'D articles are a lot more toned down then his reporting and they are usually more blanced but on Television he has been a joke of late.

[eekers]

with o brien getting updates from delaney all the time.

do you think perhaps he took some of his inside information to betfair with him

[Quickfire]

Point 1 has not been proved so until it is it is irrelevant and point two was just said by T'O'D who is a bitter little man and has thrown his toys out of the pram in the last 6 months. He has been totally over the top. Anybody who watched the Press Conference live and in full would see that he went straight in about the O Brien money. He did not ask any football questions whatsoever. He was bitter the way he was treated over the Staunton sacking and because he could not attack the appointment of the manager he went for the O Brien money. I would not trust anything that comes from his mouth anymore.

Stuck over in England at the moment, so can't see the live rte streams anymore. But there have been a lot of rants on these pages about the incredible betting market on the new manager, and I think its inappropriate if O'Brien had access to extra information that could influence that market.
Fantastic appointment though.

[paul_oshea]

you can see those conferences the same way as you see the streams at home, it streams abroad, only matches dont....but i know a way round that for the UK.

[Quickfire]

Ive tried getting a few things on rte, and they all keep blocking. I can access just the selected clips they release from 6-one, but thats about it.I didnt try to get the conference because i assumed it would block.

Would be useful to get aound

[Drumcondra 69er]

Don't think there is much love to be honest. I have watched him now over the last 6 months and I find him unbearable. I normally dont see him on TV after the Ireland games as I am usually there etc. But the whole Staunton sacking he was sickening and he has been sickening on this issue too. THe press conference yesterday was a disgrace from the press. Not one of the press corp said fair play to the 3 lads for delivering a top manager. A good few of them went straight for the negatives. T'O'D articles are a lot more toned down then his reporting and they are usually more blanced but on Television he has been a joke of late.

They wouldn't have dared do that had Trap been there himself, they were like a gang of schoolkids with a weak teacher in front of them. I'm beginning to understand why Houghton had previously said that the press were worse here then they are in the UK, we really do have a gang of social inadequates writing Sports over here with a couple of honourable exceptions.

[beautifulrock]

They wouldn't have dared do that had Trap been there himself, they were like a gang of schoolkids with a weak teacher in front of them. I'm beginning to understand why Houghton had previously said that the press were worse here then they are in the UK, we really do have a gang of social inadequates writing Sports over here with a couple of honourable exceptions.

Spot on Drumcondra, even when they were jostling for position during the live feed (before the top table came out) was like a bunch of ill behaved school kids.

[paul_oshea]

Ive tried getting a few things on rte, and they all keep blocking. I can access just the selected clips they release from 6-one, but thats about it.I didnt try to get the conference because i assumed it would block.

Would be useful to get aound

to assume, makes an ass out of u and me.

The only things that dont stream live, are GAA games, rugby matches, and soccer matches ( not EL games, they do screen live ). I watched the news last night for example, the 9 oclock one, livey live. All things that aren't breaking broadcasting rights i.e. sports games, will be available throughout the world - well maybe not china....

[tetsujin1979]

I didnt try to get the conference because i assumed it would block.

Press conference from rte.ie: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JLV7KE5M
Needs realplayer, install from http://uk.real.com/player/

enjoy

[Ringo]

Herald's headlines. eircom not renewing sponsorship deal, because of O'Brien

[NeilMcD]

Ooooh **** no Eircom Irish football will be ruined. ha ha, Jesus got help the Herald.

[jmurphyc]

Herald's headlines. eircom not renewing sponsorship deal, because of O'Brien

Seriously? No more "Republic of Ireland sponsored by Eircom" then.

[Ringo]

Its the herald, probably bull$hit

[Kingdom]

If the tax rates werent so feckin ridiculous maybe he would stay here..
Have to say the coverage yesterday was mind bogging. Am no fan of Delaney but I felt for him yesterday on the 6 o clock news as he was been grilled about details of the appointment. really negative tack on this from the media. Great appointment for Irish football. End of story.

The backlash over Very Tennables has started already. We're a sad little country at times we really are. The first genuinely brilliant appointment we've had and the journalists focus on an aside. A joke. We don't deserve this.

[NeilMcD]

We do we deserve it, just some of us dont