John Delaney's €100,000 payment to the FAI as a bridging loan raises serious questions about the association's finances and is a 'big deal' according to the Irish Independent's Daniel McDonnell.
Daniel joined Off The Ball to discuss a story that came to light over the weekend, after the FAI failed with a high court injunction to prevent publication of a Sunday Times article alleging Delaney's financial intervention.
Daniel maintains that “someone didn’t want this story in the newspaper”, following the revelation that the injunction application was rejected as the story was deemed to be in the public interest.
“The fact that they went down the legal road adds to the debate around this story,” Daniel said of the legal wrangle over the story, which have been estimated at around €50,000.
“When you step back and look at the optics of this for a second, we have an association that turns over more than €49/€50m per year, and in 2017 the FAI were talking about the biggest turnover in the association’s history,” said McDonnell.
“Why an association that generates that amount of money ends up in a scenario where one of its employees has to give it a six-figure dig out […] under no circumstances is that ordinary,” according to Dan, who also believes that there are wider concerns around the FAI’s financial situation.
“It raises questions over the health of the FAI that have hung over the FAI for the last decade. There is a constant battle to repay the debt related to the Aviva Stadium. John Delaney has been bullish that they are clearing that debt by 2020, and within that ongoing discussion are the questions on whether this is affecting the day-to-day, week-to-week and month-to-month business of the FAI.”
“While there have been references to cash flow at various times, we never really were aware of a scenario where something like this action could be required.
“They haven’t really addressed that basic point to any satisfactory degree that would reassure you that this is no big deal. I don’t think that you could say that this is no big deal, because it is.”
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