Interim FAI CEO Gary Owens has spoken of the difficult financial situation the organisation is in, but that there 'more up sides than down sides'.

After confirming Stephen Kenny's backroom staff on Sunder, Owens spoke to Off The Ball about the wider issues of debts surrounding the organisation.

Owens was unmoved by concerns of outstanding debts to McCarthy should Ireland qualify, saying that the Euros would be 'lucrative' for the FAI should they make it into the competition.

"Our immediate problems are going to be cash flow up to September, given that a lot of activities at all levels are not happening, for very good and understandable reasons," he said.

"The nine matches are helpful, though. We now have nine matches in the autumn period, so that gives us a chance to reach out to fans and put a new team in place to start looking at Club Ireland tickets, selling season tickets and look at our whole TV and media rights.

"We have got an awful lot to look forward to - we are going to have a difficult three months - but a lot depends on unknowns as to when football can resume again."

As for what those unknowns mean in real terms, Owens spoke of the measures being put in place to try and save the 200 jobs that the FAI currently have all over the country.

"We have announced deferrals which, to be fair to the staff, they were very supportive of. That gets us through a difficult period until we can resume activities like international matches.

"The summer schools and coaching that we do is actually quite lucrative, and we cannot do that at the moment. So, we need to manage carefully to August and September.

"The staff have been hugely supportive; I have been hugely impressed by the quality of the people on the ground. They do a great job."

FAI financial planning

As for the holistic view of FAI financing, Owens believes that the organisation are in a better position than first feared.

"We assumed that we wouldn't qualify," he said of how the financial repayment structures have been put in place.

"The debt was in excess of €50m and you have the stadium debt, which I don't really regard as a debt because if we were to rent the Aviva it would cost us more to pay back, so that was a bit of a red herring.

"The rest of it, we basically borrowed and we're refinancing and we have a good plan in place now to repay that debt and keep the association going in the way that we want to.

"We are going through the middle of a refinancing programme at the moment and we have committed to key stakeholders that there won't be any compulsory redundancies.

"We are not looking to cut the numbers by a large amount, if at all. The plan that we had was very pessimistic, we had a lot of contingencies in it.

"All the things that I have seen so far. leaving aside the virus, have been more on the up side than the down side."

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