Quinn left ‘embarrassed’ by Oireachtas hearing

NIALL QUINN felt he was watching a scene from ‘The Untouchables’ as the FAI were accused of giving ‘two fingers’ to Irish football for refusing to explain the circumstances surrounding John Delaney’s €100,000 digout. Sinn Fein TD Imelda Munster ran out of patience in Leinster House with the FAI’s dithering and the decision to hire financial firm Grant Thornton to investigate the loan. ‘Why would a board (of directors) bring in someone else that the people in the room know the answers to?’ said Munster. ‘Explain why is it you’ve engaged an outside company to investigate something that the people in the room know? How is that not two fingers to everybody?’ Quinn was stunned at former CEO John Delaney’s refusal to co-operate with the Oireachtas watch-dog committee for Transport, Tourism and Sport during an eight-hour debate. ‘I thought he (Delaney) had more in him than that,’ said Quinn on Virgin Media TV. ‘After 92 caps for my country, for the first time in my life, I was embarrassed for my Association. It was like watching The Sopranos, The Untouchables.’ The FAI’s tactics saw Delaney,

the new FAI executive vicepresident, remove himself from any questions about the loan, as well as his time as CEO, on ‘legal grounds.’ Delaney playing dumb was likened to ‘Hamlet without the Prince’ by TD Ruth Coppinger. That FAI president Donal Conway didn’t object to Delaney’s vow of silence indicated the huge influence the former CEO still carries in Abbotstown. As the FAI put up the barriers, Brian Kerr likened their answers to ‘a large dose of spoofology’ ‘The public wanted to see transparency. Those people today, in my book, were an embarrassment to Irish football,’ said the former Irish manager. Delaney was one of three FAI directors who knew about the €100k loan in April 2017 — former president Tony Fitzgerald and secretary Michael Cody were the others, and neither were called to Leinster House yesterday. Conway confirmed he was in the dark, along with other board members, until last month. ‘Awareness of the loan was confined to a certain number of people. It was not deliberate; it was an omission on our part,’ said Conway. On the evidence of yesterday, the old guard, including Delaney, will take some shifting.