Further funding risk to FAI as two execs look set to resign with Delaney
Sports Minister issues his warning over governance
THE FAI stands to lose millions more in funding unless it can answer questions about its finances, the Government has said.
Sports Minister Shane Ross warned yesterday that capital funding to the FAI will be stopped if its ‘corporate governance’ is not in order.
Latest figures show that the Mr Ross’s department gave the FAI over €7.75million in capital infrastructure grants and €1.69million under the capital grant programme over the last decade.
Meanwhile, the FAI is expected to confirm the departure of John Delaney from the payroll today, along with other board members.
It is understood that at an emergency meeting due to take place today, Mr Delaney’s resignation will be approved.
Two veteran board members – honorary secretary Michael Cody and honorary treasurer Eddie Murray – are also expected to resign, although they were never facing questions over Delaney’s €100,000 loan to the FAI in 2017.
Mr Ross’s stark warning to the FAI over funding came as Fergus O’Dowd – the TD who chairs the Oireachtas Sports committee – called for a ‘forensic audit of all the accounting activities of the FAI’.
The remarks from the two senior politicians came on foot of a report in the Sunday Times yesterday which made a number of allegations about Mr Delaney’s credit card expenses.
Independent Alliance Minister Mr Ross said is ‘very deeply concerned’. ‘Our concerns are that the corporate governance of the FAI is obviously not satisfactory, and we have got to get questions answered on that basis,’ he told RTÉ Radio’s News At One.
Sport Ireland last week confirmed they were suspending the payment of the remainder of its annual €2.7million in grant funding to the organisation.
Mr Ross said one of the steps the FAI would have to take in order to have this funding restored was to answer questions.
‘It seems to me that those questions must be answered. If they are not answered we will take the necessary action. The necessary action is that not only will the sports grants be frozen but we will rule out anybody which isn’t in good stead in corporate governance from getting large capital sports grants,’ he said.
‘And we are talking about large amounts of money. They [FAI] will not get money if they are not in good standing on corporate governance, that’s why they have to answer questions.’
Mr Ross told RTÉ he would not be making any judgment on the board until Sport Ireland ‘come back with the reports which they have done… but the entire board has very serious questions to answer’.
The sports capital grant referred to by Mr Ross is the new ‘Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund’, which is a new €100million fund being made available over a number of years for money to be spent on the construction or redevelopment of sporting venues.
The FAI has received up to €50million over the past ten years in funding from four different Government departments as well as Sport Ireland.
The figures, which were released to Social Democrat TD Catherine Murphy in December, showed that since 2008 some €49.4million was allocated to the association in State funding.
Mr O’Dowd was at the helm of the Oireachtas sports committee last Wednesday for Mr Delaney’s appearance in which he failed to answer many of the questions put to him by TDs and senators.
Mr O’Dowd last night said: ‘I want to see a forensic audit of all of the accounting activities of the FAI. And I believe the Minister and Sport Ireland should insist on that.’
While acknowledging there are some ongoing reviews and audits within the organisation, Mr O’Dowd said a forensic audit would offer ‘total transparency, total accountability which we don’t have at the moment’.
The Fine Gael TD said his committee has still not received the outstanding answers to some of the questions posed at last Wednesday’s meetings; such as Sinn Féin TD Jonathan O’Brien’s query as to why the €100,000 transaction at the heart of the controversy was not recorded in the monthly accounts. ‘We have received no information whatsoever, just a silence,’ he said.
He added: ‘We have asked three times for full documentation in relation to the €100,000 loan. We asked questions which remained unanswered at our committee meeting, and we are deeply concerned about corporate governance, about the lack of transparency and accountability.’ emmajane.hade@dailymail.ie
‘Must get questions answered’ ‘Lack of transparency’