Sport Ireland may need a ‘full audit’ of FAI

SPORT Ireland may have to appoint an outside body to carry out ‘a full audit of the FAI’, it emerged last night.

The State body in charge of sports funding has already withheld millions of euro in financial aid to the association, and it would not restore that unless the investigation was ‘as broad and extensive as necessary’, it said.

The auditor will be appointed if Sport Ireland is not satisfied with what emerges from internal reviews by Mazars and Grant Thornton, the funding body said, according to an opening statement to be made before the Oireachtas Sports Committee this afternoon.

The decision to withhold funding ‘is typically an intervention of last resort and is only ever used reluctantly’, it said. It added that the external auditor would ensure the FAI ‘is compliant with our terms and conditions of grant approval, including that its financial controls and management, as well as its general governance, are of sufficient standard in order to restore funding’. TDs and senators will hear that Sport Ireland would then move to establish a liaison process with the FAI to ‘closely monitor, verify and support’ the changes, according to the statement, released last night.

In the past, the body has made staggered payments of funds owed to sports bodies under investigation ‘once progress is made on implementing the audit recommendations and assurance is received of the effectiveness of governance and financial control’. Sport Ireland’s audit committee is set to meet on Thursday and will discuss the FAI, with any progress being reviewed at a meeting in May.

The body believes important steps towards restoring funding include the completion of the recommendations made by the Mazars and Grant Thornton reviews, and it is expected to tell the committee that it will liaise with Sports Minister Shane Ross before any decision is taken to restore funding. The decision by some of the FAI delegates not to answer important questions at the committee last week was ‘very disappointing’, the body said in its statement.

Meanwhile, the cut in funding is weighing heavily on FAI staff, amid growing calls for John Delaney to leave the organisation completely. Siptu said yesterday that soccer development officers are ‘extremely anxious’ after Sport Ireland suspended funding last week.

As many as 57 development officers depend on the €2.7million in funding Sport Ireland contributes to the FAI every year, according to union organiser Denis Hynes. He told the Irish Daily Mail that his members are very nervous about the withdrawal of funding since they are all on ‘modest’ incomes, with the average wage being €36,000 a year. ‘The point I’m making is the mistakes of a few above in Abbotstown are having a huge impact on the livelihoods and the future of the grassroots workers,’ he said.

FAI development officers are responsible for training children and coaches and working with special needs children.

Mr Hynes added: ‘I can understand Sport Ireland and I can understand the Government making a stand on this.

‘But the only losers here are going to be people in the community and staff on modest incomes.’