FAI must pay for its own goal and do without
YOU really do have to admire the brass neck of that bustedflush body they call the FAI.
Imagine the cheek it takes to rock up to a meeting with a Minister of the Government of Ireland and – like you’d be ordering a cup of tea at the local greasy spoon – ask for €18m of taxpayers’ money (in guarantee or otherwise) to bail them out of the financial mess in which they are now drowning.
All this in a country with more than 1.1 million people on everlengthening healthcare waiting lists, thousands more on trolleys in all the major hospitals plus a mental healthcare service that’s on its knees.
Meanwhile, there are 10,514 homeless people – including well over 3,800 children.
Yet, despite all that, in comes the FAI and out comes their politically outrageous proposal.
‘That’ll be €18m, thanks very much,’ they told Shane Ross. (Not too sure about the ‘thanks very much’ part).
At the beginning of December the FAI said it was €55m up the swanny. Now, it appears, the football organisation may, in fact, have ballsed up to the tune of a €62m debt. Could it be even worse?
Among the FAI’s debts is the €29m it owes on its 42.5% share of Aviva Stadium and, unsurprisingly, the IRFU has rejected the idea of buying that out. All this is a far cry from July 2018, when John Delaney was boasting the FAI would be able to clear that Aviva debt by 2020.
In the real world, companies unable to pay their bills are sorted out by their creditors who have to make do with so much in the euro.
That terrible prospect may be the only solution now.
Organisations must be allowed to fail – and a new one to rise from the ashes.
The people of Ireland cannot be mugged again because of the failures of others. We’ve had enough of that.
A total €18m in public money, in dry cash or guarantee? That’s up to 80 local authority houses. This is all about scarce resources and choices. I know what I’d tell the FAI.