Timing is everything – and the FAI’s couldn’t be worse
THE old ways don’t cut it now. How on earth did they not get that? Now while it became wincingly clear during Thursday’s series of pratfalls that the FAI leadership had not done its homework, even the most ill-prepared delegation must have understood that they were appearing before a Public Accounts Committee whose profile and edge have been sharpened by months of dealing with chaos in RTÉ.
Appetites for exposing poor practice in public bodies have never been so voracious.
Showing up with redacted emails and astonishing explanations but without a number of those requested to attend brought predictable outcomes.
And it’s not going to get any easier. They must surely absorb that lesson. This is how business is now conducted.
This is not the same old FAI, despite how tempting that slur is for its critics.
The jaw-dropping revelations that spilled out on collapse of the Delaney regime were putrid evidence of a toxic reign.
Attempts within the association to banish memories of that time have been seriously harmed, however, and it is staggering that the FAI remains the laggard among the country’s main sports.
The GAA and the IRFU have plenty of issues of their own, but the writer Michael Nugent’s description of the FAI as a ‘repeatedly exploding clown’s car’ still stands – and then falls comically apart.
Factionalism has been a longstanding problem, and evidently remains one, and the abject failure to address this, along with the much more serious issues assailing Irish soccer, is extraordinary.
The aftermath of the fall of John Delaney should have been Year Zero, when a complete reset was implemented, with the full backing of the State guaranteed.
That chance has now been lost and, with classic FAI timing, the latest controversy emerges before a high-powered committee that happens to be examining major problems with RTÉ at the same time.
With public representatives in the mood for devouring sloppy bodies, the FAI leadership served themselves up on silver platters.
Given the chaos that has been unloosed in those rooms for the past eight months, it is possible to view Oireachtas committee meetings as merciless interrogation centres, where questionable behaviour by bodies in receipt of public funding is dragged into an unsparing light.
But this would only be partly true.
As the leadership of the FAI followed RTÉ in becoming the unwilling stars of a show best viewed through the cracks in your fingers, the unfolding farce emerged following only the slightest prod of public scrutiny.
Cracking this case didn’t require Eliot Ness. Fianna Fáil TD Paul McAuliffe elicited the story of the lame gag, the exclamation mark and the unstoppable payment process from Jonathan Hill after just a handful of opening questions.
When asked why two individuals – the former finance director, and the FAI’s people and culture director – were not present, despite being invited by the committee, FAI chairman Tony Keohane responded that they had brought what they considered the ‘best team’ for the hearing. The degree to which this annoyed committee members was significant, and it goes to the heart of the difficulties facing the FAI.
An occasion that demanded full disclosure was instead reduced to a farrago, and needlessly so.
If there was a belief within the FAI that the work they have done in repairing the body’s finances and reputation, and rebuilding the culture, left them in credit, they have been thoroughly disabused of the notion.
It’s no longer enough to declare that this isn’t the old regime.
And the end result of the current chaos is fresh reputational damage but, worse, distrust from the most influential committee in the Oireachtas, with the consequences that has for more funding, too.
As Brian Stanley, the PAC chair, pointed out, the FAI is seeking in excess of €500million in State funding to support its bold Facilities Investment Strategy.
Political scrutiny is inconsistently directed. We await the days of heated hearings about the disgraceful cost of the Children’s Hospital, or the shameful delays in treating kids with scoliosis.
But that doesn’t invalidate the focus on other issues, and when politicians hit on a story that captivates the public, as the unending RTÉ saga does, and as the FAI pantomime this week did, they are not inclined to let it go.
That means a short-term headache for the leadership of Irish soccer, but it has enormous long-term effects, too.
The use of public money should be subject to unblinking scrutiny, however inconsistently that focus is now applied.
And what’s certain is the FAI will have to account for every paper clip and biro for years to come.
‘IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO DECLARE THIS ISN’T THE OLD REGIME’