How Irish soccer ended up on the brink of going bust

With Euro 2020 matches coming up in Dublin, Irish soccer should be in for a windfall. Yet a huge financial scandal at the national association involving its disgraced former CEO has left it on the brink of going bust.

In normal times, June 15, 2020 would be shaping up to be the biggest night in the history of Irish soccer.

Euro 2020 (the quadrennial international soccer tournament between European nations) will be in full swing then and Dublin is one of 12 host cities. Poland, a nation with a huge immigrant population in Ireland, are scheduled to play in the Irish capital's Aviva Stadium that night.

Their opponent is not yet known, but it could well be either Ireland or Northern Ireland, depending on how a four-team play-off involving both teams goes in March.

Yet there is still a chance that this potentially mammoth game won't take place in Dublin. Incredibly, there is even a chance that the Irish team won't be able to fulfil the fixture, even if they qualify. They might not even get the chance to qualify.

This is all because the Football Association of Ireland (FAI), the governing body for soccer in the Republic of Ireland, is facing the very real risk of liquidation.

Businesses go bankrupt and get liquidated all the time, but national football associations don't. So how has it come to pass that the national football association of Ireland, a prosperous western European nation in which soccer is the most played sport, finds itself in this bizarre position?

Hail glorious St Patrick

It's difficult to know where to start in answering that question. As good a place as any is Court 14 of the "Four Courts" in Dublin on the night of Saturday, March 16, last year.

It was very unusual for the court to be in session at that time, late on the eve of the St Patrick's Day public holiday. John Delaney, then the CEO of the FAI, was seeking a high court injunction to prevent The Sunday Times newspaper publishing a report about a €100,000 ($110,400) payment he had made to the FAI. Why would an employee be making such a large payment to his employer?

The judge ruled against Delaney and The Sunday Times published the story the next day. It was the first in a remarkable series of reports about the dreadful state of the finances of the FAI, which up until then had been presented as being in good health.

As well as the revelations about the extent of the FAI's difficulties, The Sunday Times published several stories in the weeks and months that followed about personal expenses the FAI covered for Delaney.

It was revealed that on top of a €360,000 annual salary, Delaney also had his €3,000 monthly rent covered by the FAI for many years. He had racked up €40,000 spending on an FAI credit card in just six months on items such as executive drycleaning and duty-free shopping.

It was also revealed that Delaney had a remarkable "golden handcuffs" provision in his contract that would see him bank up to €2 million as a "loyalty" payment for remaining at the FAI until 2021. Practically all of this had been systematically hidden from the FAI's auditors, Deloitte, and indeed, from some members of the board of the FAI itself.

Both Delaney and the FAI scrambled desperately to limit the damage. However, as the scale of the deception and financial disaster became clearer, Delaney was finally forced to step down at the end of September.

From debt free to debt of €62 million

He departed with close to €500,000 in severance pay but the FAI's problems did not leave with him. Deloitte faced serious criticism for the fact that it had signed off for years on annual accounts that had in fact been wildly inaccurate.

Before The Sunday Times' first story, the FAI had presented a picture of robust financial health. Delaney had made a personal crusade of the goal to make the FAI debt-free by the year 2020. Instead, he left the FAI with debts of around €62 million.

Mark Tighe, The Sunday Times journalist whose exhaustive reporting ultimately brought down Delaney, says there is a very real risk that the FAI, a limited business, will not be able to stay in business.

"That is a real and live risk," he told DW. "They need an €18 million bailout. Their outgoings are far in excess of what they are bringing in."

At the moment, UEFA, the European governing body, is in discussions with the Irish government over who will ultimately foot the bill to keep Irish football in business.

"This deal hasn't been done yet between the government and UEFA," he said. "The risk has receded slightly in the last few weeks and at least these talks are happening. UEFA even met the Bank of Ireland (the FAI's main creditor) when they were in Dublin.

"But it needs to be resolved in the next few weeks. Ireland matches are coming up and four games in the European Championships are being hosted here."

Turning a surplus into a loss At the FAI annual general meeting in December, restated accounts were presented for 2016 and 2017. The 2016 figure was adjusted from a €2.3 million surplus to a €66,000 surplus, while the 2017 figure was adjusted from a €2.8 million profit to a €2.9 million loss. A loss of just under €9 million was rec

The FAI's disgraced former CEO John Delaney resigned in September