UEFA’S RASH EULOGISING OF DELANEY
FOUR months after John Delaney’s resignation as CEO of the FAI, flowed a decidedly fulsome tribute from UEFA to their former Executive Committee member yesterday.
In contrast to the FAI’s clipped farewell of last September, there were bells and whistles attached to UEFA’s glowing salute, which suggested approval from Delaney as he hung up his blazer 15 months early.
In case anyone needed reminding from the European governing body, Delaney helped UEFA ‘to achieve many things’.
There was his role in the expansion of the European Championship finals to 24 teams — a claim the Scots could also make, in fairness, as the FAI and SFA jointly proposed the enlargement which UEFA approved in 2008.
The former SFA chief executive, David Taylor, so highly valued he became general secretary of UEFA in 2007, was as much a champion of the strategy as Delaney.
‘Several teams that may not otherwise have qualified proved that they have a contribution to make on the biggest stage,’ said UEFA, singling out the success of Wales and Iceland at Euro 2016.
The statement might have added the Republic of Ireland, who wouldn’t have been part of the finals in France but for the addition of eight extra teams for the first time.
Delaney was credited with ‘the move to centralise TV rights across national team competitions which has benefited all UEFA member associations.’
The centralised contracts ensures all UEFA nations get an equitable slice of the TV pie, irrespective of crowd-pullers in their qualifying group.
It means the chance of cashing in on a plum commercial draw against the likes of Germany, England, Italy, France or Spain has been lost.
Curiously, there was no mention of Delaney’s former ExCo responsibility as chair of the Youth and Amateur Football Committee in the gushing press release.
Delaney served this position for two years before being asked to keep away from the UEFA U17 Championship finals in Ireland last May while on gardening leave from the FAI.
Two months later, in July, he was replaced as chair of the committee by Zbigniew Boniek, the Poland football legend.
UEFA chose not to highlight Delaney’s work in this key sector of development for more than two years after his election in April 2016.
Following that success, where he polled spectacularly well, Delaney was given a guard of honour by staff on his triumphant return to Abbotstown.
It was two months before the Euro finals and when the Ireland squad decamped at the gates of the Palace of Versailles, Delaney was treated like royalty.
UEFA laid on swanky transport for the FAI delegation and I watched in wonder one morning as the FAI blazers were picked up in their own shiny limo to be whisked off to a function.
Delaney was in his pomp in those finals. He wore two crowns, one as the all-powerful FAI CEO and the other as a highly regarded, up-and-coming member of the UEFA inner sanctum.
It helped that Ireland did well under Martin O’Neill, winning a famous game, against Italy, and making friends through the bulging ranks of the Green Army travelling support.
The astonishing levels of that support led to ticket demands and no one was better equipped for bartering on that front than Delaney.
Such was his stellar reputation that summer, Delaney might have had designs on challenging his old chum, Aleksander Ceferin, for the role of UEFA president in due course.
If one guy from a small country can make it to the summit, why can’t another, he might have rationalised?
Now? Any designs on Euro rule he held are in tatters. Delaney is no longer involved in the FAI, where he ruled with an iron fist for 14 years, and has been formally cut adrift by UEFA.
There was, in all probability, a six-figure sum paid in compensation for his loss of earnings as a member of the ExCo.
That will help cushion the blow of a long, hard fall from grace for a man of immense ambition.
The send-off from UEFA was akin to that of a retiring middleranked bureaucrat in Nyon. ‘We wish him well in the future.’
In contrast, the FAI didn’t offer any such generous goodbyes.
Where now for the man formerly known as Teflon John?
He still has plenty of allies in Irish football, including a rump in the junior ranks who somehow feel he’s been wronged by merciless media hounds.
For an indication of the true Delaney legacy, any of his old supporters should sit in the same room as Roy Barrett, the FAI chairman, or Gary Owens, the new interim CEO, as they draft proposals agreeable to the State and UEFA, to save Irish football from the scrapheap.
Delaney, the man who would be king, has left the FAI with debts of almost €70m and put the livelihoods of the nine-to-five coal-face grafters on the line. Wish him well? Not everyone in football would be in agreement with that.
‘The FAI didn’t offer such a generous goodbye’