Fran Rooney, first FAI CEO who did it some service

Dubliner joined from the tech world but was forced out after turbulent 18 months

The sad passing of Fran Rooney on Monday transported his generational friends and foes back to a different time in Irish life, even if controversy around an FAI chief executive doesn’t seem to have gone out of date.

Rooney packed a lot into his 67 years. A trawl through the archives uncovered a Sunday Independent business section quick-fire interview from December 2003 that offered a whistle-stop version of the journey that had brought him to the position of FAI CEO earlier that year, the first person to hold that title. His predecessor Brendan Menton was general secretary. Rooney’s tenure would last for less than 18 months, but it was an incredibly significant time in the context of what happened next.

In that newspaper chat, he was asked for his idea of a dream Minister of Finance. “Pele, Santa Claus with a national stadium in his sack, or John Delaney,” he replied. “With any of these three, we would be sure of a national stadium very soon.”

Pivot

The native of Cabra, a Home Farm graduate who was around the fringes of the Shamrock Rovers set-up in the John Giles days and later managed the Irish women’s team, had started his working life as a post office clerk earning £18 (punts) per week. He continued his education to gain the qualifications that allowed him to climb the ladder and pivot towards the budding tech sector.

Rooney had worked as chief operating officer of Quay Financial Services, a company backed by Dermot Desmond, before a life-changing decision to embark on a project building IT security firm Baltimore Technologies in 1996. Their growth was stunning. In that aforementioned Q and A, Rooney said his proudest moment was the day in 1999 that Baltimore became the first Irish company to be listed on the Nasdaq exchange.

Under Rooney’s watch, the company soared to a market value of $13bn, with the workforce growing from six to 1,400. He was named Business Person of the Year for 2000 and rubbed shoulders with Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. Rooney’s salary was rumoured to be in the region of £3.7m. The bursting of the tech bubble prompted a sudden change of trajectory; a profits warning was issued in 2001 after a series of acquisitions raised eyebrows and Rooney moved on to pursue other projects. “Unbelievable on the way up, not great when it started to fall apart,” was the opinion of one ex-employee.

His football and business background appealed to an FAI mired in crisis in the aftermath of Saipan. In a recruitment process that was overseen by Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, future interim CEO Gary Owens was the frontrunner in line for the post until Rooney emerged up the rails and was unveiled in April 2003.

Media reports at the time spoke of how his ‘presumed wealth’ was a bonus. In other words, he didn’t need the money, but seemed capable of generating it. Visitors to ‘Nirvana’, his house in Castleknock, would have endorsed that sentiment – a lavish residence featuring a home cinema, jacuzzi and swimming pool. Rooney carried himself like a man who enjoyed the good life.

But he was entering a complex organisation, ravaged by in-fighting (what’s new) following on from the events of 2002. Within months, Rooney, who was welcomed as an outsider of sorts without baggage, had accumulated it. In September 2003, seven hours of meetings in Citywest were required to thrash out differences arising from five key officers taking issue with his proposed contract, a salary of €250,000 with bonus terms and conditions that had the potential to double it.

Two of the three members of the FAI interview panel – president Milo Corcoran and honorary secretary Kevin Fahy – were said to be regretting their call. Corcoran later said that Rooney lived on another planet. But the third member, honorary treasurer Delaney, remained in the new man’s corner and supported a dramatic elevation of the wage packet for the FAI’s leading deal-maker.

Their alliance did not last. Delaney was lionised in the media as Rooney’s reign swiftly unravelled, with the embattled CEO the front man in a period where the FAI top table was cut from 23 to 10 and government expressed concerns about the implementation of the infamous Genesis Report recommendations.

Critics of Rooney who had reservations about Delaney fell by the wayside along the way. Eircom League of Ireland chairman Brendan Dillon stepped away. “As long as Fran Rooney and John Delaney are involved in the FAI, I don’t see myself having any involvement,” he said.

Fahy later went out the exit door after a Council vote, with Corcoran turning against him and uttering the remarkable line: “You have to know when to stop digging and Kevin didn’t stop digging,” he said, with an issue around minutes in meetings presented as the catalyst for his removal.

In an era where alliances seemed to rotate on a consistent basis, Rooney gravitated towards Delaney. “He was very much taken by John and decided to hitch himself to that wagon,” as one senior figure on the scene puts it. “Within a month of Fran going in, they had taken over the whole (Genesis) process.”

One friend of Rooney says he was warned that he might be backing the wrong horse. “His misplaced trust in a few people cost him the job,” is their assessment. There are two strands to that story, though. Suspicion around how certain stories were spun into the public domain didn’t take away from the reality that Rooney was providing material that could be seized upon.

Whether it was an ill-timed joke about the Northern Ireland team at a function, or a high volume of departures from the Association and complaints around management style, there was enough there to put the boss in the spotlight. Like all good FAI debacles, it inevitably ended up on Liveline, an hour-long Rooney special in October 2004 that veered from topics such as the extent of his fondness for a pint to claims around unpaid ticket and restaurant bills.

“Fran Rooney doesn’t owe a cent to the FAI for tickets,” said Rooney, who was also forced to address a report that the bill for a meal in Patrick Guilbaud’s restaurant, which was effectively a thank you gift to departing board members after the cull, was not settled.

“As it turned out, I personally picked up the bill at the restaurant. And without disclosing the amount, I was fortunate enough to be in a position to do that,” said Rooney. “I didn’t pay for the meals there and then but it was out on my account, which is normal practice with regulars at the restaurant. I have known Patrick Guilbaud for many years and this really is not an issue.”

Whatever about the details, the optics were terrible and painted Rooney in a light that appeared to make his position untenable. A sub-committee was established to a investigate a nine-page dossier of complaints; the nominated members were vice-president David Blood, honorary secretary Michael Cody and board member Eddie Murray. The latter pair would remain in positions of influence until April 2019 when they voluntarily resigned a month after Delaney’s regime crumbled.

When Rooney hit the rocks, Delaney was cast as the solution, including on these pages. One Irish Independent piece claimed Rooney’s “reluctance to offer the new role of financial director, as recommended by Genesis, to Peter Buckley, the FAI’s long-serving financial accountant, has contributed to Delaney’s discomfort. It remains to be seen how much longer Delaney continues to prop up the under-fire CEO.”

It was Cody who handled the business of Rooney’s exit, with threatened cuts in state funding (sound familiar?) on account of Genesis failings casting a shadow over the organisation. Delaney emerged to take control of a strippeddown board that managed to ignore key requirements and only underwent minimal, enforced changes in the 15 years that followed.

Adjustments to term lengths facilitated Cody and Murray extending their stint. Delaney was hired on the kind of salary that he’d endorsed for Rooney when others had baulked at that figure. From every cloud …

Rooney pursued other business projects but embarked on another journey by training as a barrister. He’d later offer legal advice to members of the so-called football family who had issues with the regime presided over by his successor.

Hindsight has resulted in some individuals that had major problems with Rooney in his pomp adopting a more sympathetic approach to his errors. “He clearly had something about him,” says one. “He wasn’t seen as a bad person. He just made bad decisions.”

Pals speak of a generous individual who later in life offered assistance and support without seeking payment. “Once there was a mutual trust, there is nothing he wouldn’t do for you,” is the verdict of an ex-colleague who reckons that he never really established those kind of relationships within Merrion Square. In many respects, he was a man of his time, a symbol of Celtic Tiger largesse with an idiosyncratic approach that had an influence on the scale of both his rise and fall.

Few tears were shed when he left the building, with the view expressed that the Association was once again flirting with rock bottom.

If only they’d known that in their rollcall of CEOs, the first was about to be replaced by the worst.

“As long as Fran Rooney are John Delaney are involved in the FAI, I don’t see a role for myself” Brendan Dillon