FIVE YEARS ago, former Irish international Gareth Farrelly spoke to The 42 about a crisis-hit FAI.
A few days earlier, John Delaney had stepped down as the organisation’s CEO and was appointed executive vice president for dealing with Uefa and Fifa.
The most memorable aspect of Ireland’s recent Euro 2020 qualifier against Georgia had been a tennis ball protest against the association that had briefly interrupted play.
So much has changed in the intervening five years, but equally, there are similarities to the situation now.
It is now 171 days since Stephen Kenny stepped down as Ireland manager and people are still no closer to identifying his successor.
In 2019, Ireland also had a de facto caretaker manager in place with the plan already announced for Kenny to succeed Mick McCarthy after the Euro qualifiers.
As is true now, there was uncertainty over the identity of the next CEO following the Delaney announcement.
While it was not publicly apparent as it is these days, the association were struggling with financial debt and the national team’s disappointing results and below-par performances had created widespread frustration among fans.
Some of the quotes from Farrelly five years ago could be copied and pasted now and people would hardly know the difference.
“You look around the world at institutions that have recently had issues,” he said at one point during the 2019 interview. “Any of those investigations, reports or recommendations have all been independently undertaken. That’s what people have to push for — ask serious questions. Challenge these people and make them responsible for what they’re doing.
“What tends to happen is when something happens, we forget what’s gone before. It’s important to set out so many things that have happened in the last few years that need to be brought back into people’s minds again.”
Last month, Jonathan Hill’s departure as CEO was confirmed. One of the reasons ostensibly was his appearance in front of the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in February in which he was forced to explain why he had accepted a payment of almost €12,000 in lieu of untaken holidays, thus exceeding the €270,000 maximum previously agreed for his salary.
On departing, Hill said he had overseen “a radical transformation process,” pointing to “a bold plan to address football’s wider infrastructure needs and a stable and growing financial platform for further and sustainable growth”.
He also highlighted the 2021 Equal Pay agreement and the successful bids to host Euro 2028 and the Uefa Europa League final among the achievements of his reign.
Yet Farrelly believes far too little has changed in the past five years.
“We can still fundamentally have the same conversation [as before], can’t we?” he tells The 42.
The former Aston Villa and Bolton player, who has become a sport and litigation lawyer since retiring, believes the recruitment process was flawed.
Then-FAI chairman Roy Barrett previously confirmed to The Irish Times his appointment came from a recommendation by the governor of the Bank of Ireland Patrick Kennedy.
“They called me and I met them. It didn’t take me long to say: ‘Yeah, I’ll do it’ but it was completely independent of anybody else. And actually, I did ring Patrick when I first met them to say: ‘Jaysus Patrick, what did I ever do to you, you’ve put me forward for this?!’”
Barrett’s appointment led to him negotiating a loan agreement with Bank of Ireland and Uefa.
A government rescue package of €30 million over four years was agreed to offset the FAI’s “manageable” debt of €63.5 million.
However, Farrelly believes a more thorough appointment process should have been undertaken.
“You can talk about a process or you can talk about change, or people use words like ‘eras’.
“But the point is — the new chairman that came in after John Delaney was given the role without applying.
“How can you not address that? How can that not be the starter for ten every time there’s a discussion around governance, the FAI, where we are now, or where we were? I don’t know how that’s possible.”
In May 2019, an FAI review and analysis of football in Ireland outlined the need for greater transparency.
“We have a clear plan to ensure stronger, more efficient governance, characterised by enhanced transparency and accountability and greater commercial awareness and innovation at all levels,” part of the report read.
Yet some critics have been frustrated by what they perceive as a continuing lack of transparency.
For example, the FAI have not revealed the precise financial details of the recent Castore kit agreement. Moreover, when Director of Football Marc Canham failed to deliver his promise to install a new Irish manager by “early April,” he chose not to explain the situation to the media. He preferred an in-house interview, which left more questions than answers.
Farrelly feels the last five years have been “wasted” and describes Hill’s recent departure as “inevitable”.
He is also heavily critical of the Stephen Kenny era and what he perceives as the undue support the manager received from most Irish footballing media.
“You had a situation with performance where there’s never been a manager backed like the manager was backed. There was an effort to normalise defeat.
“But the media had committed so fully to him that they couldn’t change their position, which adds to the level of mis-administration and competence within an association.
“The problem is when you don’t have a clear strategy, and when you don’t have quality people within an organisation, you’re waiting for an event to cling to it as a means of demonstrating competency and it’s a part of your plan. And ‘we’re making progress, aren’t we and look at us,’ and then that becomes the focus.
“But the point is, when you don’t have that, you’ve got a situation like we’re at now — protected, sheltered interviews, having fed the footballing public and media for months that the appointment was nearly done. And it was going to be announced in early April.”
Kenny’s supporters might argue that the poor results in his reign were partly due to a limited group at his disposal. Ex-Ireland international Liam Brady, for example, called it “the worst group of players that any manager has had in my lifetime”. However, Farrelly takes a different view.
“I don’t believe the current media opinion that this is a really poor squad in that we are where we are.
“If you look at Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland [by comparison], I think there’s potential in the group. I think there’s potential in the country. I’ve always thought that, but whether that is exploited, developed, or cultivated, will depend on the people involved at higher levels who will drive that strategy.”
Yet he believes issues surrounding the manager are a symptom of the problem rather than the root.
“There’s laziness and lethargy — we can keep doing the dance. Who’s the manager going to be? Here are my next 10 managers. Or here are the next 10 CEOs. But you’re never getting to the crux of the issue. So until you have proper accountability and scrutiny, that’s just a part of the problem.”
Of course, underlining the problem is the easy part in many ways. Coming up with a solution is a greater challenge.
Farrelly cites Spain’s recent decision to appoint Vicente del Bosque to head a new committee to supervise the country’s football federation as an example of good governance.
“Where’s the diversity of thought in Ireland on addressing this issue, the debt, the cost, the different facts that transpired during the Oireachtas Committee?
“Everything, everybody moves on. Because everybody wants it to be easy. Everybody wants an easy conversation. ‘Oh, who’s the next manager?’ Or: ‘Who’s the next CEO?’ You’re never getting to the root cause of the problems until you address your history.
“You look [the other day], the Kennedy Cup and the DDSL. You look at the SFAI. You look at all of these things that for years and years, have slowly driven the organisation further down — ego, self-interest. All of these things were never addressed.”
Shelbourne boss Damien Duff recently caused a stir when he described the League of Ireland as “bigger, better, more exciting and more important” than the national team.
When asked to elaborate on these comments, the former Chelsea star added: “When I say the league is the future it comes from the academies. Get the best manager in the world, Pep Guardiola or whoever, it still starts with academies. The manager who comes in will be long gone by the time academies start churning out the players.”
Farrelly agrees the academies are key but feels these discussions are another case of the perpetual sense of deja vu characterising Irish football and its problems.
“People have been speaking about academies and improving infrastructure for 25 years. And it was never done.
“So again, look at the difference between GAA, rugby and football facilities — it’s not a new discussion.”
But does the impact of Brexit prohibiting Irish players from travelling across the water until they turn 18 not make these issues more pressing than before?
“Yeah, but there was a period where we knew what would happen if Brexit came in. So there should have been a plan in place even before, but there wasn’t.
“There are schoolboy teams and League of Ireland teams that have been doing brilliant work for years and years, against all of these things we’re speaking about now.
“People that have fundraised, people that have put structures in place, and people that have built infrastructures and clubs, but then those clubs were sidelined in the interests of an underage Airtricity League.”
Ultimately, though, the success or failure of Irish football largely comes down to funding.
The grand scheme to improve the infrastructure was announced in 2022 via the FAI’s strategic plan, which requires an estimated €863 million investment.
But whether these ambitious plans can be met given the association’s current debt is doubtful.
“Yes, funding is a huge issue. But the real question needs to be: ‘Do we want a functioning football industry in Ireland?’
“The government bailed out the FAI already. The government has had to call the FAI back into The Dáil over the last few years.
“So you can understand why there’s a degree of scepticism around this. And, of course, there’s a conversation to be had, but who will sell that?
“I would rather see those involved day-to-day in Irish football speaking to TDs — people like the Irish clubs and Mark Scanlon. But again, that’s not straightforward because it’s incredibly political anyway.”
Farrelly believes the FAI has lost “talent” because of the chaos that invariably inflicts the organisation.
He cites former employees Paddy McCormack and Michael O’Connor, the Judicial Services Manager and Assistant Manager at the FA, as examples.
“You want to bring people with you, and you want to see people develop, and you want to see people constantly strive to be the best.
“You look at what rugby has done. You look at how they’ve been innovative. You look at the thought leaders, you look at the quality of decision-making, you look at how they speak.
“So you know, we’ve just gone through the Six Nations, the World Cup, but you look at the connection they developed. You listen to the management talk, you don’t hear from the executives.
“But you can’t not be impressed by that. So you’re sitting down and you’re going:
‘What makes them as good as they are?’
“Sometimes you need to be the person going in and saying: ‘This is what they’re doing. Would this be transferable to football?’”
Farrelly continues: “If you look at leadership, are you telling me we’re at an elite level?
“So if I mentioned Stuart Lancaster, Ronan O’Gara, Andy Farrell, in Gaelic, you’d mention Jim Gavin, Dessie Farrell, Pat Gilroy before him, Paul Caffrey, who started the revolution in Dublin GAA. If you mentioned all those people, who’s our footballing equivalent to that? People are doing great stuff. Bohs commercially have done incredibly well. Shamrock Rovers is a good example, but they’ve had a lot of funding. Shelbourne are building and developing, Duffer’s done incredibly well up until now.
“But I’m saying who are the global leaders in football, that you’re looking to get that level of performance analysis and credibility? Who are they?”
“So who’s identified that future talent, the potential people with the same reach? And who’s helping them get to that level?
“I’ll give you another name, [former footballer] Daragh Sheridan. Brilliant example, head of high performance at the IRFU. Football is in his blood, it’s his background. He moved into the Irish Institute of Sport. He worked closely with Gary Keegan and Billy Walsh. He then spent years working with elite coaching in New Zealand Olympic Sport, and now he’s back in the IRFU. Have a conversation with him. Listen to him speak for an hour. So we have these people.
“So the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.”
